I actually broke a string! (is this even possible?)

[bassmonkey144]

so i was playing in the Pep Band for my school last night. and usually the rythym section does some stuff on its own. We do stuff like back in black, brick house, some hendrix, beatles, james brown, ect. you know, stuff that gets the crowd dancing. anyway, we were playing "play that funky music" and i was popping away on my G string (no pun intended there) and sudddenly, it just snapped off. i think our guitarists eyes went as big as dinner plates when it happened. apparently, these strings were pretty old (but they sounded so good) and the wrapping had just gotten thin, and broke. they were Ernie Ball Hybrid Slinkys, btw. so i had to sprint down to the orchestra room (about 400 meters round trip) and get the schools jazz bass. anyway, i wanted to share this amusing story, and ask if anybody has had this happen to them.

[Alexander]

Yep - D String. Except I broke mine playing Thank You Falletin Me Be Mice Elf

Dang, I hate new strings, too...

[Naturekev]

Yep, I broke a string (the "A") for the first time ever two summers ago. I'd been playing on and off for about 17 years, steadily for about 1 1/2 to 2 years at that point. The string broke on the last note of a song, which was kinda cool, I guess . Fortunately I had a backup bass, so I swapped basses to play the last couple of songs. The bass was a Steinberger Spirit with the original factory double-ball strings. The string did something similar to yours. It didn't actually snap in half, it just suddenly unwound at one end and went limp .I think the SITs I have on it now will hold up much better.

[Westee]

A while back I broke a string the same string Three Days (three Shows) in a row. The bass just needed a setup, I took it to be tweeked, haven't broken a string sisnce.

[bassmonkey144]

yea Alexander, i hate breaking in new strings too.

[DanGouge]

I broke a D on a set that was prehaps a bit old but by no means ancient.

[Bad Brains]

Originally Posted by bassmonkey144

so i was playing in the Pep Band for my school last night. and usually the rythym section does some stuff on its own. We do stuff like back in black, brick house, some hendrix, beatles, james brown, ect. you know, stuff that gets the crowd dancing. anyway, we were playing "play that funky music" and i was popping away on my G string (no pun intended there) and sudddenly, it just snapped off. i think our guitarists eyes went as big as dinner plates when it happened. apparently, these strings were pretty old (but they sounded so good) and the wrapping had just gotten thin, and broke. they were Ernie Ball Hybrid Slinkys, btw. so i had to sprint down to the orchestra room (about 400 meters round trip) and get the schools jazz bass. anyway, i wanted to share this amusing story, and ask if anybody has had this happen to them.

Breaking strings is pretty common. But the first time I snapped a string I was excited as all hell. Made me kind of feel like a bass beast.

I actually like new strings. They have such a "tangey" sound to them at first.

[Against Will]

I used to play really hard.

I've broken:

3 E strings
2 A strings
5 D strings
2 G strings

It's annoying that the store in my town doesn't sell single strings. I have to either buy a whole new pack or drive to Swansea in the hopes that they'll have what I need.

Since then, I've improved my technique, lightened up a little and switched to flatwounds, haven't broken a string since.

[pierce]

E string on Diaddario Chromes (flats). no second bass, three songs left.

transpose, transpose, transpose

[Indi86]

i've broken two strings, on two basses, within 2 days of each other. Oh how that was fun. Oddly, both of them were g's. One was a fender set, the other a ken smith set, and they both unravelled and went limp right at the bridge.

[Whafrodamus]

I haven't broken a string in about a year.

[JimK]

I have broken the "E" while playing Country music.




Oh, yeah...forgot.
I once broke the "D" on my URB, although it was gut string with about 50 years of age on it.

[Frank Martin]

No bass strings broken in 4 years
I play moderately hard, and slap and pop a lot - it all comes down to doing it with the right technique, which is less stressful to the string, and knowing the limits. My $0,02

[Mojo-Man]

Only broke,one string in mt life.
D-string first set, no backup, long nite.
Did learn never play without a spare set of strings.

[bassmonkey144]

wow, and i thought breaking strings was uncommon....

o well, all in good fun

[Kelly Lee]

I have broken about a dozen strings over the years. All but one were GHS Boomers I hate those strings!

[a. meyer]

The first thing I remember doing with an electric bass was breaking the E string. I was trying to tune to the guitar player's E string not realizing that it was an octave higher...
Haven't broken one since. I did pull the neck off a Jazz Bass onstage once.

[Bassman_Spike]

I broke the A string on my old bass...then found out the whole machine head was dead...good excuse for a new bass

[Transverz]

I had a dream that I broke a string on stage the other night. Weird! It was like it PULLED off...not really snapped. What was really weird was that we were playing on this HUGE stage in front of hundreds of thousands, but for some weird reason in the contract, all the performers had to perform behind this wall-panel that made the performance pretty much non-visual. Yeah, I got strange dreams...

Anyway, so I'm trying to frantically get my backup bass between songs in the set while my band stalls the crowd with banter. Turns out I have to run to the car which is blocks down and I can hear my band bantering on and on hahaha. Finally i get back to stage (which seemed like 10-20 minutes) and as I'm ready to play again, I can't find my backup bass all of a sudden!

This would actually be a cool story if it was real. Though it seemed real at the time.

Sorry...I had to tell someone.


-T

[bassmonkey144]

whoa. these are some good stories. im gonna start bringin an extra set of strings with me.