Double Bass Ingles Bass Stand: Spread out!!!

[Don Hergert]

While not everyone's favorite bass stand, the Ingles Bass Stand is pretty much a standard for many people who use bass stands.

For me, I decided pretty early on that I didn't want my bass lying on dirt or concrete/asphalt surfaces and that the upright position was probably the least in-the-way for storage when I'm not playing it. And I don't like just leaning my bass into a corner. I use my Ingles when I'm not in a practice mode at home and most of the time when I'm not using the bass at gigs or festivals.

The Ingles stand is pretty solid in use, but it has one major design flaw in that every time the bass is moved, the legs slip together a bit. And, if the bass in the stand is outside being buffeted by a side-wind, every time the bass is pushed by the wind the legs slip further together, making the stand less and less stable.

Today between practice sessions I cannibalized two abandoned desktop mic stands and made a simple spreader that holds the legs apart properly. Maybe there's something on the market already available, but I couldn't find anything. So the following pics show what this is about:

 

[Richtofen]

My issues with Ingles is they're too much to carry around, hard to get on, and it doesn't give you confidence that it is secure.

Hercules is my favorite because of its angled design, and sturdier construction. And on the Hercules stand, if you're switching instruments quickly, you can play it. Also easier to carry around and setup!

 

[Don Hergert]

I agree about too hard to carry around with the Ingles. It just doesn't fit anywhere when you're packing a car, and it takes some serious setup. And now, adding my little spreader contraption, there's another part to carry.

Unfortunately I've had a long and not very positive experience with Hercules' plastics with other instrument stands, so I'm not trusting their materials again yet...

Gollihur carries this Invalid Link Removed (NFI) which is tempting but a little pricey, but very portable for gigs. I may check that out more.

[Edit: After looking it over carefully, I did just order the K&M 141 (with the case) from Gollihur. I'll talk about it in a separate thread once I've had a chance to use it.]

 

[jasonrp]

The Herc is metal. I've heard some people complain about it not being stable but mine would have to take a pretty good hit to knock my bass over

 

[Inky13]

I agree about too hard to carry around with the Ingles. It just doesn't fit anywhere when you're packing a car, and it takes some serious setup. And now, adding my little spreader contraption, there's another part to carry.

Unfortunately I've had a long and not very positive experience with Hercules' plastics with other instrument stands, so I'm not trusting their materials again yet...

Gollihur carries this Invalid Link Removed (NFI) which is tempting but a little pricey, but very portable for gigs. I may check that out more.

[Edit: After looking it over carefully, I did just order the K&M 141 (with the case) from Gollihur. I'll talk about it in a separate thread once I've had a chance to use it.]

Oh man, I’d forgotten about those old Hamilton stands.
I think they were made from discarded oil dipsticks.
Falling leaves would tip it over.

 

[Richtofen]

Unfortunately I've had a long and not very positive experience with Hercules' plastics with other instrument stands, so I'm not trusting their materials again yet...

Gollihur carries this Invalid Link Removed (NFI) which is tempting but a little pricey, but very portable for gigs. I may check that out more.

Hercules's materials are even better now. They use metal, and the quality is superb. The K&M is too hard to set the bass on confidently in one go. Although yes portable, I personally think it's not very safe for your bass.

 

[Don Hergert]

Just a comment on Hercules since it's come up here frequently... Their bass stand does have plastics completely lining the bass contact areas of the stand. With their other instrument stands that I've owned, those plastics are some of what broke down and became sticky, messing up the finish on the instruments that leaned against them. Other areas, like plastic hinges and such, also broke down and eventually failed. Every Hercules stand I've owned (5 or 6 of them) has had to be thrown away due to this problem. Their design is great and unique in the market, but their execution failed every time. Hopefully Hercules has gone to a different formula with their plastics now, but for me personally I'm not ready to give them another chance yet.

 

[DoubleMIDI]

The only plastic material I find on my Hercules is the rubber foam. That could be replaced if needed, but I think that will hold for years. I have very old bike rubber foam on my EUB support and it just got a bit harder on the surface after a lot of years.

I once ordered the Hercules and the older (cup) and newer (triangle) K&M stand and the bass as safest in the Hercules. Later I bought a K&M cup-style used for half the price for use on small or crowded stages. The K&M worked after I replaced my end pin disc with a ball-type rubber endpin. The Hercules works because I have a 4/4 instrument and hardly take the endpin out at all. But I prefer the Hercules if the state has enough room to put it there, but do not play the bass in the stand.

 

[Don Hergert]

The only plastic material I find on my Hercules is the rubber foam. ...

The Hercules stands that I've referred to were floor based guitar-style stands. They also had some sort of "rubber foam" over the instrument-contact areas of a metal structure, and they had a hard plastic material that was used for various moving parts which were part of their unique design. They were really the best designed stands on the market at the time, and over time I bought a bunch of them for all the instruments my wife and I play. This is during a period dating back 10 to 20 years. One by one each of them failed as described earlier. This situation is still documented in various places online because it was happening to lots of buyers. I really hope they've corrected this situation.

My Ingles is plenty solid, especially now that I have the spreader for the legs. And it is plenty adjustable so endpin height isn't a problem. But it isn't the stand I want to carry to every gig. I'm anxious to get a chance to examine and use the K&M, it should arrive by Friday (many thanks to Mark Gollihur).

 

[DoubleMIDI]

The double bass Hercules has only rubber foam for contact areas and rubber feet, anything else is metal.

BTW, the Hercules flute stands are not bad either, except the piccolo, which has a too large diameter at the bottom for the wood piccolo of my wife, so I put some cork at the lower end to rise the pic looks where it fits. Maybe metal body piccolos might fit better than wooden ones.
I specially like the alto flute stand where a normal flute peg (it's rather a multifunction clarinet/flute peg) could be added (and also a third one if I recall correctly).
It is just a bit expensive to get the right imperial threaded rod in Germany to build a piccolo peg myself. I made a nice bigger stand for bass, alto, standard flutes and piccolo myself anyway, so the need to add a better piccolo peg for the Hercules is not too large.

 

[B String]

I've owned a number of stands but I've been using the Ingles for many years. I don't think I've ever had the legs move in on me. Hmm.....

 

[Don Hergert]

My K&M stand arrived today. A wonderful fast delivery and great service, thank you Mark Gollihur!!!

The K&M is really nice, well made. Stoutly built. The bass fits in it nicely. It's very stable. The support arms move on their shaft up and down as needed, the stand seems most stable with the support arms at their lowest setting for my bass...

Comparison testing with the bass in place with the Ingles using the leg spreader and with the K&M support arms in their lowest usable position, and judging by the approximate amount of pressure needed to tip:

K&M backward tipping stability is excellent, probably un-tippable under most circumstances, and definitely better than the Ingles.

K&M forward tipping stability is extremely good, equal or better than the Ingles.

K&M side to side tipping stability is good with the support arms set low, definitely sufficient to keep the bass in place in most "normal" circumstances, but probably not as good as the Ingles with the leg spreader. Compared to the Ingles, the K&M has some elastic give to it with side-to-side pressure that could contribute to an angular fall in the direction of the open tripod space -- this is where four support points on the Ingles makes a difference. That said, without the leg spreader, the Ingles legs would shift closer and closer together with side-to-side pressure, eventually allowing the stand to tip unless it was manually corrected.

I'll have a chance to test the K&M stand at a gig this weekend and will report back in a dedicated K&M bass stand thread. My biggest concern will be side-to-side winds or side-to-side bumps from people, so I'll be watching for places to stow the bass where these cannot occur. Having done the testing, my confidence is high. And of course, the portability of the K&M stand is wonderful.

 

[SAlcott]

I have yet to see a stand I'd put my bass on and walk away.

 

[chuck3]

great thread, dhergert. I have gigs where I need to put my bass on the stand and walk away. But I've always had your concern about the Ingles. I actually have my little patented move where I kick both legs out wide before I put the bass on it. Your solution with the mic stands is brilliant! But I'm very interested to hear how it goes with the K&M. If that's Gollihur's preferred stand, that's a good endorsement.

 

[Francois Blais]

I have both the Ingles and older K&M model.
In fact, the old K&M led me to buy the Ingles...
It didn't feel sturdy nor much secure for the instrument.
I never brought out the Ingles on a gig, so I can't comment on the problems described, sorry.
But the mic stand idea is very clever!

 

[Mark Gollihur]

I have both the Ingles and older K&M model.
In fact, the old K&M led me to buy the Ingles...
It didn't feel sturdy nor much secure for the instrument.

Understood, since you had the older one. The newer generation of the K&M has several improvements - much more stable and larger tubing, as well as a "V" shaped receiver that is MUCH easier to put the endpin in than the old "cup" style. The newer black K&M is a whole different stand compared to the old chrome one.

 

[Don Hergert]

The truth is, using a stand for any instrument is asking for damage due to a fall. So using a stand is always a compromise between convenience for the person playing the instrument and safety for the instrument.

There was a time when I did fretted musical instrument repairs along with teaching and gigging as part of my pro-musician work. The saying among us instrument repair people was that if you want more work, sell more instrument stands. Broken guitar, banjo and mandolin pegheads are a constant among instrument stand users. So I'm pretty wary of using stands for smaller, more manageable instruments.

But, the double bass is big. And, if you lay it down, there are the same serious risks due to people movement around the instrument. Double basses are just always in the way no matter what you do with them. And people are just always clumsy no matter what you do with them. So there isn't really a good answer, especially if you can't be there guiding people around your bass all the time.

And that's not even addressing winds or other non-people related issues.

So my choice for my bass is to stand it up using as safe a stand as possible for the venue, hopefully in an out-of-the-way corner where it won't get bumped by a clumsy person, or blown over by a unexpected wind.

 

[brianrost]

I own a Brobst Bass Fiddle Caddy from the UK. I probably got it from Gollihur's. I took it to one or two gigs and decided it took up too much space, plus I have to retract the peg because the support arms are too low. I now use the stand in my practice room, since I practice sitting on a stool the peg isn't an issue.

My Azola MiniBass came with a stand remiscent of the old Hamilton stands. It's pretty rickety, but the Azola doesn't lie down well on the floor because of the small, thin body so I'll bring the stand but if I can commandeer a corner, I won't even bother setting it up.

I play a lot of rooms where even getting a corner or finding floor space to lay the bass down is tough, no way a stand would work anyway.

 

[Don Hergert]

Since this thread has expanded scope significantly, I'm going to be lazy and not start another thread for the K&M bass stand...

To complete my thoughts about my new K&M bass stand, we did our gig today. This gig had been planned and promoted to be an outdoor gig and I was hoping to do some testing of the K&M on uneven ground, but we got rained indoors and played our gig inside a nice level carpeted floor building, so my experience with the K&M is pretty much what I had experienced at home -- like many bass stands, the K&M works extremely well in normal situations where it's not getting bumped by someone or blown over by a wind.

I like using the K&M with the support arms in the lowest position possible for my bass because the side-to-side elasticity of the K&M stand is reduced dramatically as you reduce the support arm riser height. In my case, because I'm short and because I use a minimal height end-pin, that allows me to have the support arms completely down in the lowest possible position for the stand, so it's much less elastic and much more stable that way.

One caveat though, is with a minimal height end-pin it's trickier to get the end-pin into the V-shaped receiver because you can't see the end-pin as you are handling the bass. It's doable, yes, and it's more stable with the short end-pin too, but it is a little tricky when you're just trying to get used to it. I've put my bass in place about two dozen times now and I'm getting much more reliable at fitting the end-pin into the receiver while flying blind.

Other than that little training challenge, I'm loving this bass stand, which means my Ingles bass stand with the leg-spreader will stay home for exclusive use there now -- which is a very nice added convenience actually.

With all this, I'd be very comfortable recommending K&M for a person who wants a more portable bass stand than the Ingles or other larger, less portable stands. Of course the standard YMMV provision applies, and this is assuming that a person is aware and comfortable with both the conveniences and the risks involved with using a bass stand.

 

[Don Hergert]

Just an update, the K&M continues to be my go to travel stand. Most recently I used it for a gig in a large but crowded basement of at a private home where I stood my bass up in the corner of a spiral staircase... A perfect isolated place to put a bass on a stand. The K&M was extremely stable and of course worked perfectly. I would continue to highly recommend the K&M as an ideal travel stand, but I'd also continue to recommend routinely searching out a safe, isolated location to stand up a bass. Together, the safety of a bass is very secure.

At the same time I continue to use my Ingles with the mic-stand spreader at home... Very handy, and with the spreader, a no-brainer to use every day.