OnStage Stands. Musicians Friend's cheap stands.

  • Thread starter Thread starter tarnationsauce2
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I have a box of 25 of those mic stands that my boss thought he was getting a good deal on. He regrets it now. At least 5 of them are virtually unusable, and 15 of them all have problems with various junction points. They have been used on about 20 shows. On the other hand, I have 50 AKG and K&M stands that have been on hundreds of shows and there are probably 5 of them that aren't fully functional. Several of them are even bent (bands like GWAR, Motorhead, Nashville Pussy, And They Will Know us by the Trail of the Dead etc...), but still actually work. The other thing is that most damage to a good stand is reparable. You may still want to buy the cheapies, but in the long run you may save time, money, and stress just getting the right stuff from the get go.

As far as putting an sm57 on a $100 stand? Why not? sm57's cost at least $75 brand new. If a $16 stand falls over and busts a $75 sm57, then I am out $91, and 1 sm 57 and 1 stand. The $100 stand doesn't look like such a bad option then:D
 
Well, putting a 10 dollar mic stand anywhere near GWAR is probably a real bad idea :D

As for 57s, a four foot fall isn't going to hurt one. You could probably fire one out of a cannon and it'd be fine. Would I put a $100 condensor on one of those stands? No. But a 57 or other equally robust dynamic, sure.
 
Well, here's a banger if it makes you feel better,...I put up two MXL603's each on their own stand awhile back. Set them up as over heads on the drum set, the next morning, one of them was resting on the snare head and the other was just a few inches from the floor tom.

Ok...so I let the cat out...I've got a bunch of them too. Use them, abuse them and throw them away. When you spend 2 or 3 hundred bucks on disposable stands, buy better. I've only got a couple which are keepers.

I guess you could call me "middle of the road".
 
My advice would be to spend the extra money and get something better. You can get about 2.5 Tama stands for a hundred bucks, and they'll actually be somewhat stable---much more so than the extremely lightweight On Stage stands shown.

The On Stage Stands appear to be manufactured by the same company that manufacturers Nady's stands and a few others, though there are small variations in materials used. They are extremely light stands that have trouble holding pencil condensers at full extension over my drum kit without sagging. An SM57 would be pushing the limits.

My Tama stands... one of them is holding actual pieces of my drum kit... a 10" tom and two cymbals.

You get what you pay for. :D
 
Well, the six pack I ordered arrived yestarday, so now I have 14 of them in my studio and they work fine. I've been using them for a few years now with NO problems.
You DO get what you pay for and there's nothing wrong with these stands. I use them for everything from Rodent-5's over the drums to SP C-1's with a pop filter with no problems. Geez- it's just a mic stand... :rolleyes:
 
I am happy top hear that yours are working well. As for a 57 falling, you never know when it will fall right and get damaged. It could be a 2 foot fall that does it in, especially over a cement or hard stage. Not only that, but an sm57 is also the cheapest of mics I have in my mic pack. In the long run we have decided that we will save money, time, frustration, and embarrasment by getting the right stuff. I guess its those kind of things that seperate professionals from hobbyists. If you know that you will only be using them for very light duty stuff in your own controlled environment, than maybe it would be wise at the low cost to pick up one or two of them and give them a try.
 
One thing I noticed is that these seem a lot cheaper than the On-Stage stands that came in that "mic stand with free mic and cable deal" they had going on. I'm gonna use them today and tomorrow and see how they do.
 
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