Cliplock vs. Polypro

For quite a few years, I went back and forth between DiMarzio Cliplock straps and Ernie Ball’s more traditional Polypro model. It really seems as if it varies according to where my main focus lies. If I’m more about practicing and recording, then I don’t want those plastic things flapping about when I’m sitting down somewhere, but as soon as I spend a bit of time rehearsing or even playing live, I realize what I really need.

In the last two years, I’ve learned the hard way what happens when you don’t take something like this seriously. When I bought my blue Stratocaster, I was in no big hurry to set it up with a Cliplock, and I couldn’t even be bothered to get the little round thingies that secure a regular strap to the lug. Well, the strap came off during a rehearsal and my precious Blue crashed right down onto my pedalboard. Nothing broke. It didn’t even go out of tune. But there is an ugly scar on the back of the body, and a three-inch gash on the back of the neck where the top coat seems to have cracked somewhat. It appears to be aligned with the “skunk stripe”, the long piece of walnut that covers where the truss rod is inserted in the factory. Luckily, my regular hand position is unorthodox enough that I don’t really feel it. But I know it’s there, and above all it’ll go on bothering me until I can get it to a luthier for some kind of fix.

The moral of the story is pretty easy to deduce. I can no longer afford not to get Cliplocks for any new guitars I might add to the collection. I immediately went online and bought two sets of end pieces, that went on Blue and the baritone as soon as I got the package in the mail. Probably I should get another, as a spare, in case something happens to one of my existing setups, or I get a new guitar – whichever comes first!

 

Review: DiMarzio ClipLock strap

The tie has always been the standard, classic gift for guys. For guitar players, the equivalent has to be the shoulder strap. It is funny in a way that I am about as uninterested in straps as I am in ties. The difference is that in the latter case, it is something that I do for the hell of it, tolerate a few hours of discomfort to look good at the annual company Christmas party. And in the former, it’s because I know what I like and what works and nothing else has ever worked equally well. So for you people out there, if you want to get me a birthday or Christmas gift, get me something other than a strap, because if it isn’t a DiMarzio ClipLock, I simply will not use it.

I’ve used DiMarzio Cliplock straps almost exclusively since the beginning of the 90s: one white but mostly black. I only stopped using them for a few years because my old one wasn’t long enough to put my Les Paul into a comfortable enough position, and went straight back as soon as DiMarzio started making them longer. In my experience, they take the strap completely out of the equation. You may still worry about breaking strings, frying a tube, having a wild and wooly party-goer bump into your mike stand, giving you a fat lip in the process. But you never have to worry about the strap coming off in the middle of a song. It’s just there, all the time, so you can concentrate on other things. I also particularly like the feel of the seatbelt-type nylon. It is slippery enough that the strap doesn’t get stuck on your shoulder, but not to the degree that it slides all over the place.

I have four complete assemblies, one for each of my electric guitars. I do know that DiMarzio supplies the end pieces separately, so you can save a few bucks by buying one complete assembly and one end piece set for every other guitar, and then switching the strap between the guitars. It wasn’t a huge expense, so I didn’t bother with that solution. I basically have to have four different lengths anyway to keep all my guitars at the same height. The straps live on the guitars constantly, even at home, which has the added advantage that the little end piece doesn’t flop around when I sit down on the couch to practice or record.

The one and only problem I’ve encountered with the Cliplock is affixing it to the guitar in the first place. The screws seem to be a little bigger than the standard strap button screws, which is all and well, but they’re also longer. On one or two of my guitars, the DiMarzio screw hit the bottom of the pre-drilled hole in the guitar, so I had to unscrew the darned thing and add a washer or two between the strap end and the guitar body before retrying.