Review: Hercules GS414B guitar stand (#1 Guitar Stand?)

I wrote a while ago about my wonderful Hercules guitar rack. I love it to bits, and it’s perfect for the apartment, and keeping all my babies out on display, so they all get a little bit of love sometimes.

It does the aforementioned fantastically, however, when it comes to playing shows, that’s a whole other thing.

I’m not going on tour or playing Madison Square Garden, and any show I play will have a stage the size of an average dining room table. This means I don’t need or can’t have all my babies with me. I just bring two guitars for a show: my main one and a spare.

The solution

I had had a couple of Hercules stands before. But, as my tastes in guitars started leaning towards more… “exciting” shapes, the ones I had been using just wouldn’t cut it.

I still wanted the Hercules brand. You know when you trust a name so much, you find it difficult to consider others? That.

I happened upon these, and they looked to be exactly what I was looking for, so I got my order on.

First impressions and use

When I received it, I unpacked it and started having a close nosey at it. I hadn’t had a stand like this before, so it took a minute to figure out how to set it up.

Straight off, I could tell this was going to work out just fine.

In all its glory, it stands in a tripod shape, which I found to be incredibly sturdy. The other benefit of this is that it could be adjusted to take up less floor space if required. Good to know.

The other main point in terms of its construction is that the “neck” part had an adjustable height. I found this odd at first, and just yanked it up to full height all the time, but then it occurred to me: do I really need to have it as high for my Strat as I would for my bass? Not really, and in fact, it compromises the balance and sturdiness to have it unnecessarily high.

I guess I’m just glad I didn’t come to the realization by way of a guitar toppling onto the floor!

The stand comes with foam on the front facing legs of its tripod, upon which your instrument will rest. It seems like a decent kind of foam too – not the kind that will be falling away in a couple of weeks.

A key feature of any Hercules stand or hanger designed to hold a single instrument is the spring action locking mechanism. When you place your instrument on the hanging section, it moves down about a quarter of an inch, and two piece move in front of the neck of your instrument.

Will it save your instrument if somebody knocks the stand over completely? Don’t be silly. But say, for example, you had to move your guitar around the stage, out of the way of another musician’s gear. It’s a subtle feature that will give you a little bit more comfort and security in doing so quickly.

Conclusion

I’ve had my Hercules G414B for a while now. I’m so pleased with it I bought a second one!

It really is just everything I need for a gigging guitar stand. It holds regular acoustic-shaped guitars like my Hummingbird…

It also holds my pointy baby…

And it comfortably holds my bass guitar, and that’s shaped like an axe!

I’ve brought them to plenty of gigs, and they’ve yet to let me down. It’ll be difficult to find a stand as sturdy and versatile as this.