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String breakage stories
- Thread starter strings2000
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TSJMajesty
Rock Star
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I've put a LOT of effort into playing lightly. I have this tempo..., about 90-95 bpm, wherein 16th notes are right in this zone where the tension of the string pushing back on the pick causes me to "push" through it with more force than I want, in order to keep the timing. I'll stay at that tempo until I can literally feel my grip getting just right. It's kinda hard to explain, but it's no problem at other tempos, until I get up around 150, where I'm again, trying to "power through" the notes.
So I try to adopt that relaxed technique at all tempos, and when I'm playing like that, I tend to never break strings any more.
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Same here. I've let up a lot over the years and try to keep my pick hand motion as minimal and economical as possible. It does lend itself to faster soloing and making short bursts come easier too.
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This has happened to me. What happens is the core wire snaps but the outer winding stays intact, only it can't hold and begins to unravel.
Dimiguitar
Roadie
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Makes sense!
metropolis_4
Rock Star
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The worst was the first time I ever had a guitar with a floating Floyd Rose. I had no idea how it worked and I took it to play a show the day I bought it and snapped a string mid show. I didn’t know when one string broke it would pull everything else out, and I didn’t know how to change a string on it with the locking nut and bridge. It was horrible and it gave me a fear of breaking strings during a performance that I still have today.
I went back to the store the next day to return the guitar, but a guy at the shop taught me all about how Floyds work and I decided to keep it because I thought it was a really cool guitar
I went back to the store the next day to return the guitar, but a guy at the shop taught me all about how Floyds work and I decided to keep it because I thought it was a really cool guitar
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Cats love rogue guitar strings. Almost as much as strings2000.Idk WTF it is, but I'm on my 2nd Majesty that breaks high e strings with too much regularity for it to be my fault.
My Enchanted Forest did it when new, and someone on the Fractal forum told me about abrasive cord, which after a few tries, fixed the problem, which I assume was a burr. Lately it's been happening on my Blue Honu. Same deal.
And my cat, for some strange reason, comes running when he hears the string snap, and wants to play with it. I suppose the first time he was close by, he saw the light reflecting off the loose string, and it caught his eye.
So now he associates that sound with it.
(And by the way, of all the wacky things about these recurring threads fetishizing string abuse, isn't it also weird for someone to choose the name [something]2000 in 2025? We survived the Y2K thing 25 years ago. Moving along...)
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- 11,751
Nothin’ beats snapping a G, B or E string while tuning up an acoustic, using your picking hand to reach the tuning pegs and catching a nice .13” thick welt on your arm after.
In one of my high school bands my buddy, right before we were getting ready to play a party, grabbed a tuner on my JEM and cranked it up knowing it wouldn’t mess with my tuning due to the locknut, just to mess with me. The string snapped above the nut pretty much right as the drummer started counting off the set on the hi hats, but was held in place with the locknut. I was surely being a dick to him the rest of the night, but the string held just fine the entire time.
In one of my high school bands my buddy, right before we were getting ready to play a party, grabbed a tuner on my JEM and cranked it up knowing it wouldn’t mess with my tuning due to the locknut, just to mess with me. The string snapped above the nut pretty much right as the drummer started counting off the set on the hi hats, but was held in place with the locknut. I was surely being a dick to him the rest of the night, but the string held just fine the entire time.
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I used to break strings almost daily, but these days, almost never. I will sometimes have a string pop out of a Floyd saddle if it wasn't seated properly or tightened sufficiently, but that's not exactly a break.
metropolis_4
Rock Star
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That reminded me of another story. One time I was sitting on the floor playing and my high E snapped and the end hit my leg and poked through the skin and hit a nerve. My whole leg started twitching like crazy and I couldn’t control it! It didn’t stop until I got the string out.
That was such a bizarre experience
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This happened to me during the first song of an audition once, and the band (unbeknownst to me before arriving) was a hippie jam band/ improv kind of deal. And there's me with my Floral Jem with 5 strings tuned to random frequencies trying to ride the bar and make something resembling music happen. Worst part of it all is the guys were super polite about it, meaning this charade went on WAY too long - probably 30 minutes (felt like 30 years) before I could slink out of there.
Mortifying.
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Man, the first year of shows my former band played, I’d be drunk and/or fired up to play and do my best Steve Vai impression the second we got onstage, grabbing my JEM by the bar and shaking the whole guitar up and down, snapped a good number of strings before we even played a note. This is precisely why I own that Ibanez SZ.
I know I have it on a DVD somewhere, but there was one particular show I threw my back out earlier in the day and by the time I got my gear loaded into the venue I was hurtin’ pretty bad. It was obviously when we started playing that I was in pain and then I snap a string, I tried to cry because I felt it would alleviate the pain a little and it would just look like sweat, but I couldn’t make it happen. I think it took me a whole minute to get the JEM off and the other guitar on, while I essentially sat down on the drum riser to do it.
I know I have it on a DVD somewhere, but there was one particular show I threw my back out earlier in the day and by the time I got my gear loaded into the venue I was hurtin’ pretty bad. It was obviously when we started playing that I was in pain and then I snap a string, I tried to cry because I felt it would alleviate the pain a little and it would just look like sweat, but I couldn’t make it happen. I think it took me a whole minute to get the JEM off and the other guitar on, while I essentially sat down on the drum riser to do it.
Chocol8
Shredder
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- 1,591
I used to break strings all the time as well, and always kept a stash of individual strings for swaps. Something changed along the way as I stopped breaking strings, and my strings don’t corrode and go dead nearly as fast as they used to.
I haven’t bought individual strings in like 20 years. In the VERY rare case I break one, I just replace the entire set because they were probably getting old anyway. I have no idea what changed. Was it me or are strings better than 30+ years ago?
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Maybe a little of both, and also the guitars in question getting better (or set up better.) But I'm guessing it's mostly in the way we play. For my part, I think it was mostly whammy bar abuse. I've recently started experimenting with wider bends (m3 and up) and to my surprise, strings are holding up OK.
Chocol8
Shredder
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I don't think so for me, since I still heavily play the guitar that was my #1 in the 1990's and I didn't replace the nut, bridge and saddles until a few years ago, the tuners are still original, and all the other things I have changed shouldn't matter.
