jonmaybey Posted January 16, 2014 Share Posted January 16, 2014 I recently bought a second hand acoustic 700 and after a few months of gigging I am experiencing a few problems that seem quite common. ie low volume from some strings and some electrical buzzing and crackle from the B string. I would like to find someone in the Southwest (England) who can service the instrument as I am really not handy with a soldering iron. I live near Taunton, Somerset. Looking at the forums, it seems to be the piezos and connections that are the problem. I have just removed the B string and hopelessly fumbled with the saddle. I put the string back on and the problem has gone for now! Seems like it needs better quality piezos or better connections. can anyone help as I am regularly gigging and need this amazing instrument to work very time! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clay-man Posted January 17, 2014 Share Posted January 17, 2014 You might need to send your guitar in for repair. Someone had a faulty acoustic and got theirs repaired. I don't think there's any piezos you can buy for the Acoustic Variax guitars to install yourself. That's only for all the old electric Variaxes. I'm glad you got it fixed for now, but I can vouch that it won't last forever unless you get it repaired. It was a real pain for me when it happened to me, until I finally replaced the piezo. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charlie_Watt Posted January 17, 2014 Share Posted January 17, 2014 Unfortunately, all of the old Variax Piezo's ground through the bridge and strings by contact. There is no ground wire on the piezo's themselves. This contact can get interrupted by dirt and grime. A good cleaning will restore operation for a while. I went through that with my Variax 500 for years until I upgraded to Ghost Piezo saddles. Those piezo's each have a ground wire. It was a trick to get them all connected since there was no place to connect them easily but they work great and I have not experienced a single event of noise or dropout since. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clay-man Posted January 17, 2014 Share Posted January 17, 2014 Unfortunately, all of the old Variax Piezo's ground through the bridge and strings by contact. There is no ground wire on the piezo's themselves. This contact can get interrupted by dirt and grime. A good cleaning will restore operation for a while. I went through that with my Variax 500 for years until I upgraded to Ghost Piezo saddles. Those piezo's each have a ground wire. It was a trick to get them all connected since there was no place to connect them easily but they work great and I have not experienced a single event of noise or dropout since. JTV still grounds through contact with the bridge. They might of improved the contact and design though so that might be why they don't crap out so fast like the old Variax guitars. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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