Mic stands are one of the parts of owning a studio that is not cool or fun. You need them, but they are often abused and constantly need repair. Cheap stands never last, and expensive stands are, well, expensive – and who wants to spend money on something that just gets abused? It's more exciting to buy a new compressor, right? However, good mic stands not only make your session set up go faster, but they protect your mics. You won’t end up with unexpected negative sonic surprises when your boom arm droops and the snare mic lands on the drum halfway through a take.
I’ve used several cheap stands over the years plus some nicer, pricier stands from companies like Atlas and Triad-Orbit [Tape Op #104, 130, 131, and 135]. These high end stands make session set up much faster and easier, especially with bigger, heavier ribbon and tube condenser mics. Now, Base 4 Stands is making a new entry to the mic stand market and completely re-engineering and re-imagining the mic stand.
To draw a bicycle analogy, most mic stands are refinements of a classic design, much like the lugged chromoly bike frames we all know and love and that riders and racers both used for decades – and still use. The Base 4, however, is similar to when companies like Cannondale and Klein introduced aircraft aluminum frames to the industry – it set off the technological revolution that you see racers riding in the current Tour de France-type circuit races.
Like early aluminum bike frames, Base 4 Stands use a super lightweight and strong aluminum alloy instead of steel. A completely unique system of clamps and grooved arms not only makes height and mic adjustments easy, but as the name suggests, the stands are totally modular, almost like a Lego set for mounting microphones. One stand can have multiple arms and mic mounts on it, making stereo mic techniques and applications such as drum mic’ing much easier.
You can order custom stand configurations from Base 4 Stands, but there are several basic setups available off the shelf, from the Shorty ($189) to the Tall-Tree ($429). For this review, I was sent the Solo stand ($229), Base 4’s mid-sized stand, plus an extra boom arm and mic mount so I could actually add up to three mics on the one stand and configure them in different arrays. Besides the groove and clamp technology I mentioned, two other nice stand features are the super strong lever-based arm locks and the vibration-damping rubber feet. I really like how the stand is easy to adjust and how it stays put on the floor where it is placed.
I will say that with any new technology there is a learning curve, even for mic stands! At first, I had a hard time mounting my AEA 44C (at eight pounds, the heaviest mic I own) to the Base 4 stand. Like a lot of heavier mics, it has an attached cable, so trying to rotate it onto the stand is very difficult. I asked Base 4’s Todd Horton about this, and he suggested this easy tip: Simply unclamp the boom arm from the stand – easy to do with the knurled clamping knob – then screw the arm into the mic mount and re-attach the arm to the stand. Easy! This goes ditto for attaching more than one mic to a Base 4 stand. Further adjustments to the mic mount can then be made with Base 4’s Jam Nuts: an upgraded, more secure, and easier-to-use locking ring for the threaded mic mount. A bit larger and easier to adjust with the mic in place, the Jam Nuts are also available separately in four-packs ($16). These stands are not cheap, but the Solo stand is about half the price (and less than half the weight) of a similar stand from competing steel mic stand companies.
If all this improved technology wasn’t enough to pique your interest, can I just say these stands are so much lighter and easier to use than the heavy steel stands we all know and love, but are also strong enough to hold heavy ribbon and tube mics. In the end, it’s much easier to move these stands around the studio, and your back and shoulders will thank you. Okay, I’m off to the bike, er, mic races!