These two books changed my entire outlook on design:

The Psychology of Everyday Things:



The Inmates Are Running The Asylum:



The latter is towards software design, but it's lessons are applicable anywhere.

davidpye wrote:I personally think Mic Stands are really badly designed in general, unless they are actually supposed to be called "limp, wobbly finger trappers", which we as engineers have mistakenly used as mic stands. But don't ask me how they would be better designed, the only thing I've thought of so far has been if mics themselves could levetate, long way off I think.

Man, I totally agree with you. They're soooooo shit.

However, i've recently moved over to using some fancy fuckers with yellow bits on them. None of this screwing and unscrewing to move it, instead you get a bit you press and it just moves. I can't believe it's taken the industry 60 years to get there...

I can't remember the brand, but i'll check tomorrow and post it. Suffice to say, I am heartily impressed.

PLEASE do, I'm dieing to find a better way. Of course heavier stands are normally loads better but it's still just such a shit design. Would love to see what you have.

davidpye wrote:PLEASE do, I'm dieing to find a better way. Of course heavier stands are normally loads better but it's still just such a shit design. Would love to see what you have.

Will do mate. I've had a brief look on the studiospares site but they've not got then (so fuck knows where we got them...) but I seem to remember them being about £15.... Which, frankly, I thought was outstanding.

Tommy.

Agreed on the Sennheiser 421... if you use
their shockmounts, the problem isn't so bad
since the shockmount latches onto the clip
better (more friction) than the mic does.

Other stupid design: Rickenbacker 12-string
360. Both the headstock (which.. eh. I guess I've
gotten used to) and especially the floating tailpiece
make what is otherwise a very wonderful instrument
into something that can be a wonderful source
of frustration. My advice is to never take all of the
strings off at once.

Tak'er easy,
Fred

Yeah, you are right man! :(

...perhaps i'm wrong about this. perhaps it really does serve a purpose. but i cannot, for the life of me, figure out what it is.

Could you be more specific? It's a stereo microphone, quite useful. Is it something about this one you don't like?

warmowski wrote:Soundcra(p)ft boards: Button down to un-mute? Bad! Bad mixer! Get in the corner!

Many Yamaha mixers are like this, but at least the rename the Button "On/Edit"

ziessB wrote:However, i've recently moved over to using some fancy fuckers with yellow bits on them. None of this screwing and unscrewing to move it, instead you get a bit you press and it just moves. I can't believe it's taken the industry 60 years to get there...

I can't remember the brand, but i'll check tomorrow and post it. Suffice to say, I am heartily impressed.

These are Hercules stands, they make guitar stands and stuff too. Do you really like them? They have them at the rooms I practice at and those models are really annoying, you can't change the mic clip on them or rotate the boom bit (meaning to change the direction the mic points in you have to pic up the whole stand and put it back down in the right direction...)

The mechanism is good though, very easy to reposition...