Vocal mic stand ideas?

Goreliscious

Senior Member
Has anyone got any tips or tricks for quick and easy drummer vocal mic stand? I'm struggling to find a good spot for a boom stand and seeing as the venues my band plays generally have tiny stages, I really don't want the added stress of having to find a spot for a mic stand too. I want to avoid a headset mic for aesthetic and cost reason at the minute.

The best idea I've had so far is to clamp a boom arm from a mic stand onto my hi-hat stand and fine tune the position of the mic with a gooseneck. Any thoughts?
 
Over the years I've tried alot of ways: overhead boom stands, headmics....lately I just have a straight stand with a heavy base and employ a 18" gooseneck. It's stationed just next to my hi-hat and I bend the gooseneck to where I can sing into the mic. When I don't need it, I can bang it out of the way. If I'm singing alot of leads, I position my drums slightly at an angle so when I turn my head to the mic I'm basically facing forward at the audience. It works for me so far - it'll work better when I get an Elvis mic instead of the usual SM58.
 
I have a 50s style mic (Shure SH-55) hanging from a gooseneck stand with the boom over my head. Works very well. The stand can be positioned directly behind my throne, or a little off to the side, so finding a spot for it hasn't been a problem so far (and I've played my fair of tiny stages and risers as well). Alternatively, you can combine the gooseneck and mic setup that I use with a mic stand that is clamped to your throne, like this: http://store.drumbum.com/skuA-202.html

clamp-it-mic-stand.jpg


My setup in action:
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Eskil_05.jpg

(please ignore the drummer face :)
 
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Cheers. I think I'm leaning towards my idea at the minute though. Only other idea I had was to nick the mic clip from a Shure PG56 I've got and screw a gooseneck to it and bend it round...but I don't think I'll be able to find a position that won't get in the way.
 
It depends on your drumming style I guess. A boom that came over from my hihat stand and in front of my mouth would definitely get in the way of my arms, but you may have a completely different playing style than me.
 
I use a standard boom stand, placed behind and to my left (I play righthanded orthodox). I use the boom about 2/3 to 3/4 extended and the stand itself fairly high, so the boom is coming down to meet me from above. Being behind me and off to the left, there is nothing really for me to get fouled up in. I've been playing like this for 10 years- no big difficulties this far. I'll see if I can find a pic...
Stevie17.jpg
 
What he said down there, been using that set up for 50 years if there was a better one I'd a found it by now!!!



Tell em you don't sing, thats a good one!!! Doc
 
This is tryin to reinvent the wheel!!! Theres a reason the options are few, because thats IT!!! Just get a light weigh tripod, figure out how to get a leg basicly pointing your way (I go under the seat) and drop a boom in. When I'm not singin I raise it up out of the mix (to a degree) and when I need it I reach up and yank it down. I've tried them all and it some how goes back to the traditional set up. Thank goodness for traditions. Doc
 
I've settled for the method of fixing a clamp similar to this: http://www.wembleydrumcentre.com/Ca...-Fixed-To-Angle-Adjustable-Mega-Clamp-DWSMMG4 to my hi hat stand and using the boom arm from a mic stand with a goose neck on the end for fine tuning.

Other ways I also found are - fixing the clamp to the shaft of my drum throne and use the same boom arm and goose neck. Or I found in Maplins a circular piece of metal with 3 holes in it for screws and in the middle was the thread where you could screw a goose neck onto. I didn't bother with this method but you could easily screw that to the underside of your throne, buy 2-3 goose necks, screw them together, screw them to the bottom of your throne and hey presto.

All the 3 ways avoid messing around with mic stand legs and are very quick to setup.
 
I've settled for the method of fixing a clamp similar to this: http://www.wembleydrumcentre.com/Ca...-Fixed-To-Angle-Adjustable-Mega-Clamp-DWSMMG4 to my hi hat stand and using the boom arm from a mic stand with a goose neck on the end for fine tuning.

Other ways I also found are - fixing the clamp to the shaft of my drum throne and use the same boom arm and goose neck. Or I found in Maplins a circular piece of metal with 3 holes in it for screws and in the middle was the thread where you could screw a goose neck onto. I didn't bother with this method but you could easily screw that to the underside of your throne, buy 2-3 goose necks, screw them together, screw them to the bottom of your throne and hey presto.

All the 3 ways avoid messing around with mic stand legs and are very quick to setup.

And possibly much less stable and certainly not as quick to set up as an ordinary boom mic stand. Still each to his own I guess, but the more joints andf clamps there are, the more things there are to go wrong.
 
If I'm not using a headset microphone on the drummer, a quick and dirty approach is to use a heavy weight stand with about a 10# barbell weight situated over the bottom tube. This arrangement adds greatly to the stability of the overhanging microphone and is easily rotated out of the way when it's not needed.

I don't have any photographs of the vocal stand/boom combination, but I do the same thing with weights to stabilize stands with outreached boom attachments or heavier microphones as you can see on the bases of some of these stands.

BTW, one of the sturdiest stands that I like to use are the Atlas MS20 stands.

DSC_0222-1.jpg


DSC_0211-1.jpg


Dennis
 
Ok here's 3 pictures, one of the rig setup, one packed down and one of the clamp.

As you can see from the packed up picture I don't take off the clamp/boom arm/gooseneck and only undo one nut on the clamp to fold up the boom arm, then bend the gooseneck over. Once I've setup my hi-hats as usual it takes me a further 8 seconds to setup the mic stand...yes, I timed myself.

I only undo/tighten up one nut on the clamp and I know if it's back in the right position each time because I stuck some white tape either side of the axis, when the lines I drew on the white tape meet up it's back in the right spot. I put white tape on the boom arm either side of where it goes in the clamp should I ever want to remove it I'll know where it goes back.

Basically this method means every time I set up the mic it's in exactly the same position, just like a memory lock really. I don't have to have an argument with mic stand legs not fitting in a small area and it's very light. I'm not claiming to have re-invented the wheel and I'm not trying to sell you the idea, it is what it is, if you like the way you do it, that's fine, if you wanna give this way a go, it's piss easy.
 

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“Miczilla is Dave’s vocal microphone. I’m in charge of it, swinging it in and out as he needs it. I constructed it from DW cymbal stands, and a boom arm with a mic clip. Dave had a big grin on his face when he explained that I had to build something that could potentially crack him in the mouth during a show… But, hey, it adds to all the fun!”


this mic stand always made me laugh, his tech Gersh has a lever and sat behind him controlling the boom arm

http://www.musicradar.com/news/drums/dave-grohls-drum-setup-revealed-them-crooked-vultures-239299
 
Just to say that our first gig with me doing some vocals was last night and I used my DIY rig pictured above.

I have no shame in admitting I was extremely nervous about doing vocals, (let alone the nerves I get about drumming!), but as I explained before I'd already marked the clamp so I knew when the mic was in the perfect position, (like a memory lock), which greatly help ease the stress. That's particuarly important to me as I have a couple health conditions which don't react well to stress.

The engineer's first reaction was "what the f*** is that?" in reference to the gooseneck, (my gooseneck has already been dubbed "the shower hose" by the guitarist), but he ended up saying that the drummer in his band does backing vocals and he'll get him to make the same rig.

If anyone else is tempted to make the same rig, I suggest you buy a black gooseneck. I've already spent £10 on my silver one so I'm not going to spend any more on it, but if I knew black ones existed from the start I would have bought a black one...just to avoid the tedious school boy jokes. The jokes didn't carry on after we finished the our set though...that's when the "that was awesome man" kicked in :-D
 
Hey, congrats as it seems to work!

You know what - be glad you bought the chrome gooseneck - it made the situation harder and you came out of it as a winner ;-) Made you stronger in the end, haha.
 
Im very surprised the vocal mic did not pick up the vibrations from hitting the high hats and stepping on the pedal. I never had any luck with any mic stand/mount attached to anything that was struck. I have even had bad results with tom mics being clamped to the stand if there is also a cymbal on that stand. I have had so many problems that I now mount all my drum mics on their own stands so there is no chance of the vibrations to bleed thru. As for the vocal mic, after screwing with many different set ups over the years with the overhead one that you can push to one side or the other being about the best but still a major pain I opted for a quality headset mic with a roll off switch clipped to my waist so I am not relying on the sound man to turn me on or off. I sing a lot of lead vocals and have being using this set up for the best part of 10 years now and find it much easier with better quality vocals because the mic is always the optimal spot no mater where your playing on the kit and it also makes drumming much more comfortable/natural as you dont have your head stuck in one spot/position while singing.
 
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I know this is an old thread but I thought I would add to it rather than starting a new one. I recently found this thread while I was looking to see what folks are doing for mic stands since I have been having issues with my cheap one.

I had been using one very similar to this cheaper pro-line. It was ok for about a year but now the boom arm angle keeps dropping during performance.

http://www.guitarcenter.com/ProLine/MS220-Tripod-Boom-Microphone-Stand.gc

So yesterday I went to GC and looked around a bit and one of the veteran guys there I trust pointed me to this one. Love the telescoping boom and heavier construction.

http://www.google.com/shopping/prod...V177QBQ&lsft=gclid:CKCR97616sgCFYQ8aQodCl8O6Q



I'll be using it for the first time tomorrow night. But I set it up last night with my vocal mic and it did not droop at all.

And currently it is on sale for only $10 more than the pro-line!
 
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