Wow, this is a great thread. And what a great question. I can't believe that no one has mentioned the newer mic stands on the market, very important features.
The first is the Adaptive Oscillator Arm (tm) technology. How many times have you been recording polka and noticed that the signal gets quieter and louder with the music....and then noticed that the band has started dancing and jumping up and down again even though you JUST told them 30 SECONDS ago to stand still, for the millionth time?!! Every day, I'm sure. AOA technology identifies the beat of the music using complicated beat sensors. This allows the mic stand to actually move and follow the musician even when jumping and dancing around. The band can jump around all they want which makes them quite happy. And when the band is happier, the songs sound better, and that's what it's all about, isn't it?
The second feature is Horizontal From Alcohol Muting System (tm). There comes a time in every polka session, and I mean EVERY polka session, that the musicians are just plain toasted and the takes progress into just drunken yelling, hysterical laughing, and rolling around on the floor. HFAMS identifies both the direction of sound and has a voice recognition system that predicts blood alcohol within roughly +/- 0.1 %. When a musician becomes too drunk to play, the mic stand simply mutes the drunk musician so that the engineer can try to piece together one last take or two from the almost-drunk musicians.
Sure, the stand costs $659 street, but I think that having 6 or 8 of them around is worth it, don't you? Nothing was mentioned about budget, this is the best you can buy.
