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How can you tell if a string is about to break

#62
micguy said:
If you want an interesting thing to think about w.r.t. string breakage, consider an electric guitar. The highest strings are plain steel. Assuming the alloy and scale length are kept constant, the highest pitch you can tune any plain string to (regardless of gauge) before it breaks is constant. The Physics is simple - the linear density of the string goes up with the diameter squared. March through a couple equations, and a couple of squares and square roots, and it turns out that the tension required to bring a string up to pitch goes with the diameter squared. Twice the area mans twice the mass, and twice the tension. So, it's simply the tensile strength of the steel alloy and the scale length that determines the highest pitch you can tune to. Why don't guitars go much above high E? Because the string will snap, regardless of what gauge you use.

Another way of looking at this - the high E string on a guitar is much more likely to snap than the B, regardless of the gauges of either one.
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There is a hi g on 12 string.
 
#64
GC34 said:
Is there a way to know when a string is about to snap or do strings break unpredictably?
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I've broken a lot of bass strings in my 30+ years from High C down to Low B, and i never knew they were going to break until i went to play the note and the string was just kinda "gone" from under my finger and there was no note. They were playing fine and then gone.

That said, there could be other things wrong with your strings that don't lead immediately to breaking but will destroy the tone and feel of them, and when those things happen, you might as well replace the strings anyway.
 
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#65
FullumMusic said:
I've broken a lot of bass strings in my 30+ years from High C down to Low B, and i never knew they were going to break until i went to play the note and the string was just kinda "gone" from under my finger and there was no note. They were playing fine and then gone.

That said, there could be other things wrong with your strings that don't lead immediately to breaking but will destroy the tone and feel of them, and when those things happen, you might as well replace the strings anyway.
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Wow. When was the last time you broke a string?
 
#66
GC34 said:
There is a hi g on 12 string.
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And Robert Fripp tunes his guitars in 5ths, except that the high string (the next highest is an E) is a G, not a B (which is what the 5th would be). I said that guitars don' t get tuned much above an E. Yes, G (a minor third up) is done by some folks, but that is really pushing it. Robert can probably afford to change his G strings pretty often, and I'm sure his tech has a spare guitar close by at all times.

BTW, Robert plays Les Pauls, which are a shorter scale (thus lower tension) than a Fender - that detail helps a little bit with this.
 
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#67
GC34 said:
Wow. When was the last time you broke a string?
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Oh, probably somewhere in the 4-6 years ago range? I haven't actually broken that many strings lately. But when i was a teen and in my 20s and into my 30s, i would generally break strings before the set went dead. I play finger style but did have a fairly aggressive playing style plus some slap.

Would get a lot of "What the hell is wrong with you? Why did you stop playing?" I broke a string. "What!??!! I've never seen a bassist break a string before! Really?"

Blew everyone's minds when i broke a Low B during rehearsal, especially because the guitarist was actually primarily a bassist and didn't believe it was possible to break a low B. :laugh:

I play with a much lighter touch these days. Also, i buy better strings these days. Also, i replaced the bridge on my old Ibanez 4 string about 8 years ago and that bass has broken way less strings way less often. But my 6 string had a great bridge and i still broke strings on that too.

Back in the day? Ever month or three and i'd break a string & replace the entire set. I wouldn't put a new string on with the rest of the old strings. And then in another month or three, one of the new ones would break too. Rinse repeat. :bassist:
 
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#72
I have broken strings a total of 4 times in 45 years of bass playing, and I never had any forewarning. Jamming along and one pluck suddenly breaks the core and the wrap unravels.

It's always been really old strings. So signs of string old age, like not tuning up or intoning properly, being dull, no sustain, etc., are signs that it might break soon. In the next few months. Maybe.
 
#78
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#80
Swerve said:
Might I suggest switching to theremin.
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What a coincidence I was just thinking about those yesterday. I was talking to McCurley about the sound effect they use on My Favorite Martian when he wiggled his index finger and things moved.

I was also thinking that the sound is very similar to one of those bowed carpentry saws that used to be around... that was kind of a cool thing too.
 
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