Today, if you need a stand mount for a vintage microphone, there are numerous makers who provide just about anything you might require. Back in the late 70s, the choice was much more limited. There were virtually no mounts that would work with an M49 or M50, and they rarely came with their original Neumann yoke mounts. In fact, for a while, we had no idea what it a stock mount looked like.

After receiving several complaints from customers, I was forced into action. I took an AKG stand mount part, quite commonly seen, that actually contained the mating threads for the microphone stand. This part attaches to the normal AKG stand mounts with a screw that tightens two “wings” that compress to hold the mic in the desired position. I took a length of plumber’s tape, a flexible ribbon of metal with spaced holes in it, and bent it into the shape of a circle with two little nubs, each with a single hole, coming out of the circle. I put black heat shrink over the plumber’s tape, and screwed the stand mount piece to the two holes. Voila!

We used these for a number of years, later evolving to a copper strip inside clear heat shrink; it looked a bit more elegant. I found this picture of Jim Ed Norman and Gary Morris, showing one of the early mounts.