Mic stand for bedroom studio

[grimtraveller]

if you can set things up for recording and leave it all there, the equipment will suffer less, you'll almost certainly do a lot more recording.

I'm the proverbial double minded man here because I've been in both situations and am equally at home in both.
Before my wife had kids, we had a room in our flat that was my music room. I remember getting permission from the landlady to dump the new bed she'd installed in there {actually, she told us to dump it; I merely asked if she could take it back. It ended up in a skip !} and I had the drums, piano, Fender Rhodes and Hammond, amps, stereo, speakers and basically everything musical set up in there. My wife rarely went in there and the mic stands were all set up and their position rarely changed drastically although they were never the same. I used to get together with my drumming mate on Mondays and it was so handy being already set up. When not in use, I just covered them with bedsheets. Once our first child was born, it became his room and the studio and I had to take everything down each time. Which has been the situation in the place we're currently in and have been for the last 16 years. Although I use every nook and cranny at some point, the kids' room is the main 'studio' and setting up the drums each time usually would take me 20~25 minutes.
But I don't mind. I also found this:

which TBH, I can't see as any real impediment to recording or being creative. If anything, I find that the time I take to do those things, allows me to think about what I'm going to do next

I suppose it would depend on what I'm setting up and why but I'd often get ideas while doing so. If I had a choice, even though I'm most definitely a "put it all away and turn everything off" type of person, I'd actually leave most things set up in a permanent place, primed for action. I'd never leave the computer or DAW or console or tape recorder or whatever switched on, but I'd for sure have everything in place. But it wouldn't actually make me any more or less likely to record or not record.

For home use, if you have to pack up and stow your things and then reassemble to do recording, then get something better. The twisting and tightening parts are the weak "links" in construction, as well as a bit thinner tubing, though that is unlikely to fail at home. And, if you are careful, maybe the cheap ones will hold up

Again, my experience has encompassed both ends of the spectrum. Some cheap stuff eventually shows its inherent limitations, screws no longer catching tight and just spinning in the thread, bits breaking or getting bent etc. I have an Arbiter Flat-Lites drum kit. Its selling point is that it can fit in 2 gig bags and for home recording, I love it. Ok sound etc. But some of its fittings have left a lot to be desired. On the other hand, some of my cheaper stuff has lasted me for years. My Ozark electro-acoustic guitar has been with me since 1990. The neck actually broke in 1996 and the guy I took it to to repair said it was a lost cause and didn't want to take my money from me. I said, look, just do what you can so he shrugged his shoulders and said "well, it's your money...." I played out with it extensively for the next 13 years and use it extensively now, 23 years on. It's never sounded good plugged in, but acoustically has always done the job and just sounds like an acoustic guitar to me ! Cheap it may have been {it cost me £100. Actually, it was bought for me} but I wouldn't let Jimmy page near it.

A straight stand is useful in tighter spaces

I was going to swear blind that a tripod with boom is king in every circumstance till I remembered that my bass drum mic is always on a weighted round base and that because of the tight space in the kids' room when the drums are set up, a round base and a straight pole type would be very useful although the latter isn't a problem as the boom can be converted easily. I have 4 mic stands {5 if you include the small one that I use for the bass drum} and they were cheap and I've had them for well over a decade. Some of them I've had since the 90s.

 

[tmix]

I agree with boulder

I have a larger diameter K&M round base stand that's quite a bit more stable than the more common stands. It would be easy to make it even more stable by putting a weight, like one of those shot filled ankle weights people use for exercise. Or you can put a barbell weight on it to make it super stable. That along with a short boom might be a good option for a tight space.

I am with Boulder,
I have like a bazzillion mic stands in the studio and the ones i use the most are the Atlas or K&M stands with a telescoping boom and a 10 pound barbell weight on the shaft sitting on top of the base (weight from Walmart) and I can hang basically any mic at any extension and be safe so for the price of a round base stand and a 5-9 buck weight you have an incredibly stable, high quality mic stand you can use forever.

 

[miroslav]

... and a 10 pound barbell weight on the shaft sitting on top of the base...

I've done that too, though I went with 5 lb weights...and the hole in the weight was just the right size to fit over the shaft.

I find that with a long boom arm, and a heavy tube mic...I need to put a counterweight at the back of the boom, though I still shore up at the tripod base too.
I've got some heavier sand-filled bags that I put on the legs for those situations, but I also picked up several On Stage counter weights that will fit any boom arm, you just screw them down. They have them in 5 & 10 lbs...I only have one 10 and the rest are 5, which is more than adequate on the boom arm.