Although I couldn't say that I've ever felt that putting a mic on a stand in front of an amp was exactly a problem, as such, the Wishbone is nevertheless a bit of a problem‑solver. There's no denying that smaller performance stages, and particularly my home studio floor, are less cluttered places when I use the Wishbone instead of a conventional mic stand.
The concept is simple: a forked piece of lightweight aluminium pushes under the handle of your amp/combo and a short boom arm on a swivel joint suspends the mic in front of the speaker, leaving the floor around the amp clear of splayed-out mic stand feet, and also allowing you to reposition the amp swiftly without disturbing the mic position.
There have been a number of variants on this theme over the years, but this one just seems to execute the concept rather better than most. There would seem to be the potential for transmission of vibration from the cabinet to the mic, but in practice this doesn't seem to amount to much. Using any form of vibration‑decoupling shockmount would give you complete peace of mind in that area. The Wishbone ships with a pair of foam sleeves, mainly for adapting it to different handle sizes, but these too can provide useful decoupling if you've got room to deploy them.
The swivel joint locks positively and, importantly, looks like it should go on doing so, and the locking button is large enough that you don't feel like you're having to apply too much pressure to ensure it will stay locked. Mounting an SM57 doesn't provide much of a challenge, but can the Wishbone handle the sterner test of a large‑diaphragm condenser or a valve mic? The answer is certainly 'Yes'. There was no sag, and no loss of stability with anything that I mounted on it; it still felt perfectly solid with two mics on there (a '57 and a large-diaphragm condenser) using a stereo bar.
The standard model will fit most normal‑sized combos, but there's a narrower Wishbone for smaller‑handled amps, and one with a longer arm for mounting between the head and cabinet of a half stack. Dave Lockwood
£44.95 including VAT.$49.99.