There have been several threads on RAP and elsewhere about looking to other industries for good boom stands. Rather than start that up all over again here, I thought I'd just post a link to my final choice.
http://www.bogenphoto.com/product/se...x=0&submit.y=0
(it's a long url, sorry if it requires some cutting & pasting) Be sure to click thru to the good photos

This boom smokes anything this side of a new Starbird or an old RCA mega boom. I got mine for $149 and I think that's about the typical "street" price. This boom requires a "Junior" stand which is one of the many varieties of Grip/Lighting support stands. I chose to buy a new Avenger Junior Roller stand
http://www.bogenphoto.com/product/se...x=0&submit.y=0

That stand sells for around $225 brand new; when you add an adapter to fit mic threads, I came in at right around $400. But you can find the Junior stands used for $75-$100 and that will get your total down close to the big Atlas stand price. But I think you will be much happier with this type of gear. It's built extremely well, it has a huge reach, it breaks down into a very small, easily portable size, its just better than any mic stand that doesn't cost at least 3x its price.

OK, I promise never to mention this again.....

steve

Cool. What makes it better then an Atlas? I could probably get a pair of Atlas booms for about $400-500 and they seem pretty decent. Of course I've also worked in studios where they have trashed ones but then most of the gear is also trashed.

I've got an Atlas (SKB-36?) and It's allways treated me well, then again I treat itwell. I think I paid $165 for it 4 or 5 years ago. When I finaly get around to grabbing another large boom... that'll be the one.

Well, I've got one of the big Atlas booms, and it won't tighten up on the boom itself - and never has. And the next size smaller stands (maybe the 25) that I use for drum overheads have two piece adjustable booms, and tyhe smaller piece has bent a little (which makes it tougher to work with than I'd like).

So I'm looking for some alternatives, and Bogen's look quite nice. Thanks for the link!

I guess it all comes down to whar you are used to, and I've spent enough time in studios filled with Starbird, old RCA and other serious stands to know that the Atlas is pretty skanky. The hardware looks and feels like it was cast out of scrap metal and nothing fits right. Just compare the Atlast to a Starbird; the Avenger gear is actually nicer than the Starbird hardware, although I admit that the Bird is a very impressive stand. What really got me concerned about all of this is my recent purchase of a BLUE Bottle mic. There was NO way I was gonna trust it on the end of an extended Atlas stand. I've seen little Senn. 421 mics tip an Atlas boom at full extension. I've also seen the main center riser drop down for no reason with a U47 along for the ride.
If you have experience only with Atlas (and Atlas is much better than the other Guitar Center type stands), go to the oldest studio in your neighborhood and check out their old RCA or Starbird booms. I don't think that anyone would have a hard time seeing the difference.

Damn, I promised I'd let this drop.....

Steve

Well, pardon me for not ejaculating prematurely at the mere mention of these "serious stands".

Hasn't happened to me, but then again I wouldn't walk away from a setup unless I was damn sure the thing was sturdy...

...see above... only with a stronger emphasis on "damn sure"...
I'm sure you're right and I'm only a miserable peasant and haven't had the opportunities in life to experience the finer things. Thanks very much for the link and all kidding aside (and I am only kidding!) it does indeed look like a nice piece of hardware.

Now that wouldn't have been any fun 'tall

Respectfully,

Tim L

***Well, pardon me for not ejaculating prematurely at the mere mention of these "serious stands".

nd I'm only a miserable peasant and haven't had the opportunities in life to experience the finer things
**********

Did I somehow give people the idea that I think I'm cool because my mic stands are better than your mic stands?!? This is a forum where we are supposed to discuss gear (among other things) and I thought I'd pass along a recent discovery. I don't get why anyone would read anything more into the thread than that?????

I'm not the only one who has complained about Atlas stand quality, particularly when compared to stands from other industries. But at the same time, I can see 4 Atlas stands from where I'm sitting, and I'm in my apartment, not studio. When I need to stick a 57 in front of a Fender Princeton, an Atlas works fine. But there was no way I was gonna hang a huge Bottle mic on the end of a boom that I don't have total faith in. An "every day" stand works fine in "every day" situations, but some times you need a really high quality tool.

who woulda thought mic stands were controversial?

steve

surely not i. but i have managed to lock atlas stands with no problems at all. but damn, for a grand...i could get a machinist to build me any kind of stand i wanted. stands arent ****ing rocket science.... but more like 6th grade physics.

and stands on rollers suck ass... dont want em dont use em. my stands stay put.

I would. It's just like anything else. I have a whole bunch of standard K&M booms in the studio which work just fine. But, I don't have anything as heavy as the Bottle. And if I did, I'd probably get an Atlas. But I'm a cheap bastard when it comes to that kind of stuff. Granted, the Starbird looks great but it's $1000. I don't think I could justify that kind of money for a stand.

Well, Yes... it came across to me that you, your "Bottle", and your new stand are just way to lofty for any of those Atlas peoplewho are too ****ing stupid to know any better... maybe it's just me.

I'm glad you found a stand you're comfortable with but for $400(?)... I'll stick with my "blue collar" $165 Atlas.

Atlas stands are good on paper, not in the real world. They do not have any quality control. The amount of slop in their castings and in their boom coupler should be illegal.

And Julian, I doubt that you could get a stand custom made for $1000. Actually you could get one made, but it probably wouldn't be better than existing stands.

And sixth grade physics? Actually it really isn't very complicated, but it's really hard to get it right. I should know, I've been working on a mike stand/system for over 30 months now. Many designs. Many prototypes. All of the prototypes have kicked ass, and we're still improving the designs.

So far these things are stable in all directions, strong, good looking, and capable of holding a seven pound RCA 44BX out on the boom. And look Julian, no wheels!

These stands will cost more than Atlas, and less than Starbird. It remains to be seen whether or not people are willing to pay for a really well built and engineered mike stand, that is truly sturdy and stable (at just under 200 pounds, I can do chin-ups on the boom). If you try that on an Atlas, you will notice two things, the vertical clutch caves in at about thirty pounds, and the boom will bend, or break.

Sorry about the extended commercial, but I think that a true gearslut would want to know these things. We're hoping to roll out some product by the end of the year.

wurly in Minnesota, home of Midas consoles!

it was me, not jules... but you post REALLY interests me, care to send me a pic of a prototype or two? i dug every bit you said describing them.

i'd pay probably $500 for a stand of that nature, but i too am a cheapskate . $1k for the starbird is just ********.... or any stand.

of course im NOT doing classical work so height needs just arent that excessive, i just need extension out over something [drums] without having to get so close to the drums with the base.

Wurly, since you are someone who is spending a lot of time studying mic stands, I'm just curious on your opinion of the grip/lighting stands as portable mic stands?

You can put together an Atlas-killer for about $250-$300 and surpass the Starbird for about double that. The biggest problem with the grip stands is that the customer has to put some effort into the process: select a stand from one company, a boom from another, add a "drop down pin" and finally a mic thread adapter. To do it successfully, it would probably take anyone at least a few hours just to learn what you need to know to assemble the right collection of parts. But I still think its worth the effort.

For anyone in LA, just drop in to the Mole Richardson Studio Depot on LaBrea. It's like Disneyland for stand junkies.

I have a ceiling mounted stand 'base' in my tiny drum room for overheads...

Carry on!

I'm certainly well aware that the Atlas stuff isn't the best on the planet but I guess I've been pretty lucky. The one I have and the ones I've used have worked fine for the most part. For it's price point I feel it's pretty decent and get's the job I need it to do, done.


Wow, that's cool! That'll come in handy for those occasions where an execution is the only answer! Nothing like hanging the random band member or two to restore the vibe in a session.


It does sound like a very cool product. Perhaps you could post an image. I'm sure all here would be interested.

Regards,

Tim L

In the late 1950s and early 1960s a child stares in rapt awe at precision molds for casting parts in metal and plastic; molds for the original 3M 7"plastic tape reels and the little Scotch tape dispensers, molds for Tonka Toy trucks. This was the work of the finest moldmakers in Minnesota, sitting on the counter of my father's commercial heat treating service. My dad was a former mold shop foreman, who used to specify the size of his piece of pie in degrees....but he also played piano, sang and did some recording.

Now forty some years later I make a living manufacturing specialty latches out of metal, making guitar slides, and eventually, microphone stands. Oh yeah, there's also the all-consuming gearslut thing.

Mr. Alphajerk, I apologize for not giving you credit for your un-Jules like (and typically Alphajerk like) outspoken comment about 6th grade physics and a $1000 custom stand. I saw the mistake while reviewing the thread today.

I wanted to bring a prototype stand to the tape op convention, but my highly paid team of outside design consultants persuaded me that I would lose any hope of patent protection if I did so. When it is legally safe to post and e-mail pix I will do so.

And speaking of ceiling mount stands, I may have something to add to Julian's setup-I made ceiling mount stands four years ago that fit in my lighting tracks, complete with little (latin) loopy things for cables that also fit in the lighting tracks.

As for photography and lighting stands adapted for microphones, I think most common grades of aluminum are too soft for such use. Those stands are designed to be lightweight, not strong. In the early 1980's I had a sideline business that rebuilt such stands for classical recordists and MPR. It got tiring seeing the same stands over and over. The threaded knuckles at the joints would always strip until we replaced them with giant knuckles that had three times the thread depth.

And tripod bases, don't get me started...they can only support loads in three very narrow horizontal directions, push the boom 5 degrees and the whole thing falls over. Of course, nobody has ever walked into a boom in your studio right?

So between the strip-o-matic aluminum clamps, lousy tripod bases and the hassle of adapting threads, I think photography and lighting stands are a major PITA, and the only reason people are driven to such alternate kinds of stands is because the state of the art in microphone stands is so pitifully low.

I'm trying to make stands worthy of the finest and heaviest microphones ever made, that will be useful in rooms small to large, that will take minimal space in storage, and provide maximum utility, strength, rigidty, convenience, and safety in use.

And yes, they are truly weapons grade mic stands.

wurly in Minnesota,
corporate home of Klark Teknic

funny how i cant tell if you liked my 6th grade physics comment [but it is kinda that level... maybe 7th grade] but we certainly share the same beliefs on the legitimacy of a tripod stand... and the other components of it as well. looking foward to your design.

you know what i would like to see on a stand? you know how people usually use knobs to tighten... well thats a load of shit theory. i like the idea of bike hardware... especially the seat post. the turn and lever latch system, whatever thats called. you have to be an absolute beast to move that system when its locked in. i had a friend actually bend the nose of his seat without the seat giving way.

As for photography and lighting stands adapted for microphones, I think most common grades of aluminum are too soft for such use. Those stands are designed to be lightweight, not strong.
**************************************************

There are quite a range of lighting stands available. The stand that I referred to in my original post, an Avenger A510, is made of nothing but Steel. The stand / boom combo is rated to support 88lbs directly over the center post and 26lbs with the stand at full reach and the weight at the end of the 10ft boom!!! Thats strong enough to support a dozen of the heavier tube mics at full reach.

I have seen the "hobbyist" grade all aluminum stands and agree that they aren't strong enough for a 200lb man to perform pullups off the boom. But the gear I originally linked to might just hold him.

Good luck with your venture. Any chance you'll be at the LA AES show?

Hollywood Steve: I was unaware of steel stands for lighting and photography. Do they have tripod bases? It sounds like your stand will not suffer the indignity of constant thread failure.

Alphajerk: As for sixth and seventh grade physics, it really is that simple...it's the damned execution that's so darn hard. Much turning of parts. Milling, drilling, tapping, threading, welding, sandblasting, plating, polishing etc. Half of the problem is teaching people skilled in metalwork and casting what the actual needs of us gearsluts are.

Finding telescoping tubes is not easy. They're not at the hardware store, and your local steel supplier won't have them either. And they're not just pipes, they're DOM (drawn over mandrel) to make the inside of the tube smooth and uniform. There is only a few places in the USA that sell the stuff.

Suffice it to say that the amount of physics in this project could be handled by a 12 or 13 year old, but I doubt that they would have the perseverence, desire and life experience to pull it off.

If I had known how tough it is I wouldn't have started this project, but now I'm soooo close.

And Alphajerk, please stop speculating about about different methods of clamping and tightening. Your common sense and logic only makes people realize how mechanically bankrupt most stands really are.

wurly

still tilting at windmills

thats just my "no tools" solution. i wouldnt even mind having a ratchet handy for tightening if a lock system if that sort wouldnt be viable.... although i cant imagine it not being as it will support my 200 pound ass pounding down the mountain.

as for DOM tubing... i wouldnt mind a fixed length with interchangable tubes, say a 3', 5', 8' and i could probably even get away with a fixed height on the post as well. so the main mechanism would be the piece that allows one to angle the boom. also a choice of counterweights for the boom as well.

so all that and a NICE base, something large and HEAVY. **** tripods, those are the most annoying base concept for mic stands.

I took a serious look at your Bogen stuff on the web after you mentioned that it's steel, not aluminum (that's aluminium to you Julian).

On paper it looks like very serious stuff. I'll probably buy one to check the quality and fittings, a little market research you know. It's really easy to be better than Atlas, how good is that sucker anyways? At 62+ pounds it has real potential.

wurly by the pond

AlphaJ, you will love my base design. It's heavy. It looks like art from the original Star Trek series. And it ain't no tripod.

When you see it you will be filled with joy, roll me a fatty, and say, "why didn't I think of that?".

The view from your deck rocks, but you already knew that.....

wurly
(with poison ivy)

Most of the classic mike stands and booms were adapted from lighting gear. Atlas is kind of unique in being made only for mikes. I have two Atlas BS-36ws that I bought well-used in 1970 that are still fine. (It was a scream when they changed the model number from BS-36 to SB 36 in the '70s.)

I think the old ones were probably a lot better made than the newer ones with the exception of the Atlas baby boom which has always been a piece of s_!t.

I'll direct this to Bob, but I'd be interested to hear from anyone who was around "back then." If you look through the old catalogs, top quality stands used to be a common item. In addition to the fabled Starbird, RCA used to offer several amazing stands as did Neumann and even Atlas used to offer the BS100 which looked heavy duty enough to hold an old tube TV camera on its boom. Now any company that offers mic stands just sells re-badged Atlas or K&M stands. When did somebody decide that $29.95 guitar store mic stands were all anyone needed? Or as the Manley website hints, all of those old stands are still out there and the big studios haven't had to buy any stands for 40 years?

Just wondering what happened?

Most of the RCAs were something else rebadged. The exception is a real heavy round-based floor stand that was designed for the 77D. While I've seen them frequently in older radio and television stations, they were not common in the studios I worked in.

Up until the mid '70s Atlas had 99% of the market. Then AKG started selling their stands here. Most of the junk stands are cheap knock-offs of the AKGs.

My all-time favorite stand is the three-section AKG with the two-section AKG boom. From there I move up to an Atlas BS-36 with an Atlas floor stand substituted for the front half of the boom. One or the other can handle absolutely anything.

Yes - the true gear slut in me is very excited about these burly looking stands. Say - what was the name of the mic threading adapter? (prolly just "mic thread adapter) but I want to avoid any wierdness.

I've got a big Atlas I got cheap - it was only worth the cheap price IMHO. I also have a Quik-Lok A-50 which is half OK considering it is also cheap. But it is plastic SHIT! I have been avoiding buying any big booms since then because Starbirds cost a lot. These look like a worthy alternative. Thanks.

There's plenty of photos on the posted websites you lazy asses!yuktyy

Having finally received the backordered boom arm, I'm having second thoughts on whether anyone really needs a boom this "heavy duty" for audio use. My original concern was based on the need to throw a BLUE Bottle mic up in the air without worrrying about it returning to earth unexpectedly.

But this boom arm, the "Avenger Mini Boom" would have been plenty:

http://www.manfrotto.com/products/me...ontatore=primo

The boom that I purchased, the "Avenger Junior Boom" is definitely overkill:

http://www.manfrotto.com/products/me...ontatore=primo


You can't really tell from the photos, but the Junior boom has tubing two inches in diameter and the whole thing is on a scale that just looks ridiculous when supporting a microphone, even the big Bottle mic. I still think that these grip stands and hardware are far superior to any microphone stands and I'll never go back to Atlas products again. But grip hardware is categoried into several families; two of the most common are "Baby" and "Junior". Baby stands and hardware are MORE than adequate for any possible audio use; the Junior stands and hardware are just needlessly massive for audio use. The stuff is damn impressive however, and I'm sure that I will still be using this stand 30 years from now. But my next stand will be from the "Baby" category.

For anyone in the LA area, the Mole Richardson Studio Depot store on LaBrea has dozens of these various stands set up and several aisles of hardware attachments. There is nothing you could imagine in the way of stand configurations that couldn't be assembled from this selection of parts and accessories. A real gear-junkie playground.

stee

Hollywood Steve, you are not the only Gearslut with the Avenger stand and boom. As threatened in an earlier post, I bought the stand to check out the competition. Unfortunately, it just arrived, so I too have the oversized "Junior" boom arm, and not the smaller and more practical sized "mini" version that you reccommended recently.

My initial observations:

This sucker is tooo big for most studio use. (Larger than Starbird)

It is built much better than Atlas products.

The "spikes" sticking straight out from the casters look like an ankle injury waiting to happen.

Other than that, the casters are very nice. I may cut the "spikes" off.

The boom clutch is terrible! It's a round deal not unlike what Keith Monks used to use and fairly similar to what K&M (AKG) currently uses. Given the longer lengths and higher weights involved, a truly major design flaw. The boom clutch can barely hold the boom horizontal without a microphone.

The fittings have a real industrial look, massively strong and kind of clunky.

There is "play" in the boom probably caused by the vertical tube that it is attached to flopping around in the larger tube that it telescopes into.

Overall strength A-
Appearance C-
Vertical Reach A+
Boom Clutch D-
Build Quality B
Stability B+
Overall Value C+

My grade of B+ for stability is very high for a tripod and is a tribute to the overall heavy weight of the stand.

I would rate Atlas as F for failure as the only thing they have over Hollywood Steve's stand is that they look better. I regard the big stands from Quik Lok and Ultimate Support as toys, lightweight portable, sloppy, and inferior.

Hollywood Steve is to be congratulated for thinking outside "the box" and finding a better way to support his Blue Bottle mic.

I still hope to come up with a mic stand solution that beats the Avenger lighting stands in 5 of the 6 categories listed above. I am willing to concede on vertical reach.

Wurly
Jr. Gearslut First Class

The boom clutch is terrible! It's a round deal not unlike what Keith Monks used to use and fairly similar to what K&M (AKG) currently uses. Given the longer lengths and higher weights involved, a truly major design flaw. The boom clutch can barely hold the boom horizontal without a microphone.
*********************************************

Don't take this the wrong way, but are you using the counterweight? When you are dealing with 10ft booms and heavy steel fittings, there is NO way the clutch can be expected to counteract the resulting forces by itself. When the (massive) counterweight is properly positioned, the clutch should only be working against a few ounces or so. I've seen plenty of $5k and $10k booms during my years at Universal (camera and lighting) and even the most expensive of them relied on their counterweights for 98% of the resisting force. When you get up into the 50lb counterweight and above league, a clutch would be turned to metal filings if the counterweight ever just disappeared. Its not like the little $25 guitar store booms where the overall load is so small that the clutch can carry it on its own. In the boom stand big leagues, the clutch is just an adjustment tool to lock in an equilibrium between the counterweight and the load at the opposite end.

Other than that, I agree with Wurly and wish him the best with his proposed product. Can't wait to see it.

steve

Actually I was using the counterweight. Hollywood Steve's explanation of the logic of counterweights and boom clutches in the lighting industry does make some sense given the weights and lengths involved in lighting.

What faked me out is the amount of effort they went to to come up with such a wimpy boom clutch.

This clutch consists of a 7/8" slice of an almost 4" diameter steel bar(!), a composition friction pad, a .200" thick steel plate, and an almost 4" wide "T" handle for loosening/tightening the nearly 1/2"bolt, plus a custom turned cone-shaped heavy washer with another washer. This is serious amounts of steel being used in a mechanically inefficient way. It's not like they didn't try, they just used a silly design.

The design that we are working on uses less steel and locks much more positively and quickly. We want no slop and no flop, and a boom that won't sag.

Many thanks to Hollywood Steve for sharing his personal knowlege of tools from another industry that can have applications in our little audio playground.

Wurly in the rain