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The Stand:
An very important
element in my music set-up is my steel drum stand. Although there are many
steel drum stands made available by craftsmen and
commercial outlets, I chose to build my own to accommodate my imagination.
You see, my stand supports not only my steel drums but also a micro sound
system
and at times supports other percussion instruments, and maybe a drink
or two!
Ultimate brand tubing which is commonly
used for professional keyboard stands,
lighting rigs, and MIDI stations - serves as my building blocks.
The tubing is a standard inch and a half
aluminum tubing (black). It's light-weight, compact, very strong and
offers complete expandability with exchangeable parts. Ultimate is a
well known brand for music stands and many people think that I have bought them
ready made or direct from the factory but they really are custom made by me.
If you would like to build your own you can buy
individual tubes at various
lengths and then cut them down to size with a pipe cutter. Use
standard accessory parts to customize your own realized designs.
I use actual light rigging mounts to independently suspend the steel drums.
My
stand also
has a microphone boom off the left side for my vocal
mic when I am not
using
a head-set mic, and an attachment on the
center post to place clipped condenser mics to the underside of both steel drums.
The right side of my stand bears
the burden of supporting a laptop computer,
sound module, MIDI port, and mixing console with a separate reverb unit.
All this
equipment is accommodated via two mini keyboard tiers.
The entire stand
can be taken
apart in
minutes. I transport mine in a golfers bag, it weighs less than
20 lbs and has wheels for easy transport. In fact all my accessories,
cables, speaker stands, etc. go into this convenient travel bag.
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