Hi folks, I'm based in the U.K. and I'm looking for tall mic stands, without much succes. I need them for church organ recordings, and they need to be at least 20ft tall, preferably with heavy counterweights. Annoyingly a friend had some but sold them! he didn't realise I wanted them!

How about Manfrotto 269HDBU stands? 7.3m/24ft. No counterweights, but can't see why this would be an issue. Not that expensive, e.g. Manfrotto 269HDBU Super Giant Stand BK – Thomann UK

As I mentioned in another thread on organ recording, a friend of mine who only does organ recordings uses a Clark pneumatic mast (11.7m) with a 2m extension, which is a lot stronger (he uses a large array of five MKH8020s for surround and, at the same time, a separate stereo pair for analogue recording), higher, and easier to get up to height, but is, obviously, more expensive (though not crazily so): he paid £1400 + VAT for this in 2017.

Cheers,

Roland

Manfrotto Greatest Hits
First Organ Recording
More about Tall Stands
Mics for Pipe Organ (+ others Instruments)
Tall mic stands (a tale of broken links)
Going tall

In UK, Canford sell that
PANAMIC CATHEDRAL MICROPHONE STANDS - Canford
and that
AMBIENT BOOM POLES (FISHPOLES) - Carbon fibre, Jumbo - Canford

The Manfrotto looks fine, thanks. It's about as much as I want to pay.
It's in stock at Thomann.
Paying over £1,000 isn't on, if I was doing this professionally yes, but for the od recording it's just not worth it for me.
Thanks for the organ links...

All depends on which mics you want to put on the top of your high stand - mainly the weight, and how many. We use an Ambient fibre pole, with a home-made heavy round base at the bottom. It is stable enough to manage a Soundfield mic or a 4-way stereo array of Schoeps CMC's or RODE NT6 mics. Another lower cost solution if your mic is very light is to use a telescopic carbon-fibre fishing rod.

The new RODE Micro Boompole Pro is an adaptable solution as well. We bought two sets last week from HHB. If you remove the foam handgrips what you get in the box is a set of three carbon fibre rods each about 70cms long, which screw into each other using standard mic threads. The packs cost £62 inc VAT from Amazon UK if you buy from them, and mean you can create a straight-up vertical stand by screwing extensions on to a regular mic or lighting stand. We bought some DIY sandbags from Amazon to weight the base down.

Thanks for those hints Tony...do you think the Rode Micro Boompole could also be used in conjunction with a regular telescopic Rode Boompole, to give a combination (and taller) stand....the only problem then becomes how to attach it to a heavy base ?

Maybe it's not possible, in which case what you've done is the best alternative (attaching the Micro Boompole to a regular mic stand)

I figure the extension rod would work fine with a standard boompole. The base is going to be the issue, though. Garden centres sell heavy metal bases which people use to anchor parasols/umbrellas which might work. We have two 27kg round bases which a friend made up for us with a short sawn-off section of hollow scaffold pole welded on. I have to be extra cautious because we use these rigs when recording public concerts as an alternative to hanging mics. If the system were unstable we could do quite a lot of damage.

Yes it's hard to beat a really hefty centre of gravity, and your 27kg bases would give that without doubt....I'll bet you use a sack-truck trolley to move them with too !

Those Ambient poles look beautifully made and finished... they're obviously rugged and easy to maintain too (the threaded sections I mean, for cleaning etc): Boom Poles - Ambient

Their stand/pole accessories are useful too....for instance I recognise this pivot swivel coupling from your 4 mic array bar: MikeLink - Ambient

The video is visually attractive, but not too informative: Manufacturing the Quickpole on Vimeo

100% correct. 27kg is heavy enough to notice. We use a small flatbed trolley with a wheel on each corner, with fold-down handle for £35 from a local tool store.

A final question about the Ambient pole....is there an internal coiled cable stored inside the telescoping sections, or do you run all cabling down the outside instead ?

I tape cables along the outside. Soundfield has its own headcable. 4-way arrays have too much cabling to go internal.
Meanwhile I have taken some photos of the boompole extensions in action.

i'm mostly using a manfrotto windup 087NWB if i need to go high: max. height is 3.70m and one can easily add a boom arm, aluminium tube, mic bar etc. max. load is rated 30kg, so way more than enough for any mic setup i can think of :-)

it's certainly NOT a lightweight solution, but much more solid than most any standard tripod i came across - no counterweight needed! almost any rental company (for live sr gear/lights i know of) have a couple of these available, so i mostly rent them locally.

(of course i'm using it more often for speakers than for mics - see pics: in this case, i was using it to 'shoot' above an orchestra or at least to keep the horn section from being exposed to toxic levels from the playback of some electronic tracks).


for my main mic system i'm mostly using a heavier version of the standard k&m mic stand though (k&m 21021 maybe?) - imo the heavier stands have an impact on the sound of the mics as they seem to interfere less...

A footprint like that of your great stand would not work in most concert venues where there is limited space either on-stand by the conductor, nor on the floor because it would usually obstruct gangways. Fine for recording sessions but not for concerts for main mics.

Thanks Tony....those both use the Rode microboom poles ? Looks ideal for lightweight pencil mics (you wouldn't want a ribbon mic up there !) and for low visual impact spot miking the lower boom arm is ideal....thanks for the photos, it helps to visualize how they'd look in action

Being carbon fibre and thin diameter, you can get away with it as a voice or (seated) instrument player spot mic, without a need for counterweighting (though a sandbag hung over the tripod foot might be wise) ?

no doubt about that!* - my suggestion was more along the line what the op seems to be looking for or at least what i assume he's looking for since he did not mention concerts explicitly and sems to be fine with sturdier constructions ("heavy counterweights")...

funny enough, people seem to care much less when it comes to lights (for which these stands get used a lot) or when video is involved. and how often do we get pushed out of the way just to keep sightlines clear or a beamer is exactly in the position where we'd like to put our main mics... (well, maybe this happens a lot less to you, i hope/assume!)

*although i guess i could find a few pics with a couple of high profile conductors/orchestras/soloists and exactly this stand in front of them - NOT pretty!

Welcome back, Tony F!! We've missed you.

A couple of observations about increasing mic stand height... but please be sure to observe the warning at the end.

- I use an off-the-shelf telescoping boom pole (the kind movie sound recordists use) with the rubber end plug removed as an effective mic stand height extender. Adding a single wrap of gaff tape over the top 10" or so of the stand makes it the perfect diameter to slip inside the boom pole. The pole is kept from sliding down by a few wraps of gaff tape over the joint; though this "solution" is really primitive, if the tape fails (which it hasn't yet) the boom pole would just slide down to the mic stand height adjustment mechanism, no harm done. The benefit of using tape rather than drilling a hole and using a pin is that a hole would weaken the mic stand's tubing.

- 3/4 electrical conduit is also handy stuff. It is very rigid, comes in ten foot lengths and costs next to nothing (under $3 for ten feet). I epoxied a 3/8" bolt in the upper end to receive either a mic bar or an adapter for a single mic clip. Conduit works in the same fashion as the boom pole though it requires two wraps of gaff tape on the mic stand, rather than one, to make everything fit perfectly. (Conduit only becomes necessary when I deploy more mic stands than I have boom poles.) Unfortunately it is galvanized which makes it harder to paint successfully; primer is required.

As has been discussed in previous posts, any height extender depends upon a very solid and secure mic stand for the base. I use a good K&M stand with a larger-than-normal footprint that still fits between the pews in a church. I also 'reinforce' the stand with sandbags; sand-filled arm weights from the sporting goods store work perfectly and are highly adaptable. Taping the stand to the floor with gaff tape makes the venue management more relaxed but I really doubt the tape adds any meaningful security.

The video people like these extenders because they're very slim, don't have large joints with even larger knobs and generally become unnoticeable pretty quickly.

I haven't had any luck extending light stands because the top section (minus whatever threads it has) is too large to accommodate either conduit or a boom pole.

Note that because of moment arms, leverage and pesky physics in general, any height increases will amplify the effective weight of the microphone(s), perhaps dramatically. This becomes a real issue if someone bumps the stand. (See above r.e. sandbags.) Mic choice matters here.

Also note that an extender also depends on the stand being perfectly plumb (vertical) or else the extender will lean to one side. Again due to leverage, etc, leaning can cause a problem- plus, it looks (and is) sloppy. During setup I use a nearby column, doorway or other likely-to-be-plumb reference and shim the mic stand as needed- though this being GearSlutz, perhaps I should use a laser level and impress everyone by shooting laser lines all over the place.

Personally I might be hesitant to use a stand extender in conjunction with an angle adjustment mechanism like the one in a mic stand boom assembly because I would worry that the clutch could slip with unpleasant consequences. Due to leverage, etc. I definitely wouldn't use any sort of stand extender on a poor quality stand or on any stand that sits on an unstable or uneven surface.

Please note that I offer these observations for general interest only. A mic stand extender has the very real potential to cause sudden structural failure of a mic stand with possibly catastrophic results and I do not endorse, advise, suggest, encourage or otherwise recommend the use of extenders like those I have described above. Proceed at your own risk.

Cathedral Mic stand
sold in the UK
PANAMIC-CATHEDRAL-MICROPHONE-STANDS

Latch Lake makes some good stands. Worth a look at em.

Thanks for all the advice, one thing, I use four core screened cable (RS) with a 5 pin socket/plug on the ends, that way it's only one thin cable to run on a stereo pair, I have an adaptor cable at the mic end to go from 5 pin to two 3pin XLR's.
I picked up this idea from the late great Mike Skeet, he was an endless source of brilliant ideas.
Read that post about organ recording, I forgot about the DPA 4006, more things to ad to my long shopping list!

Have a look here: EPS antennas

Here you see one of 15m in use:

I'm sure it's well made from quality materials (the maintenance kit listed on the website gives a nod to this), looks are non-intrusive and is easy to dismantle and transport, but the cost vs height ratio is very poor (it's only 4 m...which in the context of organ recordings doesn't really qualify as "tall", does it ?)

In post #12 above Tony Faulkner gives a 3.75m carbon fibre alternative for 75 quid....that's 600 less than the Panamic.

Substitute a K+M round base for the tripod 26200 One-hand microphone stand >>Elegance<< ....there is a problem with the K+M base not being heavy enough however, the Panamic's 7.8 kg (or Tony F's 27kg's !) would be better

Wiki tells: "Carbon fiber can have higher cost than other materials which has been one of the limiting factors of adoption. In a comparison between steel and carbon fiber materials for automotive materials, carbon fiber cost may be 10-12x more expensive. However, this cost premium has gone down over the past decade from estimates of 35x more expensive than steel in the early 2000s"

I suspect Panamic's pricing dates from that era, and needs revision in view of advances and efficiencies in that manufacture industry. I wonder how many of these they sell per year nowadays ?

That seems like very good value - at the prices in the link you give, it makes sense to have a stand dedicated to cathedral pipe organs. Its a bit shiny. Too bad they don't offer black anodized option...

Seems to use something like a pipe clamp to fasten each telescoping section when extended?

I'd be curious to know how much weight these are rated to support...

Yes, it looks like the sort of hose clamp you'll see on car radiator rubber pipes, and tightened with that detachable black hex handgrip shown on the page. My guess is that if it's intended for outdoor antenna use, the rated weight support would be well in excess of any mic you'll put on it !

Funny to see other people working on the same ideas…

I bought an Andoer MK-3000 /9.8ft Lightweight Carbon Fiber Mic Microphone Boom Holder, but I am still struggling with how to use this. My idea was to use two Selen Magic Balls with 15 mm rods from the photography world. These rods use M12 thread and until now I haven’t found an ideal solution to link M12 with 3/8 inch (but I am working on it).

For the bottom of the stand the weight of these rods plus being able to use longer lengths is only a benefit, but as a mic bar it can become pretty heavy. Does anyone know if there are special lightweight (thin aluminium or carbon) mic bars, where one can easily attach 2 to 5 small condensers? The Manfrotto bar and the other one that I have are pretty heavy in comparison to that extremely lightweight carbon boompole.

https://www.gearslutz.com/board/remo...t=selfie+stick

https://www.gearslutz.com/board/remo...l#post11132536

Thanks Studer, I now remember your brilliant idea. Are these selfie-sticks strong enough to mount a heavier condenser with shockmount?

The 15mm rod tubes + clamps (used for video gear) are an affordable, light and modular approach.

Yes, and I would like to create some more complex setups, including 3 to 5 nics and a Jecklin disc. That can all be accomplished with these rods. They are not very heavy, but a construction of carbon would be much lighter. I have never seen a mic bar made of carbon.