Keyboards come crashing to the floor!

[Chas]

So how much weight can you safely place on a double braced keyboard stand?

At the moment I have 35kg of gear on a single stand... is this too much? The metal teeth on the stand don't appear to be the sturdiest thing man has created. Can I expect $$$ worth of gear to one day come crashing to the ground?

Does anyone have any horror stories?

Chas

[organsymphony]

i think those little teeth are studier than they look. I have my D50 on the second tier of my 3 tiered stand and i've never seen any wobble that has worried me.

I'd only ever risk something like a microkorg or small midi controller on the third tier though...

[nathanscribe]

Some stand & studio furniture manufacturers (though not all, sadly) quote weight limits. There's no fixed figure. It depends on which stand you've got.

[Chas]

Thanks guys. I just found a weight limit figure for the stand model I own. 30kg.

I might have to strip a few unwanted components from my RD-700GX.

[tyrannosaurus mark]

I've toured with some really cheap piece of s**t stands, and I've never had one just fall apart. I think transporting them around is way harder on them than actually using them. I used to put 35kgs on a single braced cheapest stand you can get and it last two months of touring no worries. But if you have nice stuff... man just get a proper stand for home!

[Stab Frenzy]

We once broke the foot off a single-braced stand with our YC-25D (about 40-50kg) cause it was rocking back and forth a bit on stage while we were playing. Double-braced ones seem a lot sturdier, I don't know why we weren't using one of them for the YC that night, must have brought the wrong one or something.

[Denms20]

I routinely have a clavinet and a CX3 on mine and it holds, and I have a heavy touch, so it's rocking pretty good. However I had a single braced one that U ised to bring by accident once and a while, and that would slowly let my CX3 sink to my ankles at the worst possible times. Never fell and hurt the CX, it just slowly went down.

[Alphacode]

Well we came to one gig with our cheap single stand to put our electribes on a little shelf ,just before we play so it's not there standing all the time as you know people around with cigarettes ,beer etc... so we left our stuff there in boxes and we set up the stand and the shelf and went for a walk as the party started to check out other artists on the festival on different floors.
We came back after 1 hour and there were 2 girls sitting on the shelf on the stand probably for a good 1/2 hour already. 2 girls = 100kg + shelf = 5 kg ... you get the picture , the stand lasted me for the next 5 years, no problem...

[plikestechno]

I've got one of those crappy 3-tiered Quikloks with a Prophet T8 on the bottom then a CZ-5000 then a DX7IIFD on the top. Never had a problem. Looks flimsy as h**l but holds up fine when playing.

[zzzxtreme]

Well we came to one gig with our cheap single stand to put our electribes on a little shelf ,just before we play so it's not there standing all the time as you know people around with cigarettes ,beer etc... so we left our stuff there in boxes and we set up the stand and the shelf and went for a walk as the party started to check out other artists on the festival on different floors.
We came back after 1 hour and there were 2 girls sitting on the shelf on the stand probably for a good 1/2 hour already. 2 girls = 100kg + shelf = 5 kg ... you get the picture , the stand lasted me for the next 5 years, no problem...

[Pro5]

My stand 'collapsed' one day... JX-8P on bottom, DX7 IID on middle, JX-3p On top.. all within the quoted weight tolerance per tier, Ok I was kinda leaning on it too at the time!

The Problem? The 'quick release' lever in the middle front lower (and two 'toothed locking discs') that hold the whole stand (double X braced) at it's height was actually not tight.. came this way from the factory. It's loose to allow you to snap open the plastic lever, adjust, then close again (fairly tight it seems), but the nut in the middle wasn't tight enough and allowed the teeth to lose their grip with a bit too much weight.

So if you have one of those types of stands, get your socket set out and tighten it up once it's 'adjusted' to the right height (now i'd have to loosen the nut to snap the lever open for adjustment which is fine by me, and a lot safer). If done securely the lever will be impossible to 'snap open' (or even move at all).

Luckily no damage done to any of the synths except for a tiny scratch on the DX7 by the 'power on/off' graphic.

[maelstrom_808]

Had one fail during a gig when one side of the upper tier of a 2 tier Proline failed and dropped my Virus C. Luckily I had a hand on the keyboard below and was able to catch the synth before it crashed to the floor, although finishing the song while holding up the keyboard in one hand was an interesting experiment in improvisation The reason for the collapse was just wear. After many many hurried setups and tear downs, the teeth of the lock eventually were worn down and tweaked to the point that it slipped. Best advice I can give is to make sure that when you are setting these types of stands up, take your time and make sure things are aligned before you tighten them down, and make sure they are tight, but don't over tighten them.

[retrosounds]

I decided to try out my friends keyboard stand once with my ESQ-1.
Needless to say the stand broke, but my ESQ-1 was fine...I can't say the same for the floor though

[garranimal]

These things are great for stacking synths.
Getting castors for them, even better.
They can hold a shitload.

[zukskywalker]

I went out to see a friend's band do a night club gig and sat in front checking them out along with their keyboard player and his two tier rig. Top tier had something like a microkorg which wasn't horizontally stabilized and I watched as the uppper legs did a clockwise rotation dropping the top keyboard on the dudes hands. He tried to keep playing with his hands trapped between the boards which was painful to watch. Well, by now my friends are looking at me giving me that do something look since I'm a keyboard player too. So I walked up, lifted the top keyboard off his hands and set it to the side on the floor. I got an applause without even playing a note!

Lesson Learned: Make sure everythings locked down tight!! (even if you're late)

(PS: Wait until you get a look at my three tier quiklok! Not stock as I added to a two tier but Rock solid!)