Bending strings???

[EliasMooseblaster]

Chronic bender and dusty-ender, me...

[Agwin]

Occasional semitone but a full tone is too much like hard work and that's with my trusty Precision strung with 40,60,80,100 rounds....

 

[BreadBin]

I like a bend, especially bending before plucking and then returning to natural. 

It's a good way to emulate some of the fluidity of fretless on a fretted. 

[arthurhenry]

4 hours ago, TheGreek said:

Personally I can't understand why players do it.

It'll be that old creative expression thing again.

[Horizontalste]

I'm a proper bender, I even bend for total strangers at the weekend, but I play funk so being open about ones bending is perfectly normal.

[Sandy 5]

If the song calls for it, I bends it. Like matching vibrato, sometimes it just gives that extra little tweak that only the truly picky would notice. And me.

[Dood]

8 hours ago, TheGreek said:

As far as I can tell the only purpose of bending strings on a bass is to add excessive wear to the frets. Personally I can't understand why players do it.

Are you a string bender??

I think if you are excessively grinding metal against metal then I can imagine that you could wear frets down. I use string bending a lot for expression but have never required a refret on any of my instruments in all my 25 odd years of playing. It's all in LH technique I feel.

[Dood]

2 minutes ago, dood said:

I think if you are excessively grinding metal against metal then I can imagine that you could wear frets down. I use string bending a lot for expression but have never required a refret on any of my instruments in all my 25 odd years of playing. It's all in LH technique I feel.

Tone bends for the win:

(You don't have to watch the whole video, just a wee bit of noodling at the start!)

[Dood]

p.s. that bass was gorgeous!

[bazzbass]

YES because Geezer created Bassically / N.I.B

[SH73]

I do depending on the song. Don't think there's any need for worry about fret damage unless you're constantly  touring.

and if they get damaged, there's always that amazing feeling of Euphoria aka GAS.