Concrete & Wood Counterweighted Mic Stand

This modern, stylish mic stand can be used in any position from sitting on the floor to standing!

By using a perfectly balanced concrete counterweight, the mic stays put at any position within its range of motion without the need for mechanical stops.

Built on a wheeled base, it's easy to stow out of the way when not in use.

Unlike a store-bought metal mic stand, this unique piece can blend into your living space as piece of modern furniture!

I made this mic stand for my Blue Snowball iCE USB mic (the little tabletop stand that comes with the Snowball puts the mic at a really awkward height), but this design can be adapted for any microphone! The mic is mounted on the boom arm with a ball head, to take full advantage of the mic stand's range of motion!

Be sure to check out the full build video for more details!

Without further ado, let's get started!

(In the order of steps):

Blue Snowball iCE USB Mic - https://amzn.to/39ayWsI

5/8" male to 1/4" female ball head mount - https://amzn.to/3c5MffO

Pop filter - https://amzn.to/398gpxd

Circular Saw - https://amzn.to/3989AeZ

12" Speed Square - https://amzn.to/3c79hmB

Masking Tape - https://amzn.to/3og47Hc

Melamine panel (for building molds) - enough for four (4) x 16" x 6" pieces, four (4) 8" x 6" pieces, and one (1) 4" x 4" piece.

1/2" plywood - enough for two (2) x 12"x12" pieces

Hot glue gun + hot glue sticks - https://amzn.to/3c6pCYE

Handheld Drill/driver - https://amzn.to/3pdsOWj

Drill bit set - https://amzn.to/36zYvBS

Jigsaw - https://amzn.to/3c2dLeg

Four (4) x 3-3/4" bolts (to cast into base and secure top piece of plywood to base)
Four (4) x nuts (to fit above)

Four (4) x lock washers (to fit above)

Silicone (for sealing molds) - https://amzn.to/3p9CXDj

3" piece of threaded rod (for attaching counterweight to boom arm)

Six (6) x nuts or cast-in threaded insert to fit above

7/8" spade bit or (better yet) forstner bit - https://amzn.to/3cxYtOH

2" wood screws - https://amzn.to/399tuq4

Two (2) x rubber bands

Four (4) x 2" nails

Concrete Mix (Quikrete 5000 or similar) - https://www.quikrete.com/productlines/quikrete500...

Bucket or mixing tray - https://amzn.to/3an123k

Hammer - https://amzn.to/3tmv9k0

120 and 220 grit sandpaper - https://amzn.to/3cAffwo

Three (3) x 8-foot 1x2s

Japanese Pull Saw - https://amzn.to/3iItYqq

Clamps - https://amzn.to/36BaM98

5-minute epoxy - https://amzn.to/2KIwct5

1/4"-20 bolt or threaded rod

Keyhole saw or hacksaw (if you need to cut the head off of a 1/4-20 bolt) - https://amzn.to/36zACdJ

Four (4) x Swivel casters - https://amzn.to/3oa76B5

Sixteen (16) x 7/16" pan head screws for mounting casters - https://amzn.to/3at7pSB

Socket wrench set -https://amzn.to/2NON4j1

Wood glue - https://amzn.to/3tjVZJv

3-1/2" wood screws - https://amzn.to/39R3SgA

One (1) x 2" bolt (for holding boom arm on A-frame)

One (1) x nut (same size as above bolt)

Note: The above links are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional
cost to you, I may earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.

First things first - let's get rid of that awful little tabletop stand!

The stock stand screws onto the Blue Snowball with 5/8" threads.

To connect the mic to the boom arm, I found the PERFECT ball head on amazon that has 5/8" male threads on one end and 1/4"-20 threads on the other! (The same threads you would use for a tripod).

I also picked up a pop filter to attach to the boom arm. This cuts down on clipping (blowing out your mic) when you say "p's" and "b's" (plosives) a little too aggressively.

I did the basic design in AutoCAD. Since I wanted to use this mic in a variety of positions, the main design constraints were:

1. A range of motion that would allow the mic to be used comfortably from sitting on the floor to standing.
2. A long enough boom arm, positioned high enough, so that neither the base nor the boom arm hit my desk while I'm using the the mic stand while sitting.

Once I decided on the dimensions, I needed to figure out the required weight for the counterweight to perfectly balance the microphone, cord, ball head, pop filter and the 1x2 boom arm itself.

Enter: statics!

This math might look complicated, but all I'm really doing is adding up the weights of all of the pieces around the pivot point (in engineering jargon: the sum of the moments (force x distance) around the pivot point should be equal to zero). To get the equation down to a single unknown, I assumed the counterweight to be a 4" cube, but by a happy coincidence, this was almost exactly the size of the counterweight necessary to balance the system!

Note: if you use a different microphone, the weights may be different and your counterweight may need to be a different size to balance the boom arm.

Alright, enough math. Let's get making!

The weighted base uses two pieces of 1/2" plywood, each one 12" x 12".

These will surround the concrete on top and bottom, like the cookies in an ice cream sandwich.

I laid masking tape over the cut line before cutting each piece with my circular saw, to avoid tear-out on the top veneer of the plywood.

We also need to cut some pieces of a melamine panel, to form a mold for the weighted base and the counterweight.

For the counterweight, we will need one piece of melamine 4" x 4" to form the bottom.

One of the plywood pieces will form the bottom of the base, so we don't need a piece of melamine for that.

Since I'm using 3/4" melamine, I cut some 6" wide strips to form the sides of both the base and counterweight mold (this will give me plenty of depth to pour the concrete).

I left the strips long (16" for the base mold, and 8" for the counterweight mold), so that I could easily glue them together in a staggered fashion to build the molds. The overlong strips also provide hammering surfaces to make demolding easier!

I used one of the plywood squares as the bottom of the mold for the base. This will become integrated with the concrete.

I used hot glue to attach the melamine strips to the sides of the plywood.

Since the melamine strips are longer than the sides of the plywood, it's important to line up the first strip so it's flush with one corner (see photo). If you don't do this, the last strip won't fit.

I held each melamine strip against my speed square while the hot glue cooled to make ensure they were plumb.

Then, I sealed the inner edges of the mold with silicone. I just used my finger to squish the bead into the edge and form it into a uniform radius.

One the silicone was dry (you don't want wood chips stuck in your silicone!), I drilled four holes through the plywood bottom for the bolts.

I used a spade bit to countersink these holes, so that the bolt heads would lie flush with the bottom of the base.

Then, I hot glued the bolts into these holes. This purpose of this is not to add any strengh - rather, it will hold the bolts in position while I pour the concrete around them. I hot glued the bolts from both sides.

Finally, I drove some screws through the plywood bottom, to give the concrete some extra surface area to grab onto. In engineering lingo, these are basically shear studs!

The counterweight mold goes together the same as the mold for the base, except the bottom is a piece of 4" x 4" melamine rather than a piece of plywood.

The strips that form the sides are about 6" tall, to leave plenty of extra height for 4 inches on concrete.

One of the most challenging aspects of this project was figuring out how to attach the concrete counterweight to the boom arm.

I settled on a DIY cast-in threaded insert, made from nuts that I hot-glued together. Like the bolts in the previous step, this hot glue isn't exactly structural - it's more to hold the nuts in position while the concrete is cast around them. I made sure to cover the outside in a generous amount of hot glue to prevent any concrete from seeping inside and blocking the threads.

I hammered nails into the four corners of the counterweight mold, and used rubber bands to suspend the insert over the center of the mold during casting.

Before mixing the concrete, I taped off the top 1/2" of the bolt threads, to protect them and to know when to stop adding concrete! I also drew fill lines on the inside of the melamine molds with a Sharpie.

I added water to the concrete mix until I had an oatmeal-like consistency, being careful not to add too much. Extra water weakens concrete, but as you'll see in the next step, I was probably a litttle too careful with the water!

I used a piece of scrap wood to push the concrete into all the nooks and crannies. Tapping the sides of the mold also works really well to temporarily liquefy the concrete, allowing it to flow and form a flat surface.

I also used my jigsaw to vibrate out air bubbles, running it against the sides of the mold with the blade removed.

For the counterweight mold, I removed the threaded insert while I added concrete. Once I reached the fill line, I pushed the insert into the wet concrete and aligned it with the rubber bands, making sure the threaded rod was vertical. Tapping the sides of the mold worked really well here to coax the insert into the perfect position.

I covered the concrete with plastic, and left it to cure for two days.

The overlong sides of the mold provide a surface to hammer, to separate the melamine mold from the concrete!

I demolded both pieces, and took a look at my handiwork.

To be honest, I wasn't very happy with how the concrete turned out. There were noticeable voids in both pieces, especially near their bottoms. I think I was so stingy about adding water that I kind of shot myself in the foot. When you have such a dry mix, it's really difficult to work all of the air out of the concrete.

I sat with the subpar concrete for a while, and eventually came to accept its less-than-perfect appearance. The voids actually look kind of cool, and since the main function of these pieces is just to be heavy, the voids won't have a discernible impact on their strength. It would be a different story if this was the foundation for your house!

I gave the top edges of each piece a quick sanding with 120-grit sandpaper, just to knock off the sharp edges.

Before unscrewing the threaded rod from the counterweight, I marked the full thread depth with a sharpie. We're going to need this spot for when we embed the threaded rod in the boom arm!

The boom arm is made from a 1x2, 50" long. I cut this to length with my Japanese pull saw.

I unscrewed the threaded rod from the counterweight, and measured the distance from the sharpie mark to the exposed end.

Then, I used masking tape to mark this distance on a drill bit, which has a diameter slightly larger than the threaded rod. (Testing the fit by drilling holes in scrap wood is your friend here!)

I clamped the boom arm to my workbench, marked the center point in one end, and carefully drilled the hole for the threaded rod, making sure to keep my drill bit vertical.

Then, I coated one end of the rod in 5-minute epoxy, and embedded it in the rod.

Thought its name may tell you otherwise, 5-minute epoxy actually takes 24 hours to fully cure. I made sure to give it a full 24 hours before screwing it into the counterweight and seeing if the connection would hold!

I'll admit - this was a nail biting moment. I had no idea if the 1x2 + epoxy + threaded rod would be strong enough to hold the cube of concrete, but I was able to swing the boom arm like Thor's hammer with no creaks or cracks!

Next, I needed to embed a threaded rod in the other end of the boom arm to hold the ball joint.

However, I didn't have a 1/4"-20 threaded rod, so I used my hacksaw to cut the head off of a 1/4"-20 bolt.

I followed the same steps as above to embed this piece of rod into the other end of the boom arm.

...Base, that is. :)

I attached the swivel casters to the base, directly over the bolt holes.

The only screws I had less than 1/2" long were wood screws, so I had to add a countersinks to the casters' mounting holes. This was easy to do with the tip of a large drill bit.

Then, I flipped over the weighted base to add the top "cookie" to the ice cream sandwich.

I applied a bit of paint to the end of each bolt before carefully aligning the top piece of plywood over the base, and lowering it onto the bolts. This gave me precise locations to drill holes for the bolts.

Well, almost precise. Getting these four holes aligned ended up being a good bit of of trial and error, gradually stepping up drill bits and reaming out the holes, until I realized that I probably should've just started with a bigger hole, as these holes don't have to be snug around the bolts.

Then, I used the 7/8" spade bit to countersink the top of these holes, using masking tape to try to minimize tear-out. I say "try", because minimizing tear out is kind of a losing battle with a spade bit. I really should've splurged and bought a forstner bit here. But, you live and you learn!

Finally, I secured the top with some lock washers and nuts, and the ice cream sandwich was complete!

I drew up the two 1x2 A-frames in AutoCAD, and extracted each piece to get its dimensions.

You might notice in my AutoCAD drawing there's an extra cross piece, but I realized that this was unnecessary.

With weird angles like these, it's a lot easier to be accurate with lengths than angles, so I marked out each piece using all four side lengths.

Here are the side lengths for the A-Frame pieces:

Long piece (x4): 40-1/2" + 12" + 28-3/8" + 1-1/2"

Short piece (x2): 6 19/32" + 1-1/2" + 6 31/32" + 1-1/2"

I used my jigsaw to cut out the pieces for the A-frame. With my limited space and apartment setting, the jigsaw is really the perfect tool for this job. As long as you go slow, you can get a really clean, straight line, and it doesn’t make much more noise than a blender! It’s also pretty perfect for janky cutting setups like this one.

Once I had all six pieces cut out (three for each A-frame), I was ready for the glue up. Make sure you save the cutoffs - they are essential for providing parallel clamping surfaces!

The A-frames fit into slots in the base that I will cut in the next step, so I used a scrap piece of 1/2" plywood as a spacer between the cross piece and the bottom of each A-frame during the glue-up.

I designed the mic stand so that the A-frames slot into the top piece of plywood on the base.

I removed the top from the base, marked out the feet of the A-frames, and used my drill and jigsaw to cut out the slots.

Even though the A-frames fit snugly into these slots, I needed a way to hold them securely.

I used the 1x2 off-cuts to make mounting brackets that go in between and on each side of the A-frames. I just field measured these pieces and cut them to length with my Japanese pull saw.

I glued these pieces to the plywood while the A-frames were in place, to ensure correct positioning.

Finally, I used some 3 inch wood screws to attach the A-frames to the mounting brackets. I made sure to pre-drill countersunk holes to avoid splitting the wood, and used screws that were long enough to pass through all of the 1x2 pieces (when they're screwed in from both sides).

Finally, we're ready for the final assembly!

First, I installed the ball joint, microphone and pop filter on one end of the boom arm.

With these components installed, I balanced the boom arm on my finger to find the true balance point. I was happy to discover that this was within 1/4" from where I calculated at the beginning! (Hole location: 12-3/8" from the counterweight end of the 1x2).

I drilled a hole through the the balance point, as well as matching holes through the A-frames (Hole location: 22-1/2" up the leg of the A-frame, measured along its length).

Then, I attached the boom arm to the A-frames with a nut and bolt!

In my original design, I planned on making stops to lock the boom arm at specified heights. But even with all the math and planning, it took me until this point in the project to realize that stops were totally unnecessary!

Since the boom arm is balanced (and the A-frames provide a bit of friction), the microphone stays at whatever position you put it at! This was a super exciting epiphany, and as you can see, my girlfriend was giddy with laughter when she realized the mic stand could be moved through the full range of a side bend!

So with that earlier than expected functionality, all that was left to do was give the mic stand a quick sanding up to 220 grit!

This mic stand is probably the most useful thing I've ever built!

I use it multiple times per week to record podcasts, as well as voiceover for my videos, and it's so nice to be able to record in a huge variety of positions - including while sitting in bed and standing at my 3D printer enclosure and standing desk!

I designed the mic stand so it can be disassembled, which made it really easy to move into my new apartment! (I just moved in two days ago at the time of this writing - stay tuned for a new tiny workshop tour!).

If you make this project yourself, I would love to see your results! You can tag me on Instagram @morleykert, and be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel for all sorts of other projects!

Thanks for following along, and have a great day!