Leaderboard

We all have heard by now that the JTV magnetic pickups should be between 6K and 8K DCR. We are told below that, the sound will be thin/weak, and above that, rolled off and dull. But that is not true for a "regular" guitar, the pickups sound as intended when wired in a typical guitar with volume and tone pots and pickup selectors. There is some variation with cap and pot values, but nobody recommends a narrow DCR range for a typical guitar unless you are trying to get a very specific sound. PAF? Fine. Duncan JB? Fine. Lipstick pickup? Fine. They sound how they sound, maybe you like it, maybe you don't, but there is no critical operating range for a standard guitar. From this, I conclude that the JTV electronics are not neutral/transparent compared to typical guitar wiring. When in magnetic mode, with or without a battery present, they are somewhere in the circuit and interact with the magnetics in a way that is different from your every day pots and caps. Has this every been discussed/disclosed here? I can't find it. Am I just wrong on my conclusion? If so, how to explain the 6K-8K range? Has anyone done any tinkering/testing to see how the circuit actually works?

What silverhead said. Nexus is not a VDI connection for Variax, the D-10 has that. Use the Variax interface device in the meantime.

Line 6 Monkey has been retired as described in a banner at the top of this page. Stadium will support Variax models JTV and later with the pending release of the Expand D-10. I continue to use Workbench HD with my Helix Rack and JTV-59 on Windows 11 as desired. Mostly these days I use my Stadium Floor with my 59 on battery power. I await the D-10 for full Stadium/Variax integration.

Without power, the relay default position is in passive mode, but it still goes through the main board circuitry, which is fixed, and not to be messed with,... before it goes to the output. The filters are fix, and one can't just put some gum-drop polyester capacitors in there without altering the impedance and filter curve. 6.5k or 7.8k is fine. Also, number of windings of the pick-up coils, gauge of the wire, etc,... plays a part in it as well. Too deep for me to go into here, would be an hour lecture on electronics,... don't want to put anyone through that, too much math. Best to stick with what is specified. There is some lee-way, but not much. Doing mods outside the boundaries on a JTV is not for the faint of heart. I've done a number of mods and Frankie Steins,... so I know the pitfalls. Tread carefully. Good luck.

Thank you for the response, I was hoping you would see this, I have read your contributions to this and other forums over the years and greatly appreciate your expertise and willingness to teach. Glad I was not totally off base with my assumptions. Here is one source of my confusion. You said the JTV has active circuitry, requiring a power source. But, we know that the JTV does not require a power source to pass the magnetic signal, ie, there is nothing active going on at least when the battery is dead or not in place. Under these "passive" conditions, why would there be a DCR range? I guess the active electronics, even when not powered, are able to pass the sound, but still contribute some impedance value? Or maybe there is a passive impedance matcher (like a passive DI) that is always in line and allows the mags to work with the active circuit and therefore always plays a role? Assuming we stay within the 6K to 8K range, would there be an audible difference between the mag sound going through the JTV electronics vs. if they were wired up in the same guitar with typical pot and cap values? In general, I find the JTV sounds a bit darker than what I would expect from the pickups I have in there. FYI, I have a Duncan SSL1 in the neck (6.5K) and a Gibson 57 Classic in the bridge (7.8K). Stock middle.

"... magnetic pickups should be between 6K and 8K DCR. ", and "... sound will be thin/weak, and above that, rolled off and dull. ", yes, correct, very much so. "But that is not true for a "regular" guitar", also correct. This being a guitar with active circuitry (require a power source), as a result, is not a 'regular guitar' with passive circuitry. Pick up companies will have a DCR spec for their products. The pick-up signal goes through the main board, then to the the jack plate. What is in between on the main board I cannot discuss (it's a non disclosure agreement (NDA) thing). I have posted on this subject a number of times, here and on the Facebook Variax group page. "Has anyone done any tinkering/testing to see how the circuit actually works? ", yes, many people have swapped out pick-ups and found out for themselves, and didn't like it. There is a difference in how active verses passive and active filters work, and impedance matching two disparate circuits is key tot that. And I've been the guy at Line 6 who has been doing service and repair on these since 2010. Have been dealing with active circuits for guitars since 1975-76 'ish.

First: Where is a damn PDF on the OM? Seriously. Too big? Do it in chapters. Hullo? Any of the old salts still here? Set up took a couple of days. Part of it was the no QR-code glitch, part of it was networking tomf**kery, and part was because I have a life. But it's done. There is a sizeable gap from just onboarding the old setlists, hitting that trusty 11 Blu Eqyp preset, and expecting magic to occur, and fishing through 100+ IRs named way to similarly to one another and having it hit right. That was expected and, honestly, I have too many IRs. But this one IRs better. They sound more organic. Two days back I finally got into ground-up tone building. I have a handful of Lifeson builds I've done over the years and...honestly...they sound not-good now. My youngest has finally grokked Rush and, predictably, landed at Moving Pictures, so I decided to build a new Limelight preset. Here's where it gets good: So much less BS in this build. I got away with just a handful of blocks. OD>Amp>2 IRs>Pitch>Chorus>Delay>Reverb. On one path to the mixer and split into two FRFRs (mono). The biggest headache is that I keep expecting both the app and the box to act like the OG floor, but that's on me. The end tone is one I'm happy with and once I finish tweaking it I hope to be satisfied with it. That's huge. I'm putting the Floor back into it's ship box and throwing it up for sale. This is a keeper.

Glad you are happy with the new Unit. The O.G. Helix PDF Manual is still out there. The new one does not exist as a PDF but is entirely online. The entire eco-system of the Stadium is somewhat different than the O.G. Helix. I have gotten exact matches of the O.G. presets to come in perfectly into the Stadium and they sound great. But other times, they sound really bad. I have developed a whole new methodology for building presets in the Stadium. So far, It has been hit or miss on whether they sound better than they would on the O.G. Helix. But there is definitely more flexibility on the new Stadium. But those Agoura Amp models can chew up your DSP so you think that you are working on the old Helix. I have found many blocks seem to come through the mix more than the old Helix and I find myself dialing them back. I also have had some interaction between blocks work a little differently. An example is that I had a O.G Helix preset with an Autoswell block and a Compressor as I would get the compressor the flatten out and give the Autoswell block something to work with and it worked great on the O.G. Helix. But on the Stadium, the Compressor and Autoswell appear to fight each other and I found that I could put the Autoswell between the Amp and Cab and that worked better. Wierd. I am a modeler guy but some of the things that I have done to get the sound that is in my head are probably not what I would do with a real pedal board. I just like the idea of swapping out pedals and trying things out WAY easier than dealing with physical pedals. Experiment some, and if you don't like what you are getting - then try a different approach. Like the Compressor and Autoswell - I am not one for convention and what I think would make sense. if it works for you then share it on CustomTone. I think that presets should be free for all. The stuff I have paid for is good. But I can usually do better for free - sometimes, if it is worth the time and effort.

Hi everyone, I’ve been closely following the recent launch of Neural Amp Modeler (NAM) Architecture 2 (A2) and the TONE3000 platform. Seeing that HeadRush has already announced native NAM support for their Prime, Core, and Flex Prime units, I was wondering if anyone has heard any news or official statements from the Line 6 team regarding a possible integration? As many of you know, NAM A2 is a fully open-source protocol (MIT licensed), which should make it easier for manufacturers to implement. According to recent industry tests, the A2-Lite architecture is efficient enough to run on budget chips while maintaining incredible accuracy, even outperforming traditional modeling in blind listening tests. Having native integration and access to the TONE3000 API would be a game-changer for the Helix ecosystem. It would allow us to: Load high-quality captures directly without lossy third-party conversions. Access a massive library of over 350,000 free tones directly from our devices. Keep our Helix/HX units at the forefront of the "open tone" era. Does anyone know if this is on the roadmap or if any staff member has commented on it? It would be amazing to see Line 6 embrace this technology and not stay behind its competitors in this new era of neural captures. Thanks!