Who here knows anything about squads, a snare/quad hybrid? Has anybody marched them?
Our old instructor mentioned them and the new guy supposedly had a line play them.
Could the snare mounted successfully replicate and replace a normal marching snare? Could this be a fitting solution for a line not big enough to have tenors? What are your thoughts?

Whats a "Squad"? How does it look? and nope never heard of a "Squad"..lol sorry...

I think I've seen this or something like it anyways. We went up against a band called Beaver Creek at one of our contests, and they didn't have any snares. They had six guys playing these snare/tenors combinations instead. To me, it looked just like a normal set of quads/quints/sexes, except the four drum was replaced with a snare. However, I didn't get a good look at their drums. It's a very interesting especially for a line that can't afford to have separate tenor/snare lines, but it doesn't appeal too much to me otherwise.

I've seen some 4-A school march out on the field with some. It was wierd.

In 2002, and I think a few other years, the Cavaliers had small snare units inside drum four of each of their tenors. In no way does it replace a snare line, it just adds some extra "color" to the overall sound.

Also, I believe the top two basses had snare units (almost like brushes) on one side... someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

Having not seen a "squad," I don't really know what to think. Yet, I must say that nothing can truly replace a snare line. I mean, at the least a line should have snares and basses (in my opinion).

i have pictures of them. a couple of them actually.

second one.

Wierd..... I have never heard or seen anything like that. Learn something new everyday.

Awsome... I want some... Are they custom made? Gonna set you back a few bucks.

yeah see you guys called me a loser well check that out.

Those things would take some getting used to. I imagine the balance must really mess with you.

A Group 1 School in TOB has a Squad line in I believe 2001. Triton High came out with no snares but had a Quint like setup with a Full Marching Snare as the Spock Drum... sounded pretty sweet... they placed in top three.

Those things are bad! (In a good way) I looked on the Pearl website and couldn't find any so I guess they are custom made. Or, maybe the people that played them put them together themselves?

arent they called Snenors? Ive seen some here in colorado

They dont really have an offical name. They are just gonna be called whatever people decided to call them.

all of our snares had a spock drum on them last year (like phantom and glassmen have done recently). we called them "snocks"

we just used zip ties to bind the tension rods together. cheap and ghetto, but it worked, and you couldn't tell from 5 feet away.

b

That's awesome. I think that would be a ton of fun to build a set, and they would definately rock for indoor. And BP very cool, do you have any pictures of that?

here's a bad picture... can't really see much because of the darkness and the drum covers, but you sort of get the idea...

http://www.dlband.org/pics/2003/10_24_03/percussion_warmup5.jpg

b

That's pretty slick. What were you playing that you needed that effect? And how did it work out?

we needed a lot of different sounds from the battery percussion for that show.

the rep. that year was:
Cajun Folk Songs (3rd mvmt) -- Ticheli
Canzona -- Menin
Finale from "Firebird Suite" -- Stravinsky

The Ticheli piece had a lot of constant ostinato / counterpoint type writing, the Menin was more sporadic, with a very heavy feel from the drums, while the Stravinsky was the standard "big majestic" ending.

The snares had the spock drums, 12" splash cymbals (set on the drum head and struck with sticks, bundle sticks, and dreadlocks), two sets of sticks (piccolo tip and regular), dreadlocks, and bundles.

Basses had gock blocks, puffys, hard felts, dreadlocks, jingle sticks, and maracas.

Quads had a 12" china boy (set on drum 4 + hit with sticks), sticks, mallets, puffys, timp-maraca mallets, and vibe mallets (used the rattan end).

The "floater" line (usually cymbals) had 2 people on 16" double headed toms with hard felt bass mallets, and 1 person on a set of "double tenors" -- 12" and 13" drums from a set of quads, played with hard felt tenor mallets. For the closer, they went back to regular hand cymbals.


So, that show involved a LOT of color, and the spocks weren't used for one particular effect or section -- used them to double/replace accents and rimshots, used them to play some figures strictly on the gocks, and used a lot of interplay between the snare and the gock. There was one section I particularly liked that used RH on the spock + edge of the main head with a piccolo stick, while left hand played cross stick + center of the main head with a regular stick.


Yay for color with a small drumline! ;-)

This year, the snares have an 8" roto tom "Spoxe" mounted vertically in front of the drum to their right (they hit the edge), and a 10" roto tom "Spoxe" with an 8" splash mounted vertically in front of the drum to their left (they hit the edge on that, too). Basses have jam blocks, ice bells, and ribbon crashers.

Fun fun fun.
http://www.dlband.org/pics/2004/youngstown/snares.jpg
http://www.dlband.org/pics/2004/youngstown/basses.jpg
http://www.dlband.org/pics/2004/youngstown/lollapatooba.jpg

b

The links aren't working.

working fine for me...

http://www.drumlines.org/upload/113646-TENORSNARES.GIF

This was exactly what Beaver Creek had. In fact, that is Beaver Creek. Thanks for posting that picture. Now I can finally get a good look at what they had.

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Our guy described them as 12" snares mounted instead of gocks and played that way with, I suppose, Hardimon tenor sticks. There were no seperate snares there. Just squads and bass. .
You've now proven to me that he wasn't, in fact, full of *pit*.
I never would've imagined a snare instead of tenor #4. Thanks there.

Hey guys, I am a senior at Beavercreek High School, in Beavercreek Ohio.
I march the "quads" as we call them for short, when in reality they are your "squads" with a extra "gock or spock" drum in the middle.
I saw the post, and I was very impressed that our school was reconized. Our director, a percussionist, has always chosen to march a line without snares and use the squads instead. Our shows are always music by a famous rock band, (this year its the beatles) so he thought a sound more like a drum set snare would be more appropriate.
We are sponsored by Dynasty Drums and are the only drum line to be marching our squads.
www.beavercreekband.org
that is a link to our site which has some pictures of them i believe, if not, i will post some sometime.
If you have any questions, feel free to PM me or write about it.

great minds think alike.
I'm a Junior at Beavercreek and I march bass drum (much to my dismay) and was just about to reply with some pictures when my fellow Creekian did. but anyway...

The Day They Came In
In Action...
Last Year's Line

yeah, ditto.

i am also a senior at beavercreek, and have marched our "quads" (or quints, whatever) for 3 years.

but basically, my fellow companions have already said all that needs to be said above.

I spy HOTTIES! Where's that picture thread when you need it?

Those look like fun, but after 4 years of marching normal tenors, I think I'd have a hard time playing that.

That's pretty insane.
I saw a guy who had a mini-snare mounted onto his sexes once, but nothing like those.
Beavercreek people-you have the 1 and 2 drums switched too? I hope none of you try to adjust into college, it'd be a hard switch. That's a pretty novel idea, though. I'd march them.

that would be the view of the bottom.

Heh....that one guy is wearing his harness on the outside...nice set of tenors though...although I could never get used to the sound.

yeah, we have the switched so its more like a drum set setup because all of our shows are rock shows (fleetwood mac, sting, beatles) so our director is really into the whole "drum set" thing. and i really highly doubt any of us will march in college. we're into it, but not that into it.

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Heh....that one guy is wearing his harness on the outside...

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yeah, that was after our homecoming parade and we were letting the middle school kids try on the drums.

yeah. not marching in college.

Those are weird. But in an awesome kind of way.

Ok, but if you were to get a set, and you wanted to change them back to regular tenors, would you be able to do it? I don't know why you'd do that after spending extra money on them...But it's just out of curiousity.

Hey there. I'm the "chick" from the picture- just to let you know. So far I've played sideline latin percussion, 1st bass, and quints, snoms, tenors, squads... whatever you want to call em. :-)

That's cool. I played top bass, snare and now tenors in my junior year.

I wanna play your quints (or better yet, see your sheet music for them). They look like a lot of fun to play.

[qoute]
I wanna play your quints (or better yet, see your sheet music for them). They look like a lot of fun to play.

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i would post some stuff, but its all heavily copy-righted.. we will think of something.

Yea, my schools drumline uses these I'd just like to say. I don't really see a purpose for them cause they make an entirely different sound than a marching drum snare. But I guess If your school plays any concert songs they could let them play those snares so that it wouldnt sound off and soumd good. The guy who plays em deserves to be on the Cavaliers so bad, I don't know why he doesnt go out for them. Guess his money is funny or something, cause I thought I was good at first, this guy sh*ts on me... anyways he owns it himself so Im sure they arent pricy that much. Plus just to blow all you guys out, out there. for those of you who be saying you cant just pick up a drum and start play... well this guy who plays the "squads" for us picked up his drum for the first time in his life and started playing. Never played before in his life and within 2 weeks was the section leader, and I gotta say our old section wasnt all that bad. He plays so fast and figured out how to use his fingers and stuff on his own. Anyways just puting my 2 cents in.

I know Star used a 10 inch snare as a "spock" in their tenor line in 88 or 89. Then again I could be way off on the years but I know for a fact they used a 10 inch spock well over a decade ago.

Yeah, it was '88 & '89. I posted a pic of them in the Tenor Equipment section, on the thread discussing this same topic (quint w/ snare). Star even had scoops underneath the spock.

The new Virtual Drumline 2 from Tapspace has "Snenors" sounds, so I guess they are more popular than we think.

The "snenors" that the girl has is just a regular Dynasty set with a wedge snare in place of the 13" or 14" drum I think, look that way to anyone else?

I might be wrong but I think the Bushwackers had something like that this year. From what I could see from the stands it looked like they had a Dynasty like top snare system on their 4 drums. At first I heard a snare sound when the snares weren't playing and I saw the tenors were playing a lick on drum 4. After the lick I saw them twisting a handle similar to Dynasty's top snare throw off.

Having a retrofit kit installed isn't anything new. Southwind used top snare units on their bottom toms for a few years.

This thread is speaking of tenor sets that take that idea another step further, such as shown in the pictures.

I've seen a line that had a regular tenors line and then the snare players had these tenors that had snares on every drum on there. They only had them for one year. I guess they were just really into that quad format or something. I think its kind of stupid. Snares, be your snares. Tenors, be tenors. It's not peanut butter and jelly.

What about that stuff that's PB AND Jelly mixed into one bottle? Ahhhh . . .

wow those are definatly some thing new to me... where do they march those?
sam

Dude those are pods we marched them in our show this year they are a spock a snare and a 2 drum
their not squads

Future DCI....squads....hah....I'm not interested in playin those

Those look pretty messed up! I wonder what they sound like? i mean do they sound like a regular snare when you hit them, or do they blend in with the other drums?