Community: Message List

Re: New JTV89-F firmware 1.9 comments

support@line6.com — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 02:41:07 GMT

Just a quick note. I have never updated either of my 2 JTV's with the JTV USB interface, but only with the pedals -- at first my X3L, now my HD500. Never had show-stopping problems. I did have to flash my JTV-69S twice with 1.9 for it to "take", but my 59 took the first time via the pedal. Sometimes you can run into USB communications issues that are not necessarily the pedal's or other devices' fault. It can happen with any USB device, including external hard drives, MIDI interfaces, and the JTV USB interface.... Denis did hit it right with hints not to use any hubs in the path, as they do provide potential problems.

Enjoy your new guitar -- I love mine!

Dave

Re: JTV89F Battery problem

support@line6.com — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 22:12:41 GMT

Denis --

I don't know your situation, but have you charged the battery before? I assume you have, if you don't have the other power options like the XPS-mini or the HD500... You probably had to charge it up when you first got it, and did your firmware updates with the usb interface...

My first JTV came with a battery charger that did not operate -- at first I thought I had a bad battery, but it turned out to be the charger. When I plugged in the charger, it's indicator LED started blinking slowly, but constanly -- even without the battery in the cradle, and did not stop blinking all the while the battery was supposedly charging. I left it in over night, but it gained no charge, and did not increase the number of green lights in the guitar. I contacted L6 with an issue ticket and they sent me a new charger that was fine.

Make sure your battery is properly seated in the charger and the light should be steady, then not blink until the battery is charged... I think that's how it is, but I can't put my hands on the instruction card that came with the charger right now. The blinking my first one was doing did not match the timing of what it said on the instruction card -- the "manual" that it came with. supposedly the rate mine was blinking was indicating a problem. There is no fixing the charger, they should replace it if it's still in warranty (I think you got your 89 pretty recently). And I second Inerzia's comment on the placement in the guitar, but I'd guess if you didn't get it seated properly in the guitar, you'd just get NO green lights at all.

Open an issue ticket with L6. I know you're in Europe, so will have to deal with their people over there....

For me, it was not a show stopper as I powered mine with my X3L pedal, and now the HD500, but I keep a charged battery in my guitar case, in case I have to use the guitar with 1/4" jack instead of the VDI cable and my HD500...

Dave

Re: Have a JTV 59. Need a spare Variax...

support@line6.com — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 04:20:18 GMT

My first Variax is a 300. Was a Fender guy for many years, but I got hooked on the LP sound on the 300, so I got an Epi LP -- nice guitar. I got a JTV-59 when those hit the market. Ordered in Oct 2010, got it in May 2011. Even with the bumps along the way, I LOVE it. So instead of taking my 300, the LP and an Ovation A/E I was down to my 59 and my LP for the broken string issue. Never had it happen, but I always carry a spare just in case. Last fall, they came out with the 69S's -- I got a gold one -- LOVE it. Now I have a total backup, so I have the 59 & 69S both available on the guitar stand. I split their use -- usually between sets.

They both have their own personality (LP vs Strat sound on mags), and I use the mags mostly except for special tunings and sounds like 12 string, acoustic, banjo, etc, but either the 69S or the 59 can do those. Very happy with them both. I had special tunings set up on the 300 in the custom guitar banks and it worked fine, but had different presets set up for it -- the HD500 tuning presets aren't possible on the 300 generation, as Zap pointed out. I do have 2 setlists with the same sounds in the same positions, but one tweeked for the 59 and one for the 69S -- like I said, they both have their own personality with their mags.

When I got the 69S last fall, they were running a special dream rig promotion, and part of it was a $200 price reduction on the JTV's, so I jumped and went for it. Found the right price on the right guitar at the right time.... The prices are back up to their normal ranges again now. I figured I was playing enough and had built up enough in my gig fund kitty to make it work....

My 2 cents worth...

Dave

Re: Who are these @sshats and can we get them kicked?

support@line6.com — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 19:48:09 GMT

Actually, I don't think they are people who got kicked off. If you look at the sender profile, they all just joined in the last few days, usually on the day they started flooding the board, so says to me they're getting by the sign-up process procedures to stop that kind of thing. I had a discussion board on my midi website. After a while, I stared getting spammed on that, so I applied a sign up procedure with an image that the poster would have to type in the message in the image -- an early version of the typical method now (but now they have random images -- much better). Anyway, it didn't take the spammers long to get around that.... I finally took down my discussion board, Got tired of trying to keep ahead of the spammers. Those were mostly for cheap drugs and such. It was a pain in the a$$.

Dave

Re: Is JTV-69 worthy?

support@line6.com — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 23:12:10 GMT

Yep -- you're right on. W is for World in Korea, 11 is 2011, 09 is September, and 0571 would be their number for the unit -- dunno if they follow sequentially from 0001 to a possible 9999 for every month, though -- not enough to go on. But it would make sense -- though that's expecting a lot... ;o)

Dave

Re: Variax JTV-69 --> USB Interface thingy --> USB--> Workbench

support@line6.com — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 23:06:08 GMT

+1 To Phil -- I have 2 JTV's bought over a year apart. I got the USB interface with both the JTV's, but have never used them, as when I got my first JTV a 59, I had the X3Live pedal, when I got my 2nd JTV, a 69S, I had the HD500. I've always used the pedals to power & upgrade the Variaxes -- way back to my Variax 300, using the XTL at that time. The USB interface is necessary for those who didn't go the way of the Line 6 Variax enabled pedals. It's really too bad that L6 didn't include the VDI interface on the HD, HD300, or HD400, as it would make life a helluva lot easier for those who went that way.... They lose the powering and switching the HD500, and it's predecessors (the XTL & X3L) offers.

Dave

Re: JTV69S Tone

support@line6.com — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 22:05:01 GMT

I have a 59 in Tobacco SB -- had it since May 2011. Love it, even after the initial LONG wait (Oct 2010 to May 2011), switch issue, and had a piezo issue -- ALL of which L6 worked with me on and we got it sorted out. It is my go to guitar!! Last fall when they announced the new group of 69S's and 59P's, I bought the Shoreline Gold 69S -- I LOVE it.

I was spoiled by having HB pickups in my 59 & LP, but have been a Fender guy since the early 70's, and knew the hum with single coils was part of the package. I did, however switch out the pups with some DiMarzio silent SC's... I did that about the first of this year. I really didn't have a problem with the sound of the 69S's SC's, but wanted to quiet it down a bit. I couldn't use the 69S in one bar, as it was picking up their neon beer signs, etc. I swapped them out for ~ $200 with the DiMarzio's and they have been quiet as a church -- no hum, and a bit hotter output than the stock SC's.

Anyway, now I have 2 go to guitars, and I actually split their use over the 2 long sets we play... I tend to use the mag pickups the majority of the time, and use the models for drop tunings and specialty instruments, like the banjo, etc. The 59 and the 69S definitely have different personalities, but I love them both.

Anyway -- my 2 cents' worth... YMMV

Dave

Re: is it possible to replace the pickup on 69?

support@line6.com — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 05:16:57 GMT

I bought my 59 in 10/2010, got it in 5/2011 -- bumps along the way -- switch issue, but fixed. Saw no reason to change its pups -- they sound very good as they are. Bought another JTV in 10/2012 -- this time a 69S -- 3 single coil pups. Liked the way they sounded except for the single coil hum. I've been a Fender guy and know that's what to expect with SC's, but got spoiled by my LP and the JTV59 humbuckers... So I bought & installed a set of DiMarzio noiseless SC's -- the Injector Bridge, Area 67 middle, & Injector Neck. The install was kind of a pain -- lotsa wires and short leads etc, but I did it fine -- look at the wiring diagram of the new pups versus the L6 document mentioned above.

The new ones sound very good - have some more output the than the L6 originals, but are quiet as a church as far as hum goes -- even quieter than the HB's I have in the 59, my LP, and my 1973 Fender Tele Deluxe -- way quieter than my Strat. I really had no issues with the 69S's original pups' tones, besides the SC hum... Had to change the DiMarzio's cover from white to the mint green color of the L6 face plate & pups on the gold 69S, but that was like $10. Did it after living with the ones that came on the replacements for a couple of weeks, so had to open the guitar up again to do it, but was no big deal. Worst part was dealing with the trem bridge coming unhinged when the strings were removed to take off the front plate to get at the guts. I did ithe pickup swap in January -- not quite 2 months from receiving the guitar. The guitar's been a champ all along.

I know you're talking about the regular 69's HB, but you will probably run into some of the same stuff under the hood that I did. The only replacement I would worry about the pickup levels would be active pups, like EMG's etc that you would need to power with a 9 volt battery, If your target pup is passive, it should not be an issue. The guts are the same in all of the JTV's, as far as I've heard, and the 89's pups are supposed to hotter than the 69 & 59 HB's. From what I recall of discussions here, the 59 HB is hotter than the 69 HB, as they were trying to keep levels somewhat balanced between the 69's HB and SC pups on the same guitar, I'm not an authority on that, just recall it sometime ago coming up in the forums...

They had 3 different versions of the pickups for the 3 JTV's that they had funny code names so they could distinguish which went with what model -- Kirk was the 69, and then there was Bones (59) & Spock (89) -- Star Trek references. When I pulled my SC's out of the 69, they are marked Kirk-B, Kirk-M, and Kirk-N (Bridge, Middle, Neck)... Apparently they still are following that....

For what it's worth -- my 2 cents...

Dave

Re: My Variax pipe dream

support@line6.com — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 04:48:56 GMT

I think these are cool ideas, but not gonna happen with this generation of JTV's. I have a midi guitar pickup -- Think it's a Roland G2K -- and a Roland midi interface. While it is a hex pickup -- 6 independent poles, they are kept separate to the output that goes into the Roland interface. The interface works with each string's signal individually. It then decides the frequency (note value), note on, note off, and note velocity - each are then turned into the appropriate midi control signal by the interface and sent to the tone generator, whether it's a midi module, midi keyboard, or their guitar synth to generate the sound. The pickup itself is never actually heard by your ears....

The Variax is 6 individual piezo pickups that pump the actual sound into the Variax DSP -- or digital signal processor, that shapes the sound into what you hear. By the time it comes out the 1/4" jack or down the VDI digital cable to the POD, it is a combined signal of all 6 piezo's that have been molded into the sounds you hear, but you still hear string scrapes and other non musical noises that guitars make, while the midi data would not know what to do with these things or how to represent them. The Variax pitch shifting is not "the string is playing note X, substitute note Y" type of processing that you'd find in midi, but rather "the string is playing frequency X, multiply the frequency by some fixed quantity to Y" that you'd find in a DSP. Every noise it hears, it shifts up or down, depending on the setting. If you're out of tune in standard tuning, you'll still be out of tune in the shifted output. If you're out of tune in midi, the midi note conversion will hunt before it picks a note value midi control number to send to the tone generator -- right or wrong. It doesn't know any in betwen, unless you set up pitch glide controllers, etc.

Midi - actually hex output on a Variax would be possible if the separate piezo outputs were split off before the the DSP processing, and routed to a 13 pin cable, but was not apparently the design worked into the guitars by Line 6. The output of that jack would need to do the note to midi conversion in some outboard device, as the DSP is not capable of that function. Several folks on these boards have added the Roland hex pickup and used outboard guitar processors. They seem to be happy with their outcomes. Some have just used the surface mounted pickups, some have done some pretty involved installs because they wanted the wires moved internal to the guitar. Do a search here for midi conversions on Variaxes, and you'll see quite a few discussions on their angles on the subject. Inclusion of a midi option on a Variax would be a total redesign of their product -- pretty major redesign.

My 2 cents.

Dave

Re: What Amps, Powered Monitors, Power Amp/Passive Monitors?

support@line6.com — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 01:06:10 GMT

I use a Crown XL1000 PA amp into one 12" floor monitor I modified. At first, I was using a CRATE Power Block 150 Amp (150W bridged) into the floor monitor with an Eminence Tonker 12" 150W Guitar speaker. With my XTLive and X3Live pedals, it worked quite well. The CRATE is no longer made. I bought 2, and take one as a backup to my Crown now, and also for band practice.

I found I needed more stage level in some outdoor festivals, so one time I took my backup CRATE PB150 and ran my main rig plus my practice speaker on the spare CRATE for an outside gig and found it quite good. I picked up the Crown XL1000 at GC -- it'll push 215 Watts per channel, so if I need more level, I can take my 2nd monitor and run the other amp channel. I run with the HD500 in Studio/Direct output mode, as I also send an XLR out to my soundman's FOH system.

I messed with the other output modes Combo & Stack front & amp settings. Found I could make my Tonkers sound better with the front modes and messing with the "Focus"control, but it made the XLR output to the FOH sound like crap. On the X3L pedal, the "mode"control only affected the 1/4" outs, while the XLR & headphone outputs were always in Studio/Direct modes. With the HD500, the mode settings affects all outputs, as well as the master volume cannot be assigne individually. This was a MAJOR dissappointment to me, and seemed like an oversight on the part of the L6 design team that developed the HD500. They had it right on the X3L and messit up on the HD500. I keep hoping it was an oversight that could be fixed with a firmware update -- MANY have asked for it, but so far, no fix has been made. It could be that it is "hardwired" and not fixable via firmware, I don't know, so.....

I recently bought 2 Eminence BETA-12LA full range 12" PA speaker drivers and replaced the Tonkers in my monitors. The Tonkers are designed as guitar speakers with a definite midrange peak. Well in amp models of the HD500, the speakers are modeled as well with their own midrange peaks, so I was getting 2X the midrange "hump", I went with full range drivers that have a much "flatter" full-range response curve. The Tonkers, like other guitar speakers have a 70Hz - 5.5kHz frequencey range, and I always fought to make the JTV's acoustic modele sound good. With the BETA-12LTA's flatter response curve and 48Hz - 8kHz frequency range, the acoustics also sound quite a bit more natural. The power handling of the BETA's is 225W versus the 150W rating of the Tonkers, so it's a better match from that standpoint. The Crown can put out 215 Watts per side to 8 Ohms, 330W to 4 Ohms, and 500W to 2 Ohm speakers, so is quite versatile, depending on connections.

I run the HD500 1/4" outs to my Crown at line level (the amp needs line level). The XLR's only put out mic level, which I send to FOH. I understand the HDPro can output line level via the XLR out's, from comments of others here.

About a year and a half ago, I tried a self-powered Carvin PM12A FRFR PA speaker/monitor -- supposed to have 400W output. I found it to be "brittle" sounding, and would compress when it needed to "bite". I tried it out live for 2 gigs, and ended up sending it back.... It just didn't do it for me. I think the speaker was fine, but just not for my application. That experiment cost me shipping both ways...

I keep chasing tone, and lately it seems I'm getting closer.

My 2 cents...

Dave