Between our unhealthy obsession for Guitar Hero and Rock Band games and the need for equipment for the LanOC events we have a few too many guitars lying around. Because of this we began to have a nest of guitars and wires. Considering the popularity of the games I'm sure we are not the only one with this problem. Because of this there have been a variety of company and people who have many creative ideas on how to deal with this problem. A couple of guys in Texas had our same problem and designed a stand to hold 4 guitars and one microphone. After "selling like hotcakes" on Ebay they decided to step it up with a new website and some additional help, and that's how Dude thing Creations came about. Today I will be taking a closer look at their Gaming Guitar Stand. This will hopefully help clean up the mess in our living room.
Review Sample Provided by: Dudethingcreations
Review by: Wes
Pictures by: Wes
Specifications
| Materials | birch plywood for the flat parts and pine for the center post |
| What can it hold | 4 Guitar Hero/Rock Band Guitars and one microphone, For an additional fee of $3 each you can add slots for up to 3 more microphones |
Packaging
The guitar stand was manufactured by Dudethingcreations. They are hand made in their garage, so of course it wasn't packaged in any high end blister packaging or anything. It showed up at my house requiring assembly packed in a large cardboard box. They kept everything safe by using newspaper, and it did a good job of that. The newspaper did make it a little hard to find all of the parts but I managed to find everything. Overall the packaging was what I expected, but I think that their next step should be maybe getting boxes made specifically for the guitar stand if they want to market them for sale in stores in the future (although I'm sure they can do great with just the website and ebay).
Setup
In order to put the guitar stand to use it's required that you put it together. Unfortunately you can't hang a guitar or microphone on a pile of parts. The good side is that Dudethingcreations provided you all of the screws and parts needed; you only need a screwdriver and a little bit of time. They did provide full instructions to help make the process as smooth as possible. Lucky for me I have a powered screwdriver or the installation may have taken a while. Performance Due to the massive amount of guitars we have laying around putting this stand to use was easy. I tried both RockBand and Guitar Hero guitars along with guitars from the PS2. None of the guitars had any problems fitting in the guitar stand. I also tried out the microphone mount with the same results. I did find the finish of the wood where the guitars mount to be a little rough. I would like to see a plastic or rubber coating in this are to protect the guitar finish for those that are super meticulous about protecting their guitars. I didn't end up using the wire hooks that were included with the stand but appreciate that they give you the option to install them. Lastly I found the table top to be a little high but a perfect place to sit your other controllers. Another option if you want to keep your view free of guitars would be to put a tablecloth over the stand, the tablecloth hides your guitars while giving your place a little style.
Overall
It's great to finally have a place to hang up my guitars and microphone. Now I need to find a way to store my drums and I will be set (dude thing creations is working on this also). I found the Dudethingcreations Guitar Stand to be well made and a very useful design. The tabletop has multiple uses and can turn a stand for holding video game controllers into a piece of furniture. It's not without faults, I didn't like the finish of the wood in the area where you hand the guitar. I understand that in order to get rid of this problem all of the way they would have to use different wood raising the cost. A cheaper fix would be a plastic or rubber coating on the area keeping it cheap and protecting the guitars. Even with that issue I would recommend the stand to anyone looking for a storage solution to anyone with more than just a few guitar controllers. 
