Does anyone have any experience with any of the (few) harness-type straps on the market at the moment?
I'm aware of three main ones:
Unfortunately, there is very little on the internet about them in general, and almost nothing about the second two!
I suffer badly from shoulder, neck and upper back pain when playing - part of this is down to my 11lb+ Telecaster, which I'd really rather not give up playing, so I'm looking into ways to support it across both shoulders..
The Mundo harness looks to me to be the best bet as it won't twist/pull the guitar at a strange angle - but I'm not entirely convinced by their suction cup attachment mechanism; and at £55, it's quite pricey to try out if it's rubbish!
Any thoughts/experiences?
Comments
*quick Google*
Ah, you may have already seen this, as it's on the Dare Strap's website:
"For any guitar players out there I’d recommend it. I was watching Danny Bryant and thinking... he’s young and I see me in him at that age and he can’t imagine that some day he’ll hit fifty and his shoulder’s gonna go out. But when he’s doing hundreds of gigs a year like he is, it ’s gonna happen."
Or those ones that allowed Billy and Dusty to spin their furry guitars.
Seriously: If you value it, take/fetch it yourself
The Dare one is pretty cheap on amazon although looking at it and reading the reviews it feels cheap too.
Wearing a (suit type) jacket helps a bit too, very common amongst ageing rockers ( and helps hide the gut too). Goes to wardrobe... :-?
I didn't buy one, but my housemate and opposite number did, so I've used it a bit..
The suction cup thing is fine - I tried swinging the guitar by it, pulling, pushing it.. It holds fine.
The strap itself certainly does the job of spreading the weight out. There are two issues that make me not hugely keen:
Balance - where you attach the suction cup head hugely affects the balance of the guitar. Unfortunately, on my Jazz Bass (where I rather wanted to use it) the balance point is under the neck plate, and half way round a body contour - and you can't use the suction head there, because it needs to be on the flat..
Angle - the strap tends to pull the guitar entirely flat (parallel) to the body - whereas I tend to prefer my guitars slightly on an angle, close to my body at the bridge end, further away at the neck end. Pretty sure this is something that I could adjust to - also, i think using the extra suction tethers, you can modify this a bit..
All in all, not a bad product, certainly does the main job of reducing weight on the shoulders. Main reason I'm not using one myself is that I've bought an ultralight Parker Fly, which appeases the shoulder somewhat, and I now use Comfort Strapps on my basses, which just about make it okay. I've also taken up pilates, and modified the way I do rehearsals, so it's all come together to mean that 90% of the time, I don't have an issue!