Gator Frameworks Professional Broadcast Boom Stand with On-Air Indicator Light

I decided to upgrade my recording setup this month. As the investment kept rising I found it easy to justify a boom arm upgrade...I had one of the cheaper boom arms you could buy on Amazon, it came in at a little more than 1/3 the price of this one. And while it did the job, it felt and looked cheap and was extremely stiff. It was also a bit short.This Gator Frameworks 3000 remedies all of that. It looks great, operates almost effortlessly and smoothly. And if you are upgrading to a mic that needs an XLR cable like I did, it includes a nice and long XLR cable, saving you about $20. It's a great value even without the cable, this makes it a no-brainer.The cable runs through the inside of the boom arm. This makes for a nice clean look. But, as far as I can tell, to change out the cable you'd have to run a naked cable through a small hole in the bottom, disassemble the stand to run the cable through (not too difficult) and then solder/crimp/however-you-attach-an-XLR-connector. I show a pic of the only spot I found that would require the connector to be attached after assembling. I suppose you could Dremel the top of that hole off and you'd be able to run your cable with the connectors attached. Maybe. (Hole close up shown in pic.)All this cable talk leads me to the one little gripe I have about this unit. The whole unit is black. So why, oh why, did we have to use a silver XLR connector on this cable? The reason it bothers me is that when on video if I have the mic in real close, that silver connector jumps out and draws attention. Without it the whole unit would just blend in and be much less noticeable. Tiny gripe, I know. I'll be painting the outside of the connector and my trauma will soon be forgotten.*** Note about the desk mount: I'm using the desk mount from my old boom arm, the pins are the same size. The mounts that come with this unit are awesome though! Very robust. It comes with one that can be screwed to the desk top — I might end up using that one. The other one is a really solid desk clamp, it just won't fit where I have my unit located, in a small crack between the desk and a desk extension I have my phone on.

Honestly, before I purchased this arm, I couldn’t justify spending over 100 dollars on a microphone arm. It just seemed ridiculous quite frankly and I figured this was something I could get by on by using cheaper arms. But after going through a couple of cheap setups that were simply either poorly designed or would lose strength to hold up the microphone and would collapse after short use. I figured I might as well invest in a “good arm”. So naturally I looked up what Joe Rogan uses in the new studio and this is what came up. As soon as I took it out of the package, I could tell it was built different from the rest and was far sturdier and heavier. The installation was very easy as well. As soon as I started to adjust it with my microphone, I realized I should have just bought this right out of the gate. I probably spent just as much money on the cheaper ones if I added them all up. No matter what position I wanted the mic at, it held up perfectly, even at positions where the arm was fully extended out(where my other arms usually collapsed). I even left it in a somewhat “taxing” position for a week and it still held the mic right where I left it last. To add to it, it has a built in XLR cable. Call me a newbie but I always wondered how the major podcasts didn’t have cables wrapping around the podcast arms like I always had... that’s because the cable is built in(of course). So in addition to its sturdiness, it makes your setup look more clean with the built in cable and saves you from having to buy an extra cable. All in all, I love it. If you are in the same boat as I was, this is money well spent. Great product!

Extremely durable and great for your mic home setup. I installed this during COVID and have been using it ever since. I run a Rode Podcaster mic through this arm connecting it from a Cloudlifter and it’s lasted me 4 years and counting.

I bought this mic arm in January of 2022, and I've now used this mic arm on two different desks.Overall, this is an easy desk upgrade that will suit most people. The XLR cable is built in and the stand itself is highly adjustable vertically. This has been my daily stand for Discord calls and occasional idea recording for music.My main gripes come down to three things:- The desk clamp has been terrible for regular adjustments. I regularly move my mic up and out of the way when not in use, and on both desks I've used the clamp has slid off. If you don't plan on moving your mic too much in highly contrasting positions, this won't be a problem as it's an otherwise sturdy mic arm.- The disk that prevents a mic clip from screwing too far/too little is really good at not moving, and you definitely want that. However, if you change the position of the mic a lot, this will make minor adjustments to the angle of the mic difficult, and sometimes is a hassle.- This is more of an issue with repairability, but if the xlr stops functioning correctly, all solutions will be ugly. You'll either have to learn how to wire an xlr so you can snip one end of a cable to thread it through, or you'll have an external cable strapped to the arm and decide how to deal with the attached cable. I wouldn't be surprised if some people throw away the entire mic arm, and that's a real waste of money and parts.Overall though, this is a decent choice if you're looking to have a more reputable brand for a mic arm.