06/27/2020
Project Mic Boom Stand: Trying to solve all of the common problems everyone has when using a boom stand. Everywhere you go to buy them and you basically get the same Chinese crappy stand that last three months before it starts stripping out when you do the booms. And we upgraded and spent some money to update All of our stands to Atlas straight stands which have been made since at least the 50s. I used to have a bunch of old ones and I should never of sold them. But they had a real clunky boom mechanism on them, as they adjusted the going in and out as well as the angle of the boom off the straight part of the stand with just one knob and when you loosen the assembly it felt like the whole thing was going to fall apart. It is funny that today that those vintage boom stands are empty going for big money. But Atlas still makes straight stands and with the boom (I have had these before, just a couple and I still have them and they still work great) but I bought all brand new ones. And they’re made in Germany and they have a reinforced amount of threads for them The Screw that tightens the boom. For some reason everyone over tightens them. And they don’t need to be over tightened at all, you just need to put just enough to hold the microphone in the same place and with these the microphone will stay in place and not spin at the end of the boom. Another common problem with the Chinese stands. We try to have the best equipment in every position and I feel we are so close. After the virus and losing so much money, but last month with everyone starting to come back and my regular bands who come 2 times a month or just onpce or those who come every once in a while, we filled up all our open slots this Friday night I filled up a lot of open slots for today (Saturday) andl you feel like practicing today I still have some great slots open. And we do sanitize the whole buildingu with a spray that is very similar if not the same as you see people with the pumps and a little sprays a fogging in the room up and spraying it over everything a fine mist and it dissipates and disappears over 10 minutes and leaves everything sterile and I wake up at 3 AM every day and go out and do that and then in each room and is soon as you walk in the door we have alcohol-based hand cleaner but we also have soap and paper towels all the way down the back of the hallway which is the best and the most economical for us and the alcohol and each room we have alcohol-based hand cleaner and we have Lysol, lemon scented and you can spray it straight into the microphone had just a couple squirts will do it. And if you want to spray the Marshall, Ampeg or Mesa Boogie knobs go right ahead and adjust and know that you’re killing 99.9% of the germs. And the PA head too. Hey Sharon we are supplying everything you need to kill the virus on anything you touch and we do require you to wear a blue mask when you come into the building or go into the common areas but when you’re in the rehearsal room I’m not going to force you to wear the mask if you’re playing with friends that you’re hanging out with watching a movie during the week. My best friend I see three times a week and when we rehearse we takeoff our masks. But really this is to announce and show pictures of Mic stands we have. It’s going beyond what we always have in the past which is used disposable stands because I know these blooms have lasted five years of years of use. I don’t know how I ended up getting them. A lot of times somebody would be selling three boom stands for $30 and I’d go out and buy them. But no longer. We are only going to use the best. I am for those who have been playing music for a long time know that Atlas stands are what everybody used in the 60s and the 70s,,,,,,, and still today. And Barco starts this month in the next couple days finishing our 28th year of doing business. If I stuck with those atlas stands I had Wayback when I probably would still have them today. We have managed to make it 28 years and the reason we started this rehearsal space was for my band. Not for anyone else’s. But people would want to come and see what my new band was up to and then they realize that this is a pretty nice place to practice and they asked if they could practice there too. And I realize we had the room and then it was just a matter of figuring out how to break up the time slots so it works for everybody. It only took six months to fill up the room we were using and then one became available down the hall and we rented that and we have that one for and for the majority of 28 years we have always been close to being full except I make sure we always have extra time available for Our regular vans that only show up once every three months. Just because they don’t practice every week doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate them just as much as a weekly band. If that bands who comes in once every three months calls me after a half an hour and says mesa boogie head stopped working and I was smoking for a bit and it smelled really bad. I live 10 minutes away and I always have a back up Mesa in our storage closet, ready to go service. I’ll be there in 10 minutes and be coming into the room with a replacement Mesa Boogie head. It’s taking a long time to buy Ampeg SVT heads And then spend the money to have a back up Ampeg SVT head. We spend much of our profits trying to make our plays the best players available and we often take perfectly good working hands out of service and send them to our repairman to go through them and give them a oil change and tuneup. On the head that we put in service is the same exact model. Most of you don’t even notice. But then, you’re not supposed to. Our goal is that nothing ever blows up during your practice. But I just got tired of dealing with crappy microphone stands and I’m sure all of you as my customers have too. The only thing I ask is don’t over tighten the Mic boom stands and don’t over tighten the cymbal stands. Thank you for being part of the 28 years we have been in business. I wish I could remember everyone’s names. But I never expected to have been doing a rehearsal space as one of my jobs for 28 years. But I love doing it today as much as I did way back long ago and I still love to be able to go in rehearse as loud as I want. And within two months we will have another location open with two rehearsal rooms. Location: Walking distance. 
