I’ve snapped many a string on the guitar, but never on the bass. I imagine that if you play a lot of slap bass (which I don’t,) it’s possible to break at least the G string. Has this ever happened to you? Did it scare the pants off of you when it snapped?
Plenty.
Nope. Typically the string just goes slack. The winding holds it together.
No, I’ve never broken a bass string in 38 years of playing. If it were to happen, I can’t predict whether it’d just go “pfft” and lose tension, or go “snap” and sever a limb. I really don’t want to find out!
ETA: Oh, I see now that we were simulposting, that it just loses tension.
Here’s a guy breaking a bass sting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0pU2WZJ6yA
Victor Wooten breaks one just before 3:00: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tg4okrbYVE
I’ve broken a few strings over the years. I don’t play slap style, but I do use a fairly aggressive fingerstyle. In some cases, I think the strings that broke were simply faulty in one way or another. I had one set where I broke three of the strings within a week of installing them on my bass. Normally, though, broken bass strings are very few and far between. I’ve been playing for 22 years, and aside from that one bad set, I think I’ve broken maybe three strings.
Wow, that is a hell of a solo. What instrument is that guy in the weird hat playing? I notice the song is called “Sinister Minister” - I wonder if the line “A very sinister minister kind of guy” in Backwoods by RHCP is a reference to that song.
I’m guessing it is his brother playing the Drumitar, you have to hand it to Wooten to keep playing and doing the improv after that string break, I’ve seen the video before. I play a lot of slap bass and I’ve broken one or two strings in the 5 years I’ve been playing, it usually just goes limp. Once I was messing around on a friend’s electric guitar and not only did one of the strings break but it drew blood!
Been playing about 15 years, I slap a little, aggressively fingerpick at times, strum, and use a pick.
Never had a string break, ever. I use really light strings, and I’ve been known to boil old strings instead of buying new ones. My old bandmate had a Bronco bass, short scale, with strings that appeared to be rusted. You could play the hell out of them and they never broke, either.
Actually, I’ve only ever broken a string on an acoustic, never on an electric, either.
I had a bass player named Pete who went through an insane amount of bass strings. He’d break, on average, one a week. He was a hell of a bass player, at one point he got a full ride scholarship to UNM on string bass. Until he got kicked out for starting a dorm on fire. He also happened to be a bit of a madman*.
He played using his fingers and I have never seen anyone thump the strings as hard as he did. He was an outstanding player.
Oddly, he ended up as a kindgergarden teacher.
Slee
*He was a bit crazy, but always in fun. Never hurt anyone. The ‘dorm fire’ was him lighting a bit of lighter fluid on fire.
Right. BTW, I’ve broken strings while playing a walking bass line on my fretless. Of course, a lot of popping–or worse yet, letting some inexperienced dumbass borrow your bass and try to pop–increases the probability of a broken string.
I don’t think I ever broke a string. For people who do often, I’ve been told it can be caused by a burr or sharp edge on the bridge, nut or mabye a fret.
I also used to boil strings. At some point I read some warning about not using the same pot to cook food. Is there any truth to that? You’ve mostly got stainless steel, and nickel, I don’t know if there’s anything else. They make pots out of stainless steel so that should be fine. Could the nickel be toxic somehow? I’m doubtful that there was any basis in fact, I figured it was just something someone made up and then it got passed around.
Way back when, I saw the Jazz Crusaders play live. They were awesome. The bass player (whose name escapes me at the moment) broke 3 strings in one set. Yeah, he was popping strings like crazy.
Once, but it was not on my bass, which has had the same strings since the Carter administration. (I almost never play that POS.) It was a roommate’s bass. Picked it up, played one note – softly – and the G-string broke. Roommate blamed me for it and demanded that I buy him another. I tried to explain how these things happen, and it was probably ready to go anyway, and since he popped it all the time it was his fault, but he was impervious to logic.
Please enlighten those of us who do not know-- what does boiling the strings do for them? I’m sure it cleans them but does it also somehow improve their tensile strength? I’ve never heard of anyone doing this before reading this thread.
It has nothing at all to do with tensile strength, or whether the strings break. It just cleans them so they sound brighter and livelier, more like new.
Edit to expand: the other poster just mentioned boiling strings because it means he kept his for a long time, instead of getting new ones, and they still didn’t break on him.
Bass players are notoriously cheap. And because we don’t break strings often, we have found a way to extend their lives for even longer.
Every bass player I’ve ever known is somewhat suspicious of buying new gear - a strap, an effects box, strings.
I’ve broken a few strings in my time. They pretty much just go limp, and may unwind a bit. It takes me about fifteen minutes and a pair of pliers to replace a bass string. In 1998, I saw Mike Watt break a string while he was performing his Contemplating the Engine Room rock opera. He managed to replace the string without stopping the song! He got a standing ovation for it.
Let’s go over that one more time for those of you who may have missed the real impact of the event.
Mike Watt, legendary bassist for the Minutemen and fIREHOSE who is currently a member of The Stooges, broke a bass string. He replaced the string while still playing.
And singing.
The opera.
Which he wrote.
I’ve never broken a string but the bridge collapsed on my upright while I was playing a festival in Michigan. It was weird being on stage with my inferior luthier skills trying to put the sumbitch back together while all of the people that had been watching us slowly lost interest and walked away.
As far as the boiling goes, I pay $150+ for my strings. I’ll do just about anything to avoid getting new strings.
Man, that Drumitar looks like something straight out of the Cantina scene in Star Wars.