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i am hoping everyone will answer very rarely. i play guitar up to 12 hours a day and do not break guitar strings. I feel there is no need to play with that much force.
Do you all agree?
And hello to all you nice people.
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05-28-2014 03:42 AM
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Every time I use an extra heavy pick and do windmill strums, strings are bound to snap.
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I think, the last time it snapped while playing, it was in 1995, on a gig.
For the worse, I've already lost a saddle screw before that, so saddle fell off, I could not find it and for some 15 years after the occasion I used some ad hoc solutions, various pieces of metal inserted under the string, fixed, or floating, all because I could not find that type of saddle anywhere around. Finally, couple of years ago, I've replaced whole bridge plate.
For the good part, I asked if anybody's got a guitar to lend me till the end of the gig, and someone (I knew) brought me one on stage. Sober fraction of audience was amazed. The rest just continued with pogo, shouting "Oi, Oi !!!".
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I had wondered about this too. I don't recall ever breaking a string while playing and I'm 55 now. It is less likely now because I used heavier strings, but as a kid I went for the slinkiest things I could find and in retrospect I am surprised none snapped while I was attempting (but failing) to bend strings like Albert King.
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Only once. Then I replace it
A more serious approach: It happens, the string was bad to begin with or just that much too old? I had really old strings on my strat on a soul gig some months ago and ended up finishing a set with 4 strings, that is at least good for your creativity...
Jens
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Can't remember ever breaking a string in 58 years but I change them quite frequently.
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Since I started mainly playing Jazz and using heavier strings I haven't broken a string. Back in my Rock & Funk days I would break them now and then, sometime a bad string the winding would unravel. But how you play isn't the whole story as I had bad string, but also sharp edges on bridges or other parts. Stop tailpieces too low creating more drastic angle across bridge piece. So a good setup help avoid mechanical reasons for breaking strings.
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While playing, maybe once or twice in 25 years.
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I have never broken a string while playing. I'm not that agressive when I'm playing. Although I have broken a string while tuning.
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Never while playing, and I do a lot of string bending. I try to change strings every 4 gigs on my "rock" guitars, about once a year on the jazz ones (Thomastik).
Have broken a few while stringing up and stretching them out, probably defective strings.
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Same for me in 57 years, except I rarely change them.
Originally Posted by TonyB56
Danny W.
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0.14s don't break. I used to tear up 0.09s like they were going out of style in high school before I realized I had a burr in my saddle.
Even after that, I used to break 0.09s every once in a while. Must have a heavier-than-necessary picking hand.
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On the other extreme, I saw Stevie Ray Vaughn break five strings in a concert.
His guitar tech had to have the nerves of a brain surgeon or timpani player.
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Many times... especially back when I was too tight to change strings at least every couple of weeks. I use to always have one of my backup guitars ready to go. But then I wasn't usually just playing backup standards... the 70's and 80's were pretty high energy, and even in 90's. I have always been a somewhat aggressive rhythmic performer...I have fun.
last 15 years only a couple of times... usually weak string.
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I think the only time I break strings is if they are really old and I am bending them or if they are defective.
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When I was a teenager I used to break 1-2 a day. These days it's 1-2 a year.
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I used to play in a funk rock band. Tele or a Strat through a loud Marshall stack and a couple of MXR stomp boxes, light strings and I beat the hell out of them. I broke strings every time we played. I have a vintage Strat that the saddle on the high e string breaks strings just to spite me. But otherwise nowadays I almost never break strings. I think I've broken one this year.
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I play a lot of different types of music. I have 11-48 on my Heritage Prospect for most gigs and never break a string even when bending. I have had 2 breaks while stringing in the last 20 years or so.
When I use my Sweet 16 I don't bend much and I have 13-53 on it. No breakage ever.
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Like a lot of the posters here I can't recall the last time I broke a string. It would have been in the '90s. I don't do a lot of string bending though.
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It's the darndest thing but I broke a string this week. Just last weekend I re-strung my guitar with D'Addario Chromes. (I'd been playing the same gaugue but in a roundwound for a year or so.) Then the other night I realized I had done something I never had done before, or even heard of: my high E string and B string were both run through the same slot of my tailpiece!
I loosened the high E and removed it, put it back where it was supposed to go, but never could get up to pitch. Kept slipping and finally the ball end broke off. Fortunately, I had an old set of light-gauge strings around and took its "B" string and made it my high E.
My record of going decades without breaking a string is now officially shot all to Hades.
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Almost never. The strings will rust before they break on my setup
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A very old thread, it sometimes happens to the best.
See at 25:14
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I have never broken a string from playing in an actual situation or gig. I have had strings break tuning up a guitar that I repair due to the string having an issue or the bridge/nut caused the break. When strings break tuning up a guitar usually the string is defective or there is something capturing it on the guitar through the channels.
Completely off topic but incredibly rare. I had a spoke on my road bike break in the middle of the spoke. That is the last place a spoke would break and I know mechanics that have been around 50 years and never had that happen. Again, something most have been defective or the spoke took some hit at a point to weaken it. That is the strongest part of the spoke and would require literally thousands of pounds of PSI to break.
I don't particularly change strings all the often so that does not play into the picture. I don't bend notes either almost ever. Probably the most boring playing style in the world but I don't break strings.
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Nowadays, never while playing and very rarely otherwise. A couple times while changing strings on guitars that clamp at the headstock I didn’t center it. And I have a nylon that breaks its own strings, usually the D, probably a bridge nib. Once, a string broke while tuning up, I think it might have been faulty.
Decades ago when I was playing in rock bands, I’d break them fairly often, usually while doing a boomer bend but sometimes pounding out a power chord.
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