Gator FrameWorks Microphone Stand Review (Series 3000)
Hey, everybody it’s JJ over at Audio
Workstations. And today’s video.
I’m going to give you my review on the
Gator FrameWorks 3000 series
microphone stand.
Okay. Let’s get right into it. I’ll
give you my initial thoughts, which is,
is this microphone stand worth
the price? In my opinion, yes.
If you are using a microphone
such as the Shure SM7B or a
microphone, that’s similar in style
and similar in weight, if you’re not,
if you’re using a lighter microphone
or a different type of style,
the answer is maybe,
and hopefully we’ll answer that question
for you by the end of this video.
Okay. So obviously this is an extremely
popular microphone stand when it comes to
podcasts, radio broadcast,
things of that nature.
Most notoriously people like Joe Rogan
and other famous podcasters and radio
shows have been using this
microphone stand for years.
So this microphone stand as of the date
of this video currently is listed on
Amazon for $129.99 and
sits at four and a half
stars with over a thousand reviews,
you will see a decent amount of negative
reviews talking about the durability of
this microphone stand,
but that’s something that I haven’t
really encountered over a year of use.
We
of these microphone stands
in our podcasting studio,
two of which have been
used over the past year.
So let’s talk about some of
the features, first of all,
how does actually mount
to the table? Well,
it uses a table clamp style by default.
So with this type of style,
you need to make sure that your table
has at least a one to one and a half
inch lip that a can
actually attach to. Now,
it does also come with a more
permanent mounting style.
If you don’t like the table clamp,
it will come with one that you can
actually screw onto your table.
Now with that, of course, you’re going
to be doing some damage to the table.
So you’re going to want to make sure
that you’re really set to put that
microphone stand in that place.
But as far as the standard table clamp,
it is the best I’ve ever encountered.
I have used a decent amount of these
clamp on microphone stands in the past,
they will all have that felt on the
ends, help attach and protect the table.
And every other one I’ve
dealt with besides the Gator FrameWorks tends to fall
off and get removed pretty
quickly. So that is nice and solid.
I’m also not doing a lot of taking
the stand on and off the table.
So I can’t speak for how durable that
would be if you’re constantly removing and
re-applying it
Next up would be the
adjustments.
Okay. So first of all, I have to say perfect knobs with
these nice, big, nice and comfortable.
Each section is spring loaded,
which is a good thing because
in my experience it does
really hold in place once
you set it. But the fact
that it’s spring loaded,
you actually have to be careful. In fact,
just before we were shooting this video,
we took the microphone off and it shot
right back and almost damaged our video
screen there. So you do have to
watch out in a scenario like that,
but as far as setting and forgetting,
it’s very good for that. And like I said,
I haven’t experienced
any durability issues.
Like some of the reviews
on Amazon has stated
that’s not something I’ve
encountered over my use.
Okay. And then as far as where
your microphone attaches,
so it does have a removable thread adapter,
which is good because those
things will wear out over time.
The threads will get stripped. So it
is good that you could replace that.
But if you’re going to constantly
be taking on and off the microphone,
those were movable. Adapt does tend to
kind of get stuck in the microphone.
And then it takes a second to get
them out of the microphone.
Not a fault of the Gator FrameWorks
just the fault of that general removable
microphone thread.
You also have a
black washer in case your microphone.
Isn’t in the style of the
SM7B , where it has its own.
Thread adaptor and you need to tighten that thread up
One gripe I do have about
the adjustments though,
is that the microphone can’t
be adjusted to go on top of the
microphone stand.
Again, If you’re using a microphone
in the style of the SM7B,
you probably don’t need to do that
but certain microphones like condenser
microphones.
It may be more desirable to have the
microphone on top of the microphone stand
as opposed to below another gripe I
have with the knob placement is if
you have to spin your microphone
to the right, a decent amount,
that XLR cable will start getting in the
way and getting blocked by that knob.
So that can be a little annoying.
As far as the XLR cable that
actually plugs into your microphone.
It is integral to the microphone stand
it’s inside the microphone stand.
That leads to a very clean look.
Especially if you’re shooting video,
you don’t have a whole XLR cable
being wrapped around the stand.
It’s very clean,
But I actually had an issue
where on one of these stands,
the cable started going bad and caused
a loud buzzing on the microphone.
Now XLR cables, the quality
of these seem to be pretty good,
but all XLR cables are
gonna bite the dust someday,
but the problem is having it incorporated
inside the microphone stand means that
you can’t easily replace that
XLR cable. If it does break,
or you start having problems with it
now, yes, you could do what I did,
which is just use a different XLR
cable and snip off the old one.
But I wouldn’t recommend actually
trying to go inside the microphone,
stand and accomplish the same style
of incorporating it in the stand.
Now that being said, Gator FrameWorks Customer service was awesome.
I reached out to them with the
problem. It was covered under warranty.
I’m not sure how long their warranty is,
but mine was over a year old and they
still offer to repair it completely for free.
Now, my scenario, we all work in commercial studio and
couldn’t afford to send one of these
microphones stands out for repair.
So they actually made a
special exception for me,
where they sent me a
whole new one for free.
I can’t guarantee that they would
do the same for you, because again,
it was an exception and not
their standard warranty policy.
So to sum up this review, if you’re
using a microphone, such the SM7B,
I totally think the price tag is worth
it because mostly the weight of the SM7B is really problematic
with the cheaper podcast stands.
Every other stand I’ve used with the SM7B just can’t hold up to the weight
of this microphone. And
you’ll get a lot of sagging.
If you’re using a traditional
large diaphragm microphone, though,
this might not be the best
stand for you. Because again,
you might want that microphone to be on
top of the stand, as opposed to below.
And if you’re using a lighter
microphone, such as the Shure SM58,
you might not need to go to this level
of microphone stand because the weight
issue isn’t going to be a
problem.
Well, there you have it. I hope this review helped for anybody
considering buying this microphone stand.
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