"Tools of the Trade"

[Chuck]

I eyeball the angle.  I know the distance between a stretched out thumb and pinky finger on my hand is about 17cm and use that to eyeball the distance.

-Kevin

I get 25.4 cm (10 inches) from my pinky to my thumb.

[teajay]

I made some T-Bars that are structured in a way that they capture the mics in a nearly ideal way. I also scribed the proper angles into the t-bar so that when the mic is in the mount, a simple adjustment is all thats necessary to match the scribe lines.
I have bars at ORTF 110*, 17cm/90*, 17cm/70*

With the TL's, I have measured angles at home, and know how to adjust them in the field. The TL's cards/hypers are very comfortable at 17/90, which is a snap to acheive with the Shure Vert Bar.

Got any pictures of these bars you made? That's the weekend project for me, I'm trying to find a way of making one bar to get as many configs as possible. So far the idea will be three pieces of aluminum that are attached to each other (like hinges) with spaced holes along all three. All held together with a bunch of wing nuts, etc....

Something like this http://www.djmart.com/destmibar.html

[Chuck]

I went with the dedicated bar per each configuration. I don't have pictures, but they are something like this;

\_________/, with each leg having a drawn down / mic capture location that is similar to this, (see right leg of the bar) \_______%
The % represents the scribe line between the elastic drawn down holes. The draw down holes are perpendicular to the proper mic angle. The mics are drawn down into a bed of foam that is attached to the bar on either side of the draw down holes.
The bar width is about 1.125" typical.

I'd like to see pictures of that...

[mattb]

I eyeball the angle.  I know the distance between a stretched out thumb and pinky finger on my hand is about 17cm and use that to eyeball the distance.

-Kevin

I get 25.4 cm (10 inches) from my pinky to my thumb.

I used to use the forefinger to thumb measure for 17cm with my Oktavas on a AT (I think) t-bar. Just about right on for me, but now I use my handy custom made t-bar with holes drilled at different spacings with my AT933s. I carry a protractor for the angles (actually been teased for that) but now I'm familiar enough that I can eyeball the 90 or 110 pretty well and only bust out the protractor if I change things up or for verification.