Moving Strap Buttons.

[jimbobothy]

Hi all, has anyone moved there rear central strap button to the old skool rear position (up a bit on the rear of the bass)? I've recently reaquired a 5 sting Jazzman and initially had a problem with neck dive and heard that moving the position of the rear strap button to the older position helps avoid this, any comments?

 

[Eberbachl]

I tried it once.

I found it made very little difference, and I had an extra hole in my bass.

Personally, I think there's more value in simply using a nice wide strap with a textured backing (such as suede) that won't slip.

 

[jimbobothy]

Yeah, I've got a 3.5" DSL strap with a suede inner surface. I just feel a bit too much pressure on the front side of my left shoulder and wondered if moving the strap button would change the 'centre of balance' of the bass.

Does anyone know why Warwick changed the position in the first place?

 

[gonzosc1]

hard to say, I think that the shape of the bass itself comes into play. my fortress has that big long upper horn so it picks the neck up cuz the strap button is bacicly right above the 12th fret area. where as my corvette the strap button is set back more towards the body around the 15-17th fret because of the shorter upper horn, which give a little more neck dive. now if you search,, or ask Flo he invented a little strap gizmo that might help you with neck dive.

now I do add extra rear strap buttons to all by basses except the fortress, but not to solve neck dive. just to make quick strap height adjustments without undoing the strap.
I add extra strap button about 2-3 inches above the factory button on the bass. then add extra strap button to the strap about 5 inches above the other. so my factory strap button is attached the lowest button on the strap.
then when I need to rise the bass for any reason I just grab the high strap button on the strap and attach it to the higher button on the bass for instant bass rise without disconnecting the strap at any time. bam 2 seconds and my bass position is up 5 inches

 

[TylerDurdenPSSC]

I moved my strap button about an inch up the bass side of my Corvette, and the balance changed favorably. Then I bought a nice wide ComfortStrapp, and I couldn't be happier. I say go for it, yeah you'll have an extra hole in your bass ( No ones even ever noticed mine. ) but any competant guitar tech or luthier can fix it. ( After all, you just dowel it or use sawdust + wood glue and color as needed. )

 

[james brunnning]

i used the dunlop flush mount strap locks, now i have two options for hanging the bass.and it doesn't look like its growing strap pins.

 

[Doc]

now if you search,, or ask Flo he invented a little strap gizmo that might help you with neck dive.

Seriously??? I did that, too, when I had a Thunderbird. Thought I was special...

So much for marketing my stroke of no-dive genius!

 

[Callum]

If your going to move the strap pin - i'd move it closer to the input jack. Its balances the bass better and is the more optimum position. Where is golem when you need him to explain all the technicalities of his mods?

 

[gonzosc1]

If your going to move the strap pin - i'd move it closer to the input jack. Its balances the bass better and is the more optimum position. Where is golem when you need him to explain all the technicalities of his mods?

I'd have to see that. it just sounds odd, sounds like it would cause dive on the neck to move the rear pin down to the input.

 

[Grgzilla]

If your going to move the strap pin - i'd move it closer to the input jack. Its balances the bass better and is the more optimum position. Where is golem when you need him to explain all the technicalities of his mods?

iirc Golem installed 2 extra strap pins either side if the centre line so his basses would stand up on their own,as well as being an achoring point for his string mute.His strap's attatched to the pin furthest away from the jack.
To attatch your strap closer to the jack will just make the neck dive towards the floor.

 

[mart]

I remember a long discussion about this ages ago, with golem and eberbachl particularly making some great contributions. Eventually, after an excruciating amount of searching, I found it here:

I think that thread says just about everything that needs to be said. In fact I'm thinking of adding it to the wiki page on neck-dive. Any thoughts?

 

[Lublin]

In fact I'm thinking of adding it to the wiki page on neck-dive. Any thoughts?

That would be awesome and very appreciated.

 

[Callum]

iirc Golem installed 2 extra strap pins either side if the centre line so his basses would stand up on their own,as well as being an achoring point for his string mute.His strap's attatched to the pin furthest away from the jack.
To attatch your strap closer to the jack will just make the neck dive towards the floor.

I think golem installed the rubber feet in places of extra strap pin wholes to make use of them - great idea though (golem had many of these). Anyway heres the post about moving the strap pin closer to the input jack that i was attempting to refer to:

From my basic experiments holding the strap in that place i can vouch for it - at least on both my buzzard and $$ - other shapes might be different. I am contemplating adding a second strap pin nearer the input jack on my buzzard to balance things a bit more - if/when i do this ofc i'll report back.

 

[mart]

I love my Thumb bass, but don't play any slap, so I prefer a more upright position. So I've thought about neck-dive long and hard. And I've gone through that old thread over and over again, and finally I discussed this stuff with my wife cos she knows a lot about physics - she has a degree in the subject. And the conclusion we've come to is the same as Eberbachl posted above: moving the strap button can only make a tiny difference to a Thumb's neck-dive. The only way to make a big difference like this is if you put both buttons together on the top horn!

Ok, here's a bit of the physics behind this conclusion:

If your strap can move freely over your back (i.e. you don't have a grippy suede-type strap), then your bass will tend to balance in a position where its centre of gravity is vertically below the mid point of the straight line between the two strap buttons. Now, if the centre of gravity of the Thumb bass were inbetween the two pickups, then it would balance at a nice angle like this picture:

Putting this another way, if you draw a picture of your bass in the position you'd like it to have, and draw vertical lines through the two strap buttons and the centre of gravity, then the bass will be happy in that position if the lines are equally spaced, like here:

Note how the three vertical lines through the strap buttons and the centre of gravity are all equally spaced. So if this were where the centre of gravity is on a Thumb bass, then the bass would be happy in this position.

But, the Thumb was not designed to sit this way. Its centre of gravity is actually in the middle of the 25th fret. (At least that's where it is on my NT, and I don't think this will change much from bass to bass). Which means that with the strap buttons in their usual place, if the strap can move completely freely, then your bass will tend to sit like this:

In practice, the weight on the strap always gives some friction, and that stops the bass neck-diving quite this much. But this is where the bass would go if it could.

So, because of where the centre of gravity is, if you want to move the bottom strap button to make the bass sit up as in the first picture, without using any friction from the strap, then you need the second strap button to be on the left-hand line shown in this picture:

In practice you don't need to go quite that far, because there always be some friction on the strap. But the further to the right that you move your strap button, the less neck-dive you will get, i.e., the less force there'll be pulling the neck down. In other words, if you move the button to the right then you don't need so much friction from your strap to hold the bass in place.

Florin's shoelace trick effectively moves the lower strap fixing to the point where the shoelace ties to the strap, which is much closer to the top horn:

In theory, this doesn't get rid of the neck-dive completely, but it reduces the pull so much that, in practice, the friction on the strap will hold the bass in this position.

And note that if you only move the strap button a few inches, then moving it away from the jack socket will make the neck dive worse, since that moves the centre of gravity relatively closer to the top horn button. Move the strap button closer to the jack socket and you should improve the balance. So actually, when Warwick moved the strap button to its current position, they were actually reducing the neck-dive!

Finally, what is special about the Thumb that makes it sit the way it does? Firstly, its centre of gravity is slightly further from the bottom strap button than on other basses. I haven't checked this thoroughly, but on my Streamer, Corvette and P-bass, the centre of gravity is around the end of the neck, but a tiny bit closer to the bottom strap button than on the Thumb. But I think the main difference is that the top horn of the Thumb is short, making the top button quite close to the centre of gravity. I think that's the main reason why other basses balance differently. So probably the best way to re-balance the thumb is to extend the top-horn some way.

 

[PHILIFAN313]

DO NOT i repeat, DO NOT drill a hole in your wick!! you'll regret it!! lol

 

[babebambi]

Does anyone know why Warwick changed the position in the first place?

I have ask this question numerous times, and nobody seems to even want to talk about it.

I absolutely hate the position of the button to be on the butt end of the bass.
It doesn't change the balance in any positive manner, and it always wants to poke a hole thru my gigbag.
I don't see any good reason why they did the move at all.

My little theory
it has to do with avoiding "confusion" between the the Streamer and the Spector
then they did it across the line to keep it "consistence"

 

[mart]

Does anyone know why Warwick changed the position in the first place?

I put the answer to this in the second-to-last paragraph of my post:

..... So actually, when Warwick moved the strap button to its current position, they were actually reducing the neck-dive!

It might not make a big difference, but the difference it makes is to reduce neck-dive, not to make it worse.

 

[Callum]

The easiest way i can see to extend the upper hor on a thumb would be to add a some extension to the strap lock. A piece of plastic or metal the same diameter as the strap lock and set to the required length to re-correct the center of balance. Just need to make sure its screwed in and secured correctly first though.

 

[Grgzilla]

What a bout moving the strap button behind the 12th fret?

 

[mart]

What a bout moving the strap button behind the 12th fret?

You could go further Greg - you could put it behind the 5th. After all, you don't need to play higher up the neck than that - all the notes of the scale are there on the first 4 frets, aren't they!