Reva R1: What's the Idea?

Hi there, my name is Sam, and over the last two years I have spent my time bringing Reva Guitar Straps to life. So far, the work has been plentiful, and the resulting income scarce; which of course, raises the question of, why?

To answer this properly, I feel it is important to go back to the start of my guitar playing journey:

In 2019 as a result of my newfound love of Britpop, and a strong need to improve my chances with the ladyfolk, I began learning my first songs on a department store guitar liberated from my Grandad’s attic. The resulting racket doesn’t bear thinking about, which in hindsight, makes my parent’s decision to buy me an electric guitar and amplifier for Christmas that year rather remarkable.

The guitar in question was a Yamaha Pacifica 112V in a lovely sunburst finish. Along with this fantastic guitar (I still maintain that Yamaha guitars are hard to beat for the money), there were also some significantly less fantastic accessories thrown in too; notably a strap.

Whilst this initially enabled me to take my Noel Gallagher impersonations to new heights (I know- please don’t judge), my enthusiasm soon ran out. First of all, the fabric was so rough and plasticky that a twenty-minute practice session felt about as comfortable as tweed underpants. Most importantly though, was the fact that the imitation leather ends began to wear out after removing the strap only a handful of times- resulting in my prized possession frequently making a dive for the floor.

Fast forward a few years to 2022, and having moved to Newcastle to study Mechanical Engineering, I had joined my first band and was busily preparing for our debut gig. Despite trying multiple higher quality straps in the preceding years, I still found that there was a tendency for them to work loose, and having recently acquired a Gibson Les Paul, decided I needed to find a solution before getting up on stage.

I eventually settled on Schaller S-Locks, which did the job well, adequately safeguarding my Gibson during the gig. Again though, I started to find drawbacks with these, mainly that, in order to use the same strap on my other guitars, I would have to fit new strap buttons to each of them. Not only are the buttons expensive, but they also generally require new holes to be drilled into the guitar which was not particularly appealing to say the least!

After more research and having tried numerous alternatives, I found that the story was the same with most strap lock systems, and that even supposedly “universal” locking straps only worked with specific brands/styles of guitar.

Hence, the idea for Reva was born- A guitar strap that can do it all.

These past two years, I have worked to ensure that the R1 Locking strap, is the most simple, secure, and durable, locking system on the market, and have been delighted to hear that a lot of people seem to agree!

In answer to that initial question of why, then: Because I truly believe that this product can help make life a little easier for all of us guitarists. And also, because most straps suck!