Best guitar strap locks 2023: The finest fasteners from Schaller, Loxx, Jim Dunlop and more

Quick list

D'Addario strap with Schaller strap locks on a Gibson guitar case

(Image credit: Future)

1. Product list
2. Buying advice
3. How we choose products

This is a little unorthodox, as I know you’re raring to get into some serious discussion about the best guitar strap locks, but I’d like to tell you a story first. When I was 14, I bought myself my first nice guitar – an ebony and gold Aria PE. I’d been saving money from birthdays and odd jobs for what felt like an eternity to get something that felt and sounded great.  

When I got my new guitar home, I spent the whole night playing it, standing in front of the mirror with it and walking around the house with it hanging off my bare chest – all the time feeling like the coolest mofo around. 

It was during one of these little trots that disaster struck. My strap came undone at the button on the butt, and my most prized possession suddenly and dramatically came crashing down onto a tiled floor.

Though I was quick to salvage it, my beautiful PE was marked for life – a huge, garish chunk taken out near its input, and about half a dozen light scratches all over the body. Not only that, it never sounded the same again. I know people might call that out as BS and probably just in my head, but as far as I could tell it just didn’t; I was gutted. 

Anyway, the moral of the story is that I was an idiot – I didn’t have strap locks. I actually didn’t even know that strap locks existed at this point. You, on the other hand, are obviously smarter than I was and want to invest in some good strap locks. Smart move, and this is the guide for you. They’re important – and you don’t want to learn how important first-hand. Trust me on this. 

You can get straight into our selection below and there's some buying advice further down the page to help you narrow down your choices. 

Best guitar strap locks: Product guide

Best guitar strap locks: Buying advice

Gibson SG and Leather guitar strap on a wooden floor

(Image credit: Future)

How do guitar strap locks work?

As you’ve probably guessed by now, guitar strap locks are designed to attach a guitar strap to a guitar in a more secure fashion than standard strap buttons.

How they work depends on the type you go for. Most will be fixed through your strap like the classic Schaller S-Locks or the Jim Dunlop StrapLok Strap Retainers Dual Design, and will require you to change out your existing buttons with the locking system’s buttons. But there are easy-fix options, such as the Fender Strap Blocks and the D'Addario Dual-Lock Strap Locks, which go over the top of your strap and button so that you can keep everything as is. 

How to choose the best strap locks for you

You can trust Guitar World Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing guitar products so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test.

The main things to consider when buying strap locks are how secure you’ll need them to be – will you be thrashing around a lot or sitting down most of the time? – and how much work you want to do when attaching them. Depending on your current setup, you may need to re-drill the screw holes to fit the new buttons. With most types of strap lock, though, it should be as simple as removing your current buttons and replacing them with the strap-lock-compatible ones. Just double-check the gauge of the screws against each other before conducting any work, to ensure that you don't end up damaging your guitar by trying to force thicker or longer screws into place. 

Other things to consider are the profile of the systems and the type of release you want. Some systems end up being quite long after you’ve put all the parts together. If you want something more compact, then the D'Addario PW-SLS-02 Universal Strap Locks and the Loxx Strap Lock Set for Electric Guitar & Bass are probably your best bets. 

The last thing to think about is the strap locks’ appearance. Most types come in a range of different finishes and colors, so you should be able to find something that complements your hardware.

How we choose the best strap locks for this guide

Here at Guitar World, we are experts in our field, with many years of playing and product testing between us. We live and breathe everything guitar related, and we draw on this knowledge and experience of using products in live, recording and rehearsal scenarios when selecting the products for our guides.

When choosing what we believe to be the best guitar strap locks available right now, we combine our hands-on experience, user reviews and testimonies and engage in lengthy discussions with our editorial colleagues to reach a consensus about the top products in any given category.

First and foremost, we are guitarists, and we want other players to find the right product for them. So we take into careful consideration everything from budget to feature set, ease of use and durability to come up with a list of what we can safely say are the best guitar strap locks on the market right now.

Read more about our rating system, how we choose the gear we feature, and exactly how we test each product.

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