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Stupid question

line6man

line6man

Jun 20, 2008
17,043
4,730
Close to Los Angeles, CA
#1
Pretty stupid question.

i have seen alot of pictures of old jazz basses that have what appears to be a strap button on the back of the headstock.
what is the point of this?
i know that acoustic guitars usually have the strap mounted onto the headstock, but on a jazz bass?
it seems like there is a potential for some problems with that.

1. the strap button is only mounted so far into the wood (less than a half inch), so it has the potential to rip out.

2. with the strap hooked in the way it is, it could interfere with the tuners, and maybe even change the tuning.

3. and of course, the neck could possible bend or something.
 
#4
It's not a stupid question -- I'm sure we've all wondered at some point.

It was mounted on the back of Fender headstocks between about 1961 and 1969 so that the bass could be strapped on more vertically for people who were making the transition from double bass to electric.

I've never seen it actually used though.
 
#7
Wadge said:
I have it on my recently acquired Fender CIJ '62 reissue. Its a pretty useless feature. It has been retained on this model for purposes of autenticity, together with the reverse tuners and difficult access to the truss rod.
Click to expand...

I have two MIJ '62 reissues... one has the button and one does not. Neither has reverse tuners. Seems Fender can't remember what was on a '62 :D
 
#10
Jason Brown hit it on the head, literally. It was for a more vertical positioning of the bass. If you ever see any clips or pics of late 50s - mid 60s bass players, notice that many of them played in this more vertical position. Brian Wilson of the the Beach Boys comes to mind as well as many of the British Invasion bands. Along these same lines, many acoustic guitars during this time period had no stap buttons except on the bottom of the body. Obviously for a different reason, but one that I don't know. You may have seen straps that have a tie string on the head end to fasten the strap by that means. :cool:
 
#11
Oren Hudson said:
Jason Brown hit it on the head, literally. It was for a more vertical positioning of the bass. If you ever see any clips or pics of late 50s - mid 60s bass players, notice that many of them played in this more vertical position. Brian Wilson of the the Beach Boys comes to mind as well as many of the British Invasion bands. Along these same lines, many acoustic guitars during this time period had no stap buttons except on the bottom of the body. Obviously for a different reason, but one that I don't know. You may have seen straps that have a tie string on the head end to fasten the strap by that means. :cool:
Click to expand...

Yup, they tied the strap to the headstock.

I've never seen Brian Wilson playing vertically, even in very old videos. Do you have a link?
 
#12
Sorry, no video of Brian "seanm", just from memory. I do have a cassette stored somewhere with a rare concert on it that I need to dig out sometime. I would guess that he played at maybe a 25-30 degree angle, which is fairly upright for most bass players. I know I tried to emulate it, but it was just too steep for my comfort.

As to your musing about Fender and their lack of knowledge of how they did things previously - I've found that most of the time, reissues were far from being correct, usually just somewhat close. I think that maybe the real real recent stuff is more correct from some that I've seen. My biggest issue has been with 60s reissues with no covers, no finger rest, short shaft tuning keys, and in the case of a few years of jazz basses, no oval tuning keys nor body color headstock. :cool:
 
#13
I think i read somewhere that the strap button on the back of the headstock on vintage Fenders is just an extra button, in case one of the originals gets lost.

Those kind of parts were not easy to find back in those days, so i think that's just a spare button, it's not even that firmly bolted to the headstock to be a real strap button.
 
#14
Rano Bass said:
I think i read somewhere that the strap button on the back of the headstock on vintage Fenders is just an extra button, in case one of the originals gets lost.

Those kind of parts were not easy to find back in those days, so i think that's just a spare button, it's not even that firmly bolted to the headstock to be a real strap button.
Click to expand...

that sounds like a pretty good explanation actually.
but why does it need to actually be on the bass?
i think that just including it with the bass (inside the case) would have been better, that way you wouldnt have an ugly hole in the headstock if you need to use it.
 
#15
line6man said:
why does it need to actually be on the bass?
i think that just including it with the bass (inside the case) would have been better.
Click to expand...

I think that too but... i don't know.
Why does fender make it nearly impossible to adjust the trussrod?
I think they wre just experimenting with things back then, a lot of things have changed since the introduction of 50's- 60's basses.
 

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