Pressing electric guitar strings out of tune

I have been playing guitar for about 15 years (on and off). I mostly play acoustic guitar but when I play my electric guitar I easily and accidentally bend the strings so that the chord I am playing sounds out of tune. Will this be solved by putting heavier strings on the electric guitar? I have a suspicion that the strings on the electric guitar are lighter than what I am used to on the acoustic guitar and thus are easily bendable.

Yes, you can put heavier strings on, and this will improve pitch stability, but...

The typical solution is to use a lighter touch for lighter strings.

Assuming your guitar is set up correctly, light strings can play in tune, or at least in tune enough to sound good. They require less force to fret, so using the same amount of force as you would with a heavier set will pull the strings sharp. Strumming with the same intensity will also pull the strings sharp.

If your guitar is not set up correctly, or if your technique is sloppy, the lighter strings will go sharp more easily than heavier strings.

This is because sounding pitch is proportional to the square root of tension- at higher tension, pitch changes less in response to a change in tension. And heavier strings are at higher tension when tuned up.

There are other less obvious adjustments you can make that also affect pitch- such as using a very low action to limit the string excursion, or adjusting your tuning to compensate for the fact that strings go sharp when plucked. This is typically done by looking at your tuner while plucking the string with your normal intensity, but you can get more precise results by learning exactly how flat this puts the decay of the note- and then tuning that. For example, if I'm recording an aggressively picked bassline, I know that my E string needs to be tuned about 20 cents flat with a very light touch- and then when I lay into it with the pick, it sounds in tune. This is more precise than trying to tune to 0 while I pluck the string and my tuner jumps around like crazy.

But with all this said, if you want to use heavier strings for better tuning stability, then absolutely go for it. I currently have a custom 11-54 set with a wound G on the SG for recording because getting the thing in tune is my eternal struggle.

If you want it to feel like the acoustic, look for a set with similar gauges and a wound G. It will turn out to be slightly lower tension due to the density difference between bronze and the ferromagnetic alloys used for guitar strings.

The strings on an electric guitar are lighter than acoustic strings in general. You can get light or heavy strings for either but if you match numbers on the two, acoustic mediums will have higher numbers than electric mediums.

As far as your issue goes, there are a few basic reasons why this might happen and most relate to the strings being lighter on an electric guitar.

Your action may be too high and/or your neck relief might be too concave. Either or both of these issues will cause excessive bending of the string in order to make contact with the fingerboard. There are plenty of online resources to teach you to check if your action and neck relief are good and to correct them if they are not. It is also very important to have your guitar’s intonation set properly at the bridge.

Your nut slots might be cut too high. This will cause the notes in the lower frets to play sharper than they should.

You might not be pressing straight down towards the fingerboard with every finger. Some people curve their fingers as they press down and this will cause those notes to be sharp. Bending the strings while pressing down is easier to do with a lighter gauge. Look in a mirror to see if you are moving any strings vertically as you press.

Pressing too hard can also be an issue. You can bend notes sharp by pressing too hard, especially if you have tall frets. The string shouldn’t contact the fingerboard, just make solid enough contact on the fret to get a clear tone.

Another thing can be strumming or plucking too hard. This can cause an effect where the string sounds sharp initially and then settles into the correct pitch. This effect is also amplified by lighter gauge strings.

Thinner and lighter strings of an electric guitar can cause intonation problems but they are manageable with a little troubleshooting and adjustment of both the instrument and the player.

I worked with a fellow who we invited on-stage many times, for company Christmas parties and outdoor cookout gigs on the river.

A decent player, he had a real gorilla-grip on the neck when he played chords. Everything he played on a six string electric sounded really sharp, bad, and out of tune.

I finally hit on a solution; We had him perform with us using his old Ovation 12-string acoustic/electric guitar. There was no way he could grab it hard enough to go sharp, and he always sounded good when performing with that Ovation.

But 6-string electric? No way. He just couldn't adopt a light enough touch.

Similarly, when I play and perform with my electric guitars, using light-medium gauge strings, I sound fabulous. (I'm talking 0.09's or 0.10's here.)

If I strap on one of my brother's electric however, I have to be very precious and use the lightest touch. He keep's 0.08's on his guitars. Much too light for me!!