wrist/shoulder/bass angle conection (not paranoid!)

[heavyfunkmachin]

a few days ago i was told here, in the technique forum actually, that tha pain i was getting in my left wrist wasnt good at all so i started to wonder how could i elude pain...

the thing is that the pain i was feeling in the outher side of the left wrist (under the pinky) was caused form trying to strech too much the hand in a weird angle of the wrist (caused by jaco´s false harmonic 2+6 in portrait, but thats a diferent story), so i found out that this "extreme" hand position was caused by having the neck too horizontal, and that if i angled it a bit more (45 degres is actually great) i could easylly play what used to be a strugle (i guess thats why stand ups are played the way they are...) but then my bass, a jazz bass, was too neck heavy to angle that way and still being able to hold it up enough.

so i figure out that if the strap button near the bridge side of the bass was located a bit up, like 4 or 5 fingers from the original one, the balance of the bass would change allowing me to angle it more.

i did a lot of thinking about if i sould do it, trying to figure out what would be best, pushing my fisical boundaries further or changing the bass setup (most people did ok with the factory position of the straps...) but i end up guessing that the strap button positions would probably be inherit of guitar ones, instead of finding out the best spot to place them.

so i finally did it, and its great, i just easylly do things that used to be hard... the only bad side of it is that now i can´t "lock" the cable trough the strap because it would be over the bridge/strings... i wight have to work that out now...

so, that´s my story, if someone think i am wrong, please let me know, its not to late to go back to the original setup (i can live with an extra hole in the bass body...) and if someone find this usefull it would be like giving back something to where i´ve taken so much...

sorry for the spelling... im spanish. i would thank any feedback...

[_j_]

I did this a while ago too.. makes everything a lot easier to reach.

[heavyfunkmachin]

i realised that this is the way clasical guitar people have been playing since ever, and like a zillion years of playing just can be wrong...

[Christopher]

It's actually a recommended "fix".

Some basses, such as the Pedulla Rapture, come with the bottom strap button in that location.

[The Clap]

I was thinking of relocating my strap button. For an MIM J bass, does anyone have an optimum distance to move it offhand?

[heavyfunkmachin]

mine was a mim jazz bass, i´ll tell you my case aqnd leave it up to you

first, dont expect a radical diference, its not gonna go vertical like a standup, its just gonna "rebalance" taking some stress of my left arm in my case. if you realise that the balance of the bass is not gonna change you´ll have to choose from your range of options, the extreme would be with the plate pointing down straight down, 3 pots in line...
that would happen if you only supported the weight of the bass in the upper strap button, so form there to the "stock" balance its up to you.

i first place it like 9 centimeters (metric system rules!) up, before the body goes "wavy" to allow right arm a better acces to the strings, and not convinced with that i moved 9 centimeters up, 18 away from originbal strap... not in a straight line but following the body line, and its ok know. i also changed the upper strap to avoid risks to the inner side of the up "horn"... and i filled up the holes with toothsticks and woodglue.

by the way, you might wanna buy an extra strap lock button so you dont have to remove the original one and so you can use it to pass the cable under it if you stuck it under the strap so it doesnt cross trough the bridge...

hope it helped

[The Clap]

Very much, thank you.