Community: Message List

Re: JTV acoustic sounds versus Variax Acoustic 700

support@line6.com — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 21:26:41 GMT

You are very welcome - apologies on not participating more here! I have a number of different roles inside Line 6 (the videos are only one part), so I'm slammed enough usually, and on top of that I run a department at a music school and spend too much time in dark studios as well :-)

In any case, in your opinion, would it be a good idea for me to start a general thread here on getting sounds? Maybe a "best practices" kind of thing, or "Sean says he does it this way because he's lazy" sort of a thing? :-)

If so, maybe that would be the most beneficial situation for everyone, so that they didn't have to sift through additional threads to find the info.

If that sounds good to you and other folks, reply back here and I'll start a thread in the next week or so.

Thanks a bunch for your kind words on the videos, by the way. It's nice to see that you guys are digging them, because once I send em' out I have no real idea :-) :-)

Cheers,

S..

P.S. regarding the 700 acoustic sounds - remember that the Variax isn't triggering samples or anything like that. I'm sure you've all seen that the sounds change when you put on new strings, just as you'd expect - which means that there is a bunch of interaction between the actual strings and the resulting sounds. The same goes for string gauge and string type. The acoustic 700 used bronze acoustic strings - which sound considerably different than the 10-gauge electric strings that come stock on a JTV.

More on that in the thread I'll start - in the meantime, play the JTV acoustic sounds LIGHTLY until you learn how to control em' fully. That's really the trick. More in a bit! :-)

Re: JTV acoustic sounds versus Variax Acoustic 700

support@line6.com — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 21:23:18 GMT

Here's the REAL answer for the "issue being closed". Line 6 no longer has ANYONE from the original Variax development team working for Line 6 and hasn't for a very long time working on the guts. No one outside of the HQ walls for certain and probably inside Line 6 HQ is doing any Beta testing any new modeling upgrades for the JTV guitars. I was one of those outside HQ Beta team people for the transition from the original Vax to the JTV working under Rich Renken who no longer works @ L6.

A GUESS on my part is that Line 6 might be deciding, or have decided that the JTV or ANY new or software improvements to the Variax line is not worh the investment and will just let the production run finish, and we'll perhaps never see another new modeling guitar from Line 6.

Thanks for all of your work on the forum! This post is supposed to be a clarification, not a slap, so please don't take it as such :-)

I wish I had seen this sooner. Your source of information seems to have fed you poor intel, and I can only guess at where it came from (but I have a pretty good idea). I realize that being on a beta team can feel like you've got an inside line on things, but that does NOT mean that you have internal knowledge of our current product roadmap - to the contrary, you have been grossly misinformed. Engineers inside Line 6 move from project-to-project as a matter of course, so "original" engineering team members matter less than "super big brain surfer engineers who can rock guitar code" do. :-)

The truth is that JTV development continues (as evidenced by the recent 1.9 update to address palm muting - code does not exist without engineers), and there will be more surprises to come! It's pretty exciting, actually.

Stay tuned - Oliver Stone doesn't work at Line 6 :-) :-) :-)

Re: Tone at start of video?

support@line6.com — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 21:54:27 GMT

Howdy howdy - sorry for my lateness. I don't normally do the forum thing (hella busy :-).

In any case, obviously, any of the vids you see from me are 100% from me musically as well, so I'm definitely the guy to ask about any noises you may hear in my vids :-)

The little musical number was done in December of 2011, right before NAMM. I was prepping for the show (and in a time crunch) and was in the middle of tracking a record, so I just used the rig that I had set up in the studio that day to save time.

That entire tune is my dark blue JTV69, using the magnetic single coil pickups (on that guitar, the two single coils were swapped for Suhr ML's - that's my live guitar, and I needed a bit more low mids from the neck and middle magnetics). They were run through my big board (see my "Crazy Pedalboard Demo" video) and a couple of extra pedals, and then into the custom 3-channel Suhr head that John built me.

You're absolutely right - the clean channel on that amp is kind of like a modified Super Reverb :-)

If you want to get close to that sound direct using your L6 stuff and POD HD, use either Spank 5 or your neck single coil, and dime one of the Fender models - gain and master on 10, turn Sag to 100%, 4x12 cab with Greenbacks and the 121 mic. Pluck the notes with the fingers on your right hand (meaning don't use a pick) right over the neck pickup of your guitar, and you'll have something really really close :-)

Hope that helps...

S..

Re: Acoustic models

support@line6.com — Mon, 07 May 2012 19:36:38 GMT

So I'm slow, what can I say? This may be my first post ever on here...

:-)

The idea behind acoustic guitars is that they traditionally do not sound luscious and gorgeous when played through an electric guitar amp. The circuits and speakers of amps intended to be used with Strats and Les Pauls are designed to roll out some frequencies you'd want on an acoustic (most guitar speakers do not reproduce frequencies above 4.5 K much at all), and roll in some that you wouldn't (low mids).

This is proven by the large number of acoustic guitar amplifiers on the market.

The reality is, you need a full-range amplification system to hear acoustic guitars properly - even if that is just headphones. That could mean a PA, a recording into your DAW and out into studio speakers, or some other combination.

The acoustic sounds in the video were recorded directly out of the HD500 - with the amp block dead, no amp selected - straight into Pro Tools. Try starting with a completely empty setup and begin to add elements of what you want to hear. Maybe that's reverb at the end of the chain first, and then maybe an eq early on, and then maybe the tube limter....etc etc...let your ears be the guides you use.

And the other key to being able to get the sounds I did on the video: don't bang away with your right hand :-) Think of the acoustics as females - they're dang sensitve :-) :-)

Hope that helps,

S..