I am a coward

You wanna piece o’ me?!!

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Which is the unpopular option. The head screws and washers or the elliptical end pins?

The head screws

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I guess because the strap essentially becomes a permanent feature. But that wouldn’t bother me too much because a) I hate fiddling around changing straps over and b) I have about 1% of the basses that @Al1885 has (three) so I don’t need too many straps to avoid having to switch them over!

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Schaller locks for the win! Have on all my axes.

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I am kind of the opposite, I have one really good strap I like and three instruments. So, Schallers are perfect for me.

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I’m lazy, I like having a strap on each bass so I can pick it up, plug in, and make music history :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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This is one of the reason I try not to have a favorite strap lock that I can’t live without. It would most likely being more expensive and multiply that by half the basses I’d gig with would already buy a brand new American Fender, :joy:

Luckily I usually bring either my MusicMan or Fender their strap lock share the same design. On the other hand all of my custom basses came with Schaller S-lock, while it’s not my favorite at least I don’t have to deal with too many systems.

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This is the way. I put a stripe w/sharpie marker on drill bit to indicate length I want to drill in. No issues whatsoever.

After my Sterling dropping on the floor… I bought some rubber stoppers on Amazon.

Not entirely happy… they still fall… but at least now you notice that as a warning.

I do need to find something better… :smiley:

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If you use painters tape it’s easier to see when you’re drilling.

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your feelings are totally valid.

I, on the other hand, am a total opposite. I like working on my basses a lot. from setups, mods, drilling, soldering, widening pick up and control cavities with a chisel and hammer…you name it. i’ve messed up quite a number of times too and sometimes you’ll find scars on my instruments. i call those learning experiences lol. for some reason, i find myself modding my basses a lot before i can truly call them mine.

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I’m of the same mind as you!
I put strap locks on my bass, and the screws for my strap buttons were larger than the new screws for the locks.
I was terrified.

So my friend helped me shove a bunch of toothpick bits in there.

Still working today!

That’s probably as bad a job as you can do, and it still worked, so with this helpful gem of a story + all the actually useful and practical info from @Barney and others, I think you got this.

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I’ve done the same and now I have small fortune invested in Levy’s straps. So many that they should probably send me an invitation to their company Christmas Party. :rofl:

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Quick highjack because I am also a coward and didn’t want to risk a learning to setup my bass.

My Sterling Ray4 was having fretting issues after being setup in a shop twice(only paid once)… they didn’t solve decent low action and no fretting.

Kept blaming on bass being cheap(not a brand they sell - represent).

I got pissed and looked for a proper one… expensive… 90€.

The sound the bass makes is completely different from what it has ever done.

So yeah… quality pays off!

He also said he would teach me basics to do ā€œon the roadā€. :slight_smile:

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I get being a coward but learning basic maintenance like setups will really pay dividends over time :slight_smile:

Setting up the instrument is not a one time thing. You may find you need to adjust it pretty often over time. I have to do a minimum of four per year on my instruments as the humidity and temperature changes here, and that’s even with heat pumps/aircons going :slight_smile:

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Yeah… that’s exactly why I need to learn to do my own sh1t… and eventually go there once a year for a proper tune up. :slight_smile:

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Yeah nothing wrong with splurging cash on a pro from time to time, didn’t mean to imply that :slight_smile:

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Didn’t take it that way!
I just agreed with you! :slight_smile:

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Possibly the 2nd or 3rd thing I learned about bass earlier this year when I picked it up. We can get some crazy temp swings in Colorado (60+ degrees over 48 hours type of stuff) so I make a point to check my truss rod pretty regularly.

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