So what do you use for a deck stand? I'll leave the poll open!
Interesting that 'other' is voted for, but not mentioned! LOL!

I voted for Giraffe, but I aslo use an old 30 year old stand for smaller parties.

Ultimax Wheel 'n' Winch.

Other - custom made booth.

Jim

Just took delivery today of a Kamkase 4ft stand complete with T-bar goalposts bag and must say it's excellent.

Price was good too at £125 delivered by courier (The stand alone would have only been £95 delivered).

I didnt see any difference in build quality to the other brands

http://www.djsuperstore.co.uk/item/dj-stan...-lighting-t-bar

Its worth paying extra for the bag - not only does it protect the stand, but it also protects the stand from trashing your vehicle and other equipment too (so many sticky out bits!).

I'd get one of those stands, but I feel the 90cm or so height is just a bit too high with my 10u/6u road ready flightcase, Its perfect height on a standard 6ft tressel table.. e.g. http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidistestin...57621434494300/...


Cheers,

David, who uses a table currently..

Thanks for that. Yes, I didnt think of the height/flightcase issue. Fortunately mine is a low profile/angled one.
Where can I get the laptop add-on shelf?? I think that's a neat solution and better to the separate clamp-ons I've been looking at.

Teez

I have no idea, they can be bought - I bought the flight case, shelf, mixer and dual cd player (which you can sorta see on one of the next photos on the flickr link above), for about 120 notes... its huge and takes quite a bit of space in the back of the car. but its really solid built.. Thing is though I now only need about 3U at the front rather than the 6 it came with (used to have the DSP8024 in there, but it now lives in another 4u flight case with the main amp).

Cheers,

David

Use giraffe and star cloth to fit from Phase 1.

For shelves I got four 60cm cut offs of wood.

Giraffe stand with what used to be my shelves out of my wardrobe for shelving haha

I've got 2 Giraffe stands - one is a 4' with over-head (I don't tend to use this feature)

The other is a short 2' wide stand. Great for small setups, but a bit tricky to read the DDS's screen.

For the guys using the4/6' Giraffe stand watch out for venues with low ceiling. The stand requires at least 7' ceiling and this isn't always there..
A T-Bar is a good "back-up" as most will go low (so you can bang your head...lol)

Jason

Had one venue where I could only get the t-bar up on the first "notch" with the legs fully out (It was the maplin "tree" t-bar without the silly arm bits... very little space between the tops of the lights and the ceiling!

Cheers,

David

Oh yes I always carry a tbar!

4" giraffe with overhead also form Mike's. I chopped a foot off either end and made a wooden case that fits in the van with 3 lights hard wired, with loom for 2 other light if req.

had to borrow a hack saw one night as i got caught out with height. took 2 inches off the uprights. T bar is in tha van permanently!!!!

Its too wobbly for my liking and as said on a previous thread, i worry about the day i go active and loose some weight on my bottom shelf from my amp.

ditto-manufactured myself

Just take the amp with you and use it as a weight? :)

How stable are the giraffes?

Cheers,

David

Im thinking of getting a deck stand with overhead lighting bar, as this would look quite neat and as I already have speakers on tripods I didnt really want another pair or tripods for a separate goal post.

Ive seen the KAM stand set, incuding bag etc for £125, as someone else has mentioned and I would quite like to get that one.

However............ I have four (quite heavy) lights, 2 x scanners, and 2 x barrel (all 250w -no LED). Would these be ok on the overhead lighting bar, or might it be a bit unstable? As I have active speakers, I dont have a heavy amp to use as ballast and cant think of anything else I could use.

Does anyone use this without an amp etc keeping it stable?

Cheers, Mark.

I have a Kamstand as it was the cheapest online (djsuperstore.co.uk also gave me great bag for it for free), bragged about it on here only for someone to tell me that they didnt buy it because the upper shelf was too high. I rushed out to try it and rightly so, once my flightcase was on there I would have needed a step ladder to operate it (no problem for turntables). I then had to pay £30 for my local welder to cut off 20cm to make it workable.

The stand would definitely be unstable without any heavy equipment on the shelves and that much lighting on top. I'm guessing that most stands with integral overheads would have a stability issue if not weighted down.


Teez

Might have been better to opt for the Ultimax one (more height levels afaik) - probably cost about the same after you had the bottom taken off the KAM one !


Cheers,

David

Thanks guys,

I agree - I think I will go for one of these deck stands as I only use a CDMix with a laptop, so the height is probably just right for that.

However, I dont want to risk it falling over, so I think I will stick to a separate T-bar or goal post for the lights - better safe than sorry!

Which is the best value deck stand - without overhead lighting? Ive seen them for abour £80, is this about right?

Cheers, Mark.

I've got 4' and 2' Giraffe stands. I don't use the overheads - also active here and would be worried about stability.
Using a winch-up t-bar for lighting.

Cheapest 4' Giraffe stand (base only) is about £67 + shipping.

You'll want something to cover it up - options (increasing in price!) are black cloth from market, star cloth, DJ@ Deck Surround, or S&H booth.

Jason

Thanks Jason,

A winch-up T-bar is a good idea, as I wont have a helper and lifting a full T-bar on my own might be a bit much!

Ive been thinking about what to have at the front too - I love the booth type fronts, but they are expensive. Im thinking of cutting a pieve of ply or MDF to the right size, with a coule of side panels on hinges, and painting it a nice smooth black. This should hide the deck stand nicely, and look quite professional! Then it could fold up and go in the car easily when Ive finished.

Do other people do this?

Cheers, Mark.

I have just dug deep and purchased a deckstand booth pro and have to say it is built like the proverbial brick outhouse. Very solid quality construction and a nice design. probably my best ever purchase to date. Not cheap but worth every penny IMHO.

Would you be able to take a video of the stand and upload onto Youtube? I tried to find some video of this equipment but can't find any.

Looks really good. What do you use as shelving material?

Bit of an update from me, I have a custom jobbie.

This folds up, is made of alloy, has a shelf, and fits 2x19" cases side by side.
It uses the NJD starcloth - setup is 20secs for stand with about 5mins for starcloth...

http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/index.php?showto...6115&hl=njd

A few gigs later, I'm still happy. In the summer, I may look into getting some different coloured cloth, and possibly white (that I'll backlight).

I couldn't have anything too bulky due to space.
For me, this is somewhere between the Giraffe stand and DeckBooth Pro/S&H Booth on price.

i use a 4ft rhino deck stand with a custom made facade board in front ( made buy my self lol ) alot cheaper that on the net

What I really like about the deckstand booth pro is the angled top edge.

I'm fed up with people making requests and leaning on my flight case when they want to talk.

I'm guessing the angled edge keeps people at a distance and I want to investigate it further.

The price however is prohibitive and for a fraction of the price can buy normal stands so the on-cost just for the edge is what's holding me back

I think the other criticism for the DeskStand Pro is the cloth used on the basic model - its not that high quality.
I also like the angled top (also on the S&H booth)
You can pay extra for a better quality cloth, and I guess if you're in the high-end market, it should be easy to justify.

I do think its a good product, and an alternative to the S&H booth. As a product developer for my day job, its interesting how James has managed to get it into DJ Stores and push it as a product.

I think you're not only paying extra for the angled top- the cloth suddenly becomes much more than rectangle, and so that also increases the cost.


Jas

Not sure I can do video...well not for a few weeks anyway. It takes about 1 minute to put together ( well unfold ) then another minute to wrap cloth around. I went for the serge cloth with LED's which was £650 from DJ superstore ( had to price match to get that price)

Depending on what you want to put on it the shelf system is two lots of two bars so if you are putting flight cases on it no extra shelving is needed. I have only used it twice so far and didnt use the shelves as I just wheeled my large flightcase with mixer / amps etc behind it.

To my mind the quality is every bit as good as the S&H booth/starcloth if you go for the Serge version.

I thought the starcloth would be fiddly to get right as the stand has Velcro all the way around for the cloth to stick to but it was easy. The controller for the LED lights has a lot of controls with fade as well as flash and you can also control the brightness...on full they are actually too bright

Appreciate your thought on videoing. Strictly speeking I'm dissappointed that the only marketing material on this is half a dozen low res photographs, some with watermarks.

They'll sell more if they put some clips on Youtube. ADJ (amongst others) do it for everything and it's a great way of learning about kit online without having to find a stockist

Teez

to be honest i just use a table out the pub at the minute lol,i do have a 8' goal post setup but everything else just goes on the table anyone got a stand for sale????

I did that for years, didn't even know what a deckstand was until I joined here, when I think back to what my setup looked like before I joined here I cringe. You can get a basic deckstand here for very reasonable money, the starcloth is the expensive bit, just use black cloth and velcro for a while if money is tight. Otherwise they are on ebay all the time. I must admit I bought a cheapo starcloth off ebay initially, lasted about six months until the leds died so in my experience it's best to buy a proper one, same with the stand, get an ultimax if you can afford one.

Did you get one of the 120-led ones? Noticed that one channel of mine flickers intermittently now... Considering hard-wiring it directly to the mains (avoiding the white box crap altogether, and shoving a bridge rectifier, capactitor and some resistor to dim them to a point - and to avoid the 50hz flickering). I hate all of the flashing-programmes on there anyway !

Cheers,

David

on my second njd starcloth and second giraffe stand ..looking at customizing my giraffe to screwless design and changing the shelf heights made a custom crossbar with velcro to hold the starcloth straighter

ultimax do a stand called the 4 footer which is, stability and ease of assembley wise, far superior to the giraffe/kam stands. its made from 1" box steel as opposed to the flimsy tube and just slots together with no nuts and bolts

however it is not for the tall dj and the overhead is not height adjustable.

regarding led skirts etc i vaguely remember a post ages ago where somebody stated something along the lines of "we are hiring a dj.....not a magician"
Black cloth and velcro for me.

You'd be better getting an Ultimax stand, cos you can adjust the heights on it to suit.. whether just a small console or (like me), have a 10u/4u gator mixer flight case (another good investment for me)

With regards to magicians... I sometimes turn off the LEDs on the start cloth, so it basically looks like a black cloth. In fact, reverse it, and it looks just like a black cloth.

Might consider getting the Ultimax black-cloth front, which just sits in front as a long "straight" edge with a long weight at the bottom. Not sure what the packed dimensions are for it, however...

Cheers,

David



That is one of my main bug-bears about my star cloth - its hard to get it to go straight across the top... moreso with the flight case sticking out over the front of the stand.... Something a front-curitain with bar would just work instead...

Hmmn... thinking now !

Cheers,

David

gadget.... rubbish pick... but im on my way out to a gig this is my homemade bar and its not set up properly but the top edge is straight

the ultimax sumo curtain is probably one of the best options but it only fits the sumo stand



the sumo stand is one heavy duty piece of kit but comes at a price

Why cant I add an image to my post

I use one of these nowadays along with either a goalpost or a T-Bar (depending upon the size of rig and the amount of lighting required) and a custom deck surround made from creative use of 1.5 inch plastic conduit, a few elbows and a black sheet attached with velcro tabs.

It has cut my set-up / breakdown times by a huge amount and gives me a decent amount of working space, as well as negating the need to ask the bar staff for a spare table or two. The only real negative is *if* the venue is upstairs with no lift, in which case I usually ditch the roll-cab and carry the components up individually.

dont know, im sure you have posted images before.

post as normal with an image link and we can double check the code

I use a 4ft Ultimax SUMO - its slightly different to the Ultimax DJ stands as its slanted, but the wheels are great - its as solid as a rock - it came with x2 4.5ft truss, but i just use one. £100 second hand - well worth it - 2 minutes to put up too.




Just reading backwards in this thread after my post - these look great - any idea where to get one and how much?