worst you've broken a bass.

[EdwardofHuncote]

I hate to even *think* about it, much less post in any kind of bragging fashion , but so far I've never broken or seriously damaged a bass guitar.

I actually did something worse... I broke somebody else's bass once, not only that, but it belonged to a good friend. Even worse yet, he had just bought it largely on my advice. It was a pretty nice Czech upright, and he got a good deal, but it needed setting up... strings, bridge, soundpost, all of which I did for him. Had it set up to play low and fast, it was perfect. Once finished, I zipped it up in the case to load in the car, but when I hoisted the case up by the shoulder strap, the release on the strap snapped, the bass crashed to the ground and folded up like a freakin' lawn chair. Seriously, three pieces - the fall broke the pegbox off, and sheared the neck off at the heel.

Long story short, I loaned him my personal bass until I finished fixing it. Thank goodness all the breaks were clean, so a little glue and clamping was all it took to fix it. We laugh wryly about it now, but I felt horrible about it for years. Still do really.

 

[Thunder_Fingers]

...The neck screws gave in on me once, but I managed to change bass so fast that the audience didn't notice. that is why you only see neck-through basses if you look at my profile.

 

[Clef_de_fa]

the only thing that ever happened to my basses was with a Carvin Bunny Brunel model. The jack is screwed in a metal plate on the side of the instrument and the jack unscrewed one day and it broke a part of the wire. So after that I did replace every jack on my other carvins as the one they use is pretty crappy.

 

[Muddslide]

...The neck screws gave in on me once, but I managed to change bass so fast that the audience didn't notice. that is why you only see neck-through basses if you look at my profile.

That's funny--I had a '76 Gibson SG destroyed once (neck) and that's why I only use bolt-ons. Easier and cheaper to replace a bolt-neck than repair a set one. At least in my experience. Also easier to adjust.

I see your point though. But it's like we both got PTSD on opposite ends of the spectrum!

 

[Muddslide]

Also, I've never "broken" a bass irreparably. I've had knobs and jacks go south. I've had a couple of nuts crack...I think that's about it. And especially back in the 80s and 90s playing gigs pretty regularly, I was pretty rough on my stuff. Not Pete Townsend rough, but the gloves were off.

 

[LouieV2]

Beautiful 2007 German made Warwick Corvette. Totally killer bass in every regard. Couldn't get the setup how I liked it (prob because I was inexperienced not only with setups but also with the Warwick bridge/nut) and fiddled with the truss rod more than I should have. Made one adjustment too many and POP. Truss rod was a goner. Since then I have never ruined an instrument... my setup skills are top notch after that expensive lesson. sold the bass as is for dirt cheap eventually.

 

[Gaolee]

I hate to even *think* about it, much less post in any kind of bragging fashion , but so far I've never broken or seriously damaged a bass guitar.

I actually did something worse... I broke somebody else's bass once, not only that, but it belonged to a good friend. Even worse yet, he had just bought it largely on my advice. It was a pretty nice Czech upright, and he got a good deal, but it needed setting up... strings, bridge, soundpost, all of which I did for him. Had it set up to play low and fast, it was perfect. Once finished, I zipped it up in the case to load in the car, but when I hoisted the case up by the shoulder strap, the release on the strap snapped, the bass crashed to the ground and folded up like a freakin' lawn chair. Seriously, three pieces - the fall broke the pegbox off, and sheared the neck off at the heel.

Long story short, I loaned him my personal bass until I finished fixing it. Thank goodness all the breaks were clean, so a little glue and clamping was all it took to fix it. We laugh wryly about it now, but I felt horrible about it for years. Still do really.

Aside from the usual wear and dings, I have never beat up a bass guitar. Upright basses are another story. The first one I owned was a beater I got for $150. It was probably worth less than that because the plywood was all coming apart and the neck had been crudely repaired several times. I played it for a number of years anyway, and then the cat decided to climb it, with bad results. The neck broke off, and I fixed it. Then some other stuff I can't even remember happened, and I made a new tailpiece for it. Then the neck got broken off again. At that point, I decided the gods were telling me something, since the plywood delamination had got way ahead of my efforts with epoxy and Bondo. Fast forward about 20 years and I finally have another upright. I had a horrible brain cramp loading it into the van one evening. Instead of putting it somewhere secure while I loaded other stuff, I leaned it against the side of the van. I heard a yelp from the singer who I was giving a ride, and a scramble, then the whole thing just slowly fell on its face. The singer almost saved it, but she was just a little too far away. That cracked the neck right at the headstock. It was still playable that evening, but I actually took it to a luthier to get it fixed instead of digging out my old epoxy tricks. The bass is doing just fine now. So is the singer.

 

[rtav]

I've mentioned it here before, but when I was 13 I got my first bass - a 1966 P bass (it was Christmas, 1977). It was purchased from Leon Rhodes, a session player in Nashville, and the bass was really road worn (already then).

Being an IDIOT teenager, I was jealous of everyone elses new basses with the great finishes. Flash forward to 1982. My drummer talked me into refinishing it and painting it a friends auto body place candy apple green. So I remove the strings, we pull the neck, electronics, everything - and he removes the finish. Then I chicken out. So we sealed it with a horrible pine finish and vowed to try again, but never did. Sold the guitar to a TB member a few years back and he restored it.

Yeah, teenagers are stupid.

 

[mistergoats]

We once played an outdoor show where our drummer broke his snare in the first measure of the first song. Drummer from the next band lent him his snare almost immediately. We started the next song and the E string on my jazz managed to break off the nut and pull through the neck binding! I sang the rest of the song and the bass player from the next band grabbed his bass for me. Nicest guys ever. Pretty unprofesh showing by us.

 

[Duder]

Our high school's beginner jazz class had a Black Widow plastic bass. We used to toss it down the steps to "tune" it and the thing never broke or even had an extra ding in it. Total beast.
One of my band mates and I were doing a quick setup on my hot rod red Jaguar bass and he made a few short turns to the truss rod. I had also made some adjustments before that. A few minutes later I look back at the headstock and there's a 4-inch gash in the paint which was immediately followed by "it wasn't me!" from the band mate. It's not noticeable if you don't know to look for it, but he's at least offered to look at repairing it for me.
My friends' band was playing a show on a stage that had a fairly high covering. The bass player liked to swing his Aerodyne around his shoulders and, admittedly, it did look pretty cool. He swung it up and it came right back down, which he thought was odd. It was a little out of tune, but that was easily fixed. Then he looked up and saw the crossbar for the cover over the stage, realized what he had done, and discovered the body was cracked right down the middle. He had it repaired by a luthier and it wasn't very noticeable, but still a good lesson.
Same band, the guitarist's strap lock failed and his pewter SG (not a common color) dropped to the ground and also split in half. The same luthier repaired it and it still sounds great.

 

[scourgeofgod]

I realized why you should hook the cable behind the strap when I stepped on the cable and cracked the pickguard. Fortunately, it was my little brother's bass, so no harm done.

Ah.... so yeah, you jogged my memory a little with that one, I was once fooling around just standing on my lil bro's skateboard, on carpet, felt stable enough until it went flying out from under me and into my lil bro's strat copy, his first guitar. Left a horrible array of scratches and dents, I felt horrible about it for years. After one of his "friends" later pawned the same guitar while they were having a tiff, I finally bought him a far superior, professional level replacement that year for xmas.

 

[decentbassbreh]

I was playing a show and we were getting pretty rowdy and I somehow managed to chip part of the nut and dent the back of the neck of my spector performer deluxe, got it fixed and sold it.

 

[catcauphonic]

My first electric upright got into a fight with the Asbury Park sidewalk when the cheap gigbag strap broke walking into a gig. The sidewalk won.
Fortunately it was only a crappy Stagg upright and I had a second bass with me.

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On a separate occasion, the Asbury Park sidewalk did this to me, also while loading in.
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Stone Pony?

 

[Mildew Jones]

My '72 P Bass, still my main squeeze. In around '80, we did a prearranged dump of the singer on stage, I kneeled down behind him, guitar player knocked him over me, broke off the input jack and took a chunk out of the original pickguard (tort), I replaced guard with a black one from a friend.

About a month ago, end of song extravagonzo, I'm banging butt of the bass on the stage, kicking open strings, broke off the tone knob (just recently replaced the pot). She takes a licking, keeps on ticking.

Mildew

 

[Steve Dallman]

My wife and I hit some black ice in October in northern WI on the way home from a gig, in my Ford Ranger. We went through a guardrail, and rolled sideways down a ravine. The cap smashed the first of three rolls, and my Line 6 Variax 5 string, in it's substantial but inadequate for the accident soft case, was thrown 40 feet.

The neck tore off all 4 neck screws and the body had three splits the length of the body. It took me a year to piece it back together.

In repairing it, I glued the splits, chambered the body, lowering the 13lb bass down to just under 10lbs and refinished it. I repaired the electronics (I was a Line 6 repair tech) and it's still my all time favorite bass, and I've had quite a few.

 

[BassFishingInAmerica]

This guy, at 1:00

 

[spanndrew]

I dropped a drill on my most recent project bass, only made a tiny chip in the finish so no big deal.

 

[mdogs]

One time, I put flats on a Stingray, broke the crap out of it. Took them off, put rounds back on, fixed the problem...

 

[thunderbird&eb-3_564]

This guy, at 1:00

Haha I've seen that one before!!!!!!!

 

[PokeyPrasch]

I'm tall and my office/practice space has a ceiling fan.

My T-40 challenged the ceiling fan to a duel, the ceiling fan immediately went for the neck.
There is now a small ding in the clearcoat on the neck of my T-40, however the fan is no longer used, since 1 fan blade is significantly smaller it operates on a wobble.