In Focus: Hercules stands

Music stands are one of those things that’ll come in handy when you need them most, and while a seemingly simple design, the flaws of some will have you scrambling to tighten joints and connectors to ensure they can hold up your sheet music mid show! A good music stand will have you forgetting about the shortfalls of a bad one, instead focused on your playing and performance. Better yet, you’ll need a brand that can securely hold your instrument when it’s not being played. Orchestral players, as well as guitars and bass players, rely on stands gig after gig.

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The Mixdown team recently visited the Hercules stand at Melbourne’s EduTECH conference, a showcase of some of the best products and tech for the education industry, including Hercules and no less! They had an array of their stands available, like handy tablet and phone holders for digital sheet music, content creation or videos, or for musical instruments and sheet music alike!

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Take the BS200B Plus, for example. It’s a well-built, solid music stand at its core, but the joint that secures the main shelf is solid and adjustable close to 180°, admittedly more than you’d need, but Hercules offers it regardless. It has a dual front leg for maximum stability, supported by an additional two legs, making it almost impossible for the Hercules BS200B Plus to topple over. In addition to this, the BS200B Plus has Hercules’ EZ Height Adjustment Grip, a single button to release the pressure on the main height element of the stand, easily adjusting it. Letting go of the EZ Height Adjustment Grip mechanism secures it back into place, so you can adjust it on the fly while holding your instrument in the other hand. For schools, orchestras or other users that might need to use a lot of music stands, Hercules also offer the BSC800 Music Stand Cart for storing (and rolling) multiple music stands. The BS200B Plus Stand is designed with this space-saving solution in mind.

Now we’ve established that Hercules stands can secure the sheet music required for an orchestra or educational institution, what about the instruments themselves? Hercules offer a huge range of stands for instruments of all types, but let’s focus on brass for a moment. An orchestra, be it at a school or at a top international level, has a huge array of brass instruments at their disposal, that all need to be stored or stowed away when not being played, be it between parts or on breaks from rehearsal. Hercules has a growing range of stands, beginning with their Travlite range, built from especially lightweight materials and designed to fold-up to be a fraction of their size for travel, while retaining structural integrity.

Extending beyond the Travlite range are more robust stands for larger brass instruments of all kinds, even extending to more obscure horns like sousaphones (sorry sousaphone players!) You can rest assured not only that Hercules has the stand to suit your instrument, but that it’ll be secured, ready and primed to perform.

The beauty of Hercules stands is their ingenuity. While obviously robust and ready to be relied on gig after gig, simple additions like Hercules’ EZ-lock systems, spare parts being available if something does go awry and end-users being at the forefront of the mind of their designers. Hercules stands are a must-have for performers of all disciplines, none more so than orchestral players of woodwind, brass or string instruments, relying on both instrument stands and music stands to keep up with complicated arrangements, and the last thing you need is a music stand that can’t keep up with you. Live performance is full of variables, and Hercules help eliminate a handful of these.

Hercules EZ-lock systems extend beyond music stands and instruments stands that make them a no-brainer for brass and woodwind players, including the same tech in their huge range of guitar and keyboard stands, as well as more technical utility stands like speakers and tablet and phone stands.

Depending on your preference, or simply your needs, Hercules offer either single guitar stands, 3-5 guitar racks, with additional Hercules yokes available to convert a 5 rack into a 7 or more rack, depending on the size of your guitars! Their wall hangers are employed in music stores across the globe, and make them a great solution for a guitar collector, or to safely and securely store guitars and basses for music education at a school, for example.

The X and Z-style keyboard stands are robust and built to last, while having modular, additional tiers available if you need them. The Z-stands, for example in the KS410B, employ Hercules’ AutoLock system so you can safely, securely and easily fine tune the stand to ensure it feels good to play! Now that your keys are secure, you’ll need somewhere to park that keister, and Hercules has you covered there too with benches like the KB200B Keyboard Bench. The KB200B has an EZ Height adjustment lever with 4 height settings, a Micro Adjuster for fine tuning height settings and adjustable, robust rubber feet.

A range of secure, clip-on phone and tablet holders attach to mic stands, while Hercules also produce speaker stands for PA speakers. All of these are built with Hercules’ robust and feature heavy ethos in mind.

Hercules have something for every player, as well as storage solutions for institutions that need a lot of stands, or need to store a whole lot of guitars and basses. A little ingenuity goes a long way, their designs taking the shortfalls of other designs and products, elevating them and doing so in a sleek, robust way that makes them adjustable in the middle of a performance, without having to take a hand off your instrument, all the while securely staying put where and when you need them.

The BS200B Plus is a robust stand with Hercules’ EZ Lock design, and you can store and move multiple stands with the BSC800 Music Stand Cart. Orchestral instruments, such as brass and woodwind can be set aside and securely stored in between sessions, with a specific stand for just about every orchestral instrument you might need a Hercules stand for! Beyond orchestral solutions, Hercules also has a massive range of guitar, keys and bench solutions that’ve been relied on for years. Hercules are an innovator, constantly improving on their own designs, while removing the variables from transporting, storing and securing music instruments – allowing us, as musicians, to focus on our own playing and the music in front of us, with the clarity of confidence in our tools.

For more info, visit Electric Factory.