Pearl PTM50BHR Ultra Grip Tambourine

The jingles are wetter and more mellow than stainless steel jingles, the sound is reminiscent of sleigh bells to me. Very sensitive due to the lightweight jingles. These make the tambourine good for studio work with sticks, but I was disappointed with its live playing by hand as I thought the sound would be louder and more cutting.

Nonetheless I use this tambourine for live playing by hand now as it has fantastic build quality. The grip is comfortable, doesn't cause blisters with extended playing (something that multiple other tambourines have caused me over the years), it?s very lightweight, durable enough to be thrown into the back of a van every night without even a scratch, and the rubber coating on one side of the frame gives some cushioning to your striking hand (good for long songs with heavy playing!). Bright red is perhaps not the most formal of colours but at least it makes the tambourine easy to find.

The mounting that comes with the tambourine is a bit unstable when playing heavily, but fine with standard groove work. The jingle control discs are somewhat of a gimmick, they tend to slip and open up as you play so you have to keep readjusting them, I don?t use the control discs when I'm playing live. For some studio applications however it?s very useful to have a tambourine with variable sustain without having to use a noise gate. The result sounds good to me, much better than trying to use duct tape to mute the thing anyway!

So all in all it?s pricey for a tambourine, but if you are plagued by blisters and hand ache when playing like me then might be worth shelling out for.