Cheapest shock mount ever
 

For those of you on real tiny budgets, you can build a cheap shock mount out of a wire coat hanger and two elastic bands - thats less than 20 cents!

I'd upload a picture but don't know how - basically you just unravel the wire coat hanger so its one giant long piece of metal, then wrap it around a thick broom stick so you get a spring. Suspend an elastic band on both sides of the "spring" - you do this by wrapping the elastic band around each side of one of the springs "circles" so it crosses through the middle of the spring. Then slide your microphone inside of these two elastic bands - bam - shock mount!

You can then use the remaing metal from the coat hanger spring to wrap around a broom stick or window washing pole, securing your shock mount.

Sure, its not professional as a "real" one, but it should be better then nothing!

I was with you up to "both sides of the spring". You need a picture.

Good luck.

Dennis

I sw one selfmade shockmount picture online last year . YUou can make it, but we need pics, please. thanx

Interesting. Showing up for a gig with a coat hanger and rubberbands is one way to guarantee I won't be hired again.

I actually take pride in owning really good gear that serves me well.

Obviously it takes all kinds.

Regards,

Ty Ford

yeah, showing up at a gig with this won't go very far, but if you're in the DIY world, you're likely also doing your own film work, and PVC with rubberbands or wirehangers with rubber bands would work. Just gotta be very careful to not bump anything, and not let anyone take pictures of what you're doing. :-)

I guess it all depends on what type of mic you'd hand off of a broomstick, a clothes hanger and some rubberbands. Not a valuable one I would hope.

Anyone with rudimentary shop skills could make a shock mount from ABS or PCV pipe. It would take some patience and a tad more of an outlay than the rubber bands and coat hangers.

Remember, you will be judged by the equipment you carry. Improvising is one thing but to me, a coat hanger, broomsticks and rubber bands is akin to thumbing your nose at the world.

Come on, you old fahts, don't ruin Ari's fun; he never suggested you do this in a commercial project. I can imagine there are many film makers in the world (read: people without access to B&H--ok, so that does not include Canada) that need to be creative to overcome their constraints, financial or otherwise.

Canada does have full access to anything available for DV and DV audio. The only problem comes in summer when we get 3 weeks of bad sledding and then we have trouble making it to the outpost for mail.

I'm in favor of improvization, just make it look good.

I totally agree with the 2 posts above me. I ran out of money to get a MiniMount or CAC-12 for my PD170. So I made my own support for an AT shock mount.

Check out my story:
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...threadid=38862

Kudos on the broomstick trick. Way to look outside the box. I bet your films reflect the same creativity.

Much better than hangers and rubberbands!

Nice job.

Ty Ford