I've just recently changed my Stratocaster's strings gauge from .9 to .10 because I felt like I wanted a thicker sounding. .9 was a bit too soft sounding and too thin for me. However, I found now the strings tension is extremely tight that it makes bending VERY difficult. Now very often I tend to bend out of tune (a semi tone lower) even when I try to bend really hard with the right posture. And it result in my fingertip's skin are falling off, and within a few hours of playing my fingertips are already hurting so bad that I can't bend anymore, and I have to wait till the next day to be able to play again. I play quite often, it shouldn't hurt this bad, and I think .10 is alright for me, and I've used .10 before, but it's just that this time the tension becomes so tight that makes bending extremely difficult. I don't know is it the setup or what. Is there a way I can release the strings tension and make it less tight by myself? I thought the action is already pretty low, but if lowering the action is the only way to solve this problem, how do I lower the action?

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I went back to 9's for a while after using 11's on Strats for years. Took me a good couple of weeks to get used to things when I went back up to 10's again, they felt like they were tighter than a very tight thing, and every little bend felt like torture, despite the years I spent using thicker strings than that.

Now? I'm considering going back to 11's, as 10's feel a little too floppy.

Amazing how just a few tiny fractions of an inch can alter the feel. Stick with it for a couple of weeks, I bet it'll be fine.

Crept my action back up over the last few months too - again, every little notch upwards felt like a nightmare, but now I can fly around the board with an action high enough to prompt a friend to say "Wow, I never knew you dedicated a Strat to slide work..." when he picked it up.

That's the long and short of it. A few days or weeks from now the fingers will have got used to it and 9s will feel stupidly light. Practice practice practice!



Jimmy, when you change string gauge you have to re-setup the guitar, because things like neck relief, intonation and the angle of the back of the bridge will be changed by the different tension. I have a feeling you are new to setup and I hesitate to start you on that road because I think for now you just want to play your guitar, not learn the ins and outs of its workings. But if you do want to know more about it study the setup guide for Strats, here:

http://www.fender.com/en-GB/support/art ... etup-guide

The most important thing to remember is that you have to work through that procedure in the sequence it is laid out. Finish one stage before starting the next and don't go back and forth. It is a logical step-by-step process.

However, much better for you would be to simply pay a few pounds to have your guitar set up again properly by someone who knows what they're doing. If you tell us which town you live in someone can probably advise you of a good local luthier.

Cheers - C

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To make bending the strings easier, you really need to raise the action, not lower it. If you lower it, you'll find it more difficult to get a sideways push on the string - your fingertip tends to slide over it instead.

Like others have said though, stick with the 10s for a little while and soon you'll wonder what you were fussing about.

HTH

Time to build up your finger strength... Its going to happen... Ever switch from Electric to Acoustic and try to play the same? Can't do it can you?

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My advice would be to leave it in to a good luthier and have him set it up for you the way you like. A little adjustment here and a little more there can make the world of difference and be well worth the expense of the service. I use 10's but I also use jumbo frets which makes it a lot easier to reach those high bends without having to have surgery afterwords. I would also advise that you play an acoustic guitar on a regular basis as i noticed that the tips of my fingers tend to get a little soft if I play electric only for a few weeks and then go back the acoustic.

alright, so I've decided to change the string gauge from .10s to .9s (D'Addario), and still, the strings tension is still almost as tight as with .10s strings. I don't see much difference. I don't understand, because long before my strings were easy to bend and they seems a bit loosen. I was able to bend the strings easily in tune without having to use so much force that kills my fingers so fast. And I tried other guitars in the shop when I went to buy the strings, other guitars were much easier to bend and not so tight like mine now. However, I didn't have this problem with my guitar until I had my pickup change to Lindy Fralin Blues Special and the tech might have done some change with the setup, perhaps it's the neck relief or truss rod or... idk. After that the tension becomes super tight, it just doesn't seem normal... I mean, I used to be able to bend in tune... but now, it just becomes so tight I don't know what happened. Even changing back to .9 doesn't seems to help much.

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^^ this. Gibbons sets his amp to what you might consider "heavy metal settings" - maxed bass, drastically reduced treble and mids. With the light strings it produces a very "normal" tone, not too bassy but far from thin. And I bet he could bend halfway up the fretboard.

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Hello Ceri, I live in Thailand Bangkok and I've always been searching for a good local lutheir who could do a decent setup with my Fender Strat. Unfortunately, it seems a bit hard to find one here, I've met techs that doesn't really know what they're doing, and always end up feeling like I wasted my money. I've been searching for quite a while already, and I'm still searching for one... sigh. I don't think there's people in this forum who could give me advice of a good local lutheir "in Bangkok?" : (

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