Does anyone leave the mics in the stands at night?

When i want to leave the mics up I put pillow cases over them to minimize the dust

I read this a few minutes ago and have just finished wandering guiltily around my studio putting away microphones. 

So...uh...yeah, I totally put them away. Starting tonight.

Dean

Rarely ever put them away. Always working. Sometimes I cover them, mostly not. If I go out of town I put them away.

If you put the room where the mics are into total darkness and turned on a bright spotlight and looked at what was floating around in the room in the light beam you would be pretty surprised.

The dynamic mics are covered by a windscreen ,that is really cheap,
I´m lazy in that,don´t put them away.But the condenser mics I put away every night.
pragi 

I'm a bad boy.... I leave mine out all the time... including my 1992 AKG C414.  Shame on me.  I need to start putting them away.

I would think that pillow cases would have their own dust from the fabric that would get into the mics.  I don't use pillow cases. 

IF I leave my mics out (which is not often) I put a plastic sandwich bag or ziploc bag over them.  no dust should be able to get thru those, even with the bottom open, at least not for normal conditions.

but most of the time I put them away.

Im with the ZipLock bag crew.

I keep the area at 40% Relative Humidity so moisture isnt an issue either unless the place floods, then thats an insurance issue  

I never take 'em down unless they are going to live shows with me

Lynn


I'm fortunate to have a dedicated room for my studio, and I leave my mics up all the time.   I put a zip lock baggy over my mics to keep the dust away.

Yep. The big thick freezer bag ones. That way they fit well past the shock-mounts and past the bottom of the mic.


Mike

Way back when someone suggested using a disposable plastic shower cap. Works awesome for this - the elastic allows a tighter seal around the base than a zip lock bag and they are cheap. I've left condensers set up for weeks at a time when covered up when not in use.

sharke


The dust that settles here in New York is atrocious...any large city in fact. I run an air cleaner all the time, it's a pretty kick-ass one (IQ Air) and has 3 stages of filtration in it. I add an extra coarse dust pad to the bottom of the chain, and it's incredible what that picks up in the space of a week. I cannot help but think that if it wasn't stuck to this pad, it would be in my lungs, in my computer, in my mic and everything else. 

You know you are a true New Yorker when you blow your nose and the snot is black.

Dang, I haven't shut off my computer in 3 years and havent ever put away a mic, despite having one of those nice lunch box carrying cases for them.  I'm a bad mic daddy

AT

sharke


The dust that settles here in New York is atrocious...any large city in fact. I run an air cleaner all the time, it's a pretty kick-ass one (IQ Air) and has 3 stages of filtration in it. I add an extra coarse dust pad to the bottom of the chain, and it's incredible what that picks up in the space of a week. I cannot help but think that if it wasn't stuck to this pad, it would be in my lungs, in my computer, in my mic and everything else. 

You know you are a true New Yorker when you blow your nose and the snot is black.

You would think that, but surprisingly enough my snot sparkles. Same goes for my fingernails. 

Dedicated room so I just cover them when not in use,
Roy

Something to think about for those who are constantly putting their mic's away. You can only drop something you have in your hand. Every time you pull it from the mount, remove the cable start walking with it in your hand you are sending the odds that you will drop it into the "it could happen" territory. The cable connections on my 414 TL II's is very snug and I approach them with extreme caution every time I set them up. I always handle my microphones with extreme care but I try not to handle them at all. 

As for covering mic's, I used to do that but I had a couple occasions of leaving the studio and returning the next day to resume the previous evening's work only to discover I'd left the cloth bag on the mic for the first 30 minutes of the day. I'd get up to check something in the iso room and discover the bag is still on the mic.

All the microphones I've examined seemed to have some kind of fine cloth on the inside of the windscreen. I always figured that would keep out most of the particles.

Don't get me wrong, I do believe in taking care of my gear. I know there is dust all about. I try to minimize my handling of most of my mic's. I tend to use the same mic in the same applications often so many are always in the same stand and they always travel together. The only ones I move about more frequently are the LDC's.

My cables are meticulously coiled and hang on hangers in my main room. I keep a few specialized short cables in the iso room. I regularly refresh my cable layouts for continuing setups as I hate them to look all tangled. I use little doubles sided velcro strips to wrap them into little looms to keep them neat. I hate to leave a cable running across the middle of the room over night but I have to sometimes. I would love to have multiple panels in my room so I could keep the middle of the floor clear as much as possible. When I must leave a mic set in the middle of the room over night I will wind the cables from the panel to the stand (therefore not handling or moving the mic).

Cheers, William