Cremacaffè Stands and Dust Cover Review

In a world mostly made of mass-produced items, it’s refreshing to find small, boutique companies, that put sustainability, quality design and ergonomics at the top of their priority list. One of them is Cremacaffè, the brainchild of Andrea Milana and Elisa Andretti.

Lately, I have been testing some their “classic” KOSMO and SPIKE XL wooden stands, as well their more recent, quirky dust covers (made with repurposed X-Ray sheets).

Cremacaffè products are clearly a work of love. The wooden stands come in a charming soft fabric bag, and from the very first look and whiff, you know you’re going to love them.

KOSMO is a quite unique 2-in-1 stand (you get two 15° stands which can be used in line, e.g. to hold a keyboard or 2 synths, or on top of each other, at 30°). KOSMO was also recently updated: it retained all the original features and added a sturdier support and more stability for large devices, cable management and one more operating angle (by turning one stand in vertical position, you will get a 90° angle, ideal for tablets).

I’m using KOSMO for my MacBook Air, as well as for some of my desktop synth modules (here below with the IK Multimedia UNO Synth).

 

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I love the fact KOSMO is so versatile – when I need to have my laptop at eye-level I put the two stands on top of each other, otherwise, I split them and use them for different purposes (two synths, laptop + synth, etc.).

SPIKE XL is the biggest stand of the Cremacaffè family. Like its smaller brother (named simply SPIKE), SPIKE XL offers you two different playing angles, 30° and 60°, by simply rotating your stand upside down.

I’m using SPIKE XL for my Vermona PERfourMER MKII (a pretty heavy analog beast!). I was actually surprised to find this synth on the SPIKE XL compatibility chart and I’m very impressed by the outcome. Raising the synth by 30°, the SPIKE XL stand made a huge improvement in terms of ergonomics/usability.

Last but not least, I also got a couple of dust covers, for my OP-1 and Digitakt. At first, I thought these were weird – I would have never thought you could use repurposed X-Ray sheets – but I love the idea of upcycling materials which would otherwise go to landfill.

The covers are pretty easy to assemble and do their job just fine. Note: as you can see from the pictures, for devices like the Digitakt, these accessories don’t cover the whole surface of the instrument. Not a big deal though, the lower part of the instrument doesn’t really need any cover.
Also worth knowing: as reported on the product page, these covers are quite resistant but they don’t prevent hit damage.

Browse the stands and all the other inspiring items (they have some cool keyrings too!) in the Cremacaffè webshop. Prices are not necessarily cheap, but you will be rewarded with a quality product – locally produced with natural or repurposed materials – that oozes creativity and will possibly make you feel better!

At ANR we’ve been actually following Cremacaffè’s work for some years already, and I took this opportunity to ask Andrea and Elisa a few questions about their path in the world of creative sustainability. Take a few extra minutes to check out our interview with Cremacaffè…