Mbrace Guitar Support System review

the gracie stands are the well-known ones used by pros.

 

Regardless of whether you keep the Mbrace or move on, the K&M is the industry standard for boom mic stands. I'd get one if I wasn't so cheap.

 

That is one handsome workbench! And tidy too! Like the drawers...all it needs now is a good heavy vise bolted down on one of the corners...oh yeah, sweet lookin’ PJ there too, with those fat ol’ strings that it came with!

 

Good review. Im likely the other guy that recommended the Mbrace. Agree about the guitar hanging low relative to the bracket. I ended up looping the supplied strap through the top hole the other way, and that sat the body higher relative to the bracket. Also rubber edge guard can be used on the ridges of the brace for cushioning.

I can supply pics of my setup if desired, though I'm honestly not using the bass-o-matic rack as much as I used to.

 

I switched to K&M’s bottom of the line boom stand (around $60) earlier this year. Even the no frills model is far superior to not just the cheapies, but also many more expensive models from the same companies.

 

I recently f'ed up my back so decided to wade into this concept of the free floating, weightless bass.
For cost and other reasons I went the Mbrace route. Thought I'd need a beefy stand for it and rigged up a cross between a heavy cymbal stand and mic boom attachment. Was plenty stable, but needed duct tape to keep the boom in place (cheap boom). Drum hardware and mic stand hardware are unfortunately very different so I gave up my effort at combining them.
Next I tried a K&M short mic stand with boom, and that works great - see pics below. Thanks to the boom I'm able to get exactly the tilt that I want, in combination with the tilt function on the mbrace. At certain angles there is a problem with the weight being too far from center so the stand would start to fall; not a problem for the angle that I like, but otherwise I could place sandbags on the base to counter balance. The K&M is a super strong stand so no concern there. Their boom clutch is very solid, no slippage unlike my first experiment. Overall, Mbrace is working surprisingly well; I think the design is pretty ingenious.
If anyone has tried the K&M Performance stand I'd be real interested to hear their feedback. I wasn't able to find the Gracie stand for sale - they mention a few retailers on their site but when I searched (Alpha, and Martin) I did not get back results. Looks very similar to the K&M stand though.
Couple of adaptations: the telescoping boom piece was twisting under weight, so I locked that in place with gaff tape. The boom itself was also slipping under weight (rotating); not visible in the picture but I have a small vice grip attached to the knob to allow for full lockdown. And lastly (for now) I will likely put some loctite on the threads of the piece that threads onto the mic stand, to keep that from coming loose.