Thank you Gareth, that's the idea, (except for the large stomach, I'm slim, instead.
A little example test. Stomach or not if you wear your bass and stand up the bottom edge of your bass will not touch your body..
this won't happen with basses with the straplock in the center of the body like the Yamaha trb6 or I played for long time or almost every bass on the market.
(this is probably why I noticed that)
ok I did some picture to explain my point:
Look at the angle between the bass and the line of the wall behind:
Attachment 314
or the door here (notice Clifford Brown and the Double Bass bridge in the background..)
Attachment 313
I don't have a goniometer here but this is almost 15 degrees
now see the reduced angle after the modification
Attachment 315
Now my bass feels really good on my body..
Then this is a pic of my wrist when playing on the E string with the normal Smith strap position
Attachment 316
you can also see very well that the bass is not straight vertical here, as you can notice when you wear your own Smith
Then here the more healty reduced wrist angle with the new strap position.
Attachment 317
I don't want to look assumptive with that but I've been very careful to posture problems this years after a bad wrist problem and I think this can really help someone.
than my beautiful smith feels so much better and easyer to play now..
Please don't think this is a criticism. I think the Smith is by far the best bass ever built and I just love it.
It was hard to decide to drill a new hole in my beloved bass, but the result looks very good and I'll fill the original hole with another identical Dunlop straplock..