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How can you tell if a string is about to break

In my case I can tell when I’m 12 and my dumb friend hands me a beaten down cheapo bass and informs me I’m a bass player.

And later on I can tell when I’m stringing hundreds of guitars at work and someone punked me by setting the clutch on the drill we used for speedy winding.

Now I have a foolproof to tell when a string is about to break because my snips are in my hand and the bass is in the other hand.

If you break a bass string that’s not because of the string. Heck, I try as hard as I can to make SRV bends on my guitar and I haven’t broken a 0.009 in probably 7 years.

Best way to tell a string is about to break is to never do a setup.
 
How do they give away?

The winding gets messed up and you start seeing the core of the string. But bass strings don't do that IME. They just break.

Kudos to people who have not broken bass strings in years! I've been playing over 30 years and have broken quite a bit of them. The last one was last Wednesday at practice.
 
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