I'm fascinated by the story of The Who's My Generation bass solo and the recording in general. We all know about Mr Entwistle breaking the (then very novel) Roundwound strings on no less than THREE Danelectro Longhorns, he described the sound as piano-like if memory serves, in contrast to the smooth "dull" sound of the much more common flatwound on electric basses of the time. According to the legend he was recording the solo, which from description was practically a shred solo (at least for the time standards), in comparison to the tamer one we got in the end. I wonder if there is any copy or a similar capture of the original solo.
Something I have always found very odd is that he kept breaking strings, but I've never seen specified which string/s he was breaking, and what was the cause of the strings breaking. Assuming regular 100-45 or even 90-40 gauges on the 29.5" scale length on the Dano bass the tension is something like 20% lower or less than on a 34" scale, so that would make the string breakage even less likely, coupled with the wooden saddle on Danelectros I'm at a loss in regards to how he was breaking so many strings.
The most hilarious thing for me is imagining the situation like this: Jhon's calm demeanor breaks for the 1st time and he yells out "OH FOR F****S SAKE!" as a string on the third bass brakes, throws it like a spear into the nearest garbage bin, then stomps out to the music store in rage and buys the complete opposite of the longhorn, a longscale Fender Jazz Bass with Tapewounds, just to make sure not a single damn string breaks again! And Tapewonds come factory "dead" so there is nothing to worry about there either.
Have any of you experienced a broken bass string on a Danelectro Longhorn, or any short scale bass for that matter?
As an aside, I have broken 2 bass strings in the 14 years I've played the instrument: The first was a G-string my sister broke because she had a guitar tuner instead of a chromatic one and she cranked on it until it snapped, this was my first bass brand new. Then a year later the E string from the same set broke partially at the ball end, my dad re-wrapped it and I used the same set 10 more years until it snapped at the headstock, so that's TWO times on the same string.
Something I have always found very odd is that he kept breaking strings, but I've never seen specified which string/s he was breaking, and what was the cause of the strings breaking. Assuming regular 100-45 or even 90-40 gauges on the 29.5" scale length on the Dano bass the tension is something like 20% lower or less than on a 34" scale, so that would make the string breakage even less likely, coupled with the wooden saddle on Danelectros I'm at a loss in regards to how he was breaking so many strings.
The most hilarious thing for me is imagining the situation like this: Jhon's calm demeanor breaks for the 1st time and he yells out "OH FOR F****S SAKE!" as a string on the third bass brakes, throws it like a spear into the nearest garbage bin, then stomps out to the music store in rage and buys the complete opposite of the longhorn, a longscale Fender Jazz Bass with Tapewounds, just to make sure not a single damn string breaks again! And Tapewonds come factory "dead" so there is nothing to worry about there either.
Have any of you experienced a broken bass string on a Danelectro Longhorn, or any short scale bass for that matter?
As an aside, I have broken 2 bass strings in the 14 years I've played the instrument: The first was a G-string my sister broke because she had a guitar tuner instead of a chromatic one and she cranked on it until it snapped, this was my first bass brand new. Then a year later the E string from the same set broke partially at the ball end, my dad re-wrapped it and I used the same set 10 more years until it snapped at the headstock, so that's TWO times on the same string.
There was a local legend in these parts, Wade Matthews (RIP) who I saw at a college mixer. He played a Hayman at the time and broke 2 strings AND his eyeglasses during a spirited rendition of "Whipping Post"!
