marcwormjim

I liken the 89 neck to a Wizard III. Others may disagree. Also note that Variaxes tend to weigh more than their counterparts with less hardware under the hood. 1. Everything transmits over VDI. Unofficially, you may use any generic CAT5 cable of desired length. Officially, use only official cables. 2, 3. The factory firmware tunings on the 89 are silkscreened on the tuning knob, but may be programmed to be whatever you like. 4. Don’t know why you’d want to replace the physical knob, but it would just be a matter of finding the part. 5. It’s a floating Floyd Rose with pull-up routing; range determined by your setup. 6. All JTVs are powered via either an onboard lithium-ion battery or via VDI. Powering via 1/4” requires a proprietary breakout box. 7. As I recall, Plugging 1/4” and VDI simultaneously is actually required when using the Workbench software independent of a POD/Helix USB interface (the 1/4” jack turns the guitar “on” and allows for real-time monitoring of tweaks) 8. Yes. You may program your Helix/POD patches to have the physical Variax controls slave to preset values In the unit.

Yes; it seems the particular Tele Thinline and Les Paul Black Beauty guitars used for the Gen 1 modeling were no longer available to Line 6 when they built their Gen 2 library. Count me among the many who felt they botched the “HD”/warts-and-all/no-quack Strat model, as well. Fortunately, you can mix and match components and model levels in Workbench to get in the ballpark of the 1.9 models.

On paper, it’s as simple a mod as on any other 2 humbucker guitar: The pickup selector switch sums the start wires for each humbucker in parallel in position 3. By using an additional switch to send the humbuckers’ series connections to ground, the selector switch instead receives the split coil signal for all switch positions (making 2 and 4 redundant). Some 89 owners have utilized Tripleshot rings to achieve this option and more. The issue with any mod to the Variax’s magnetic pickup circuit is that a single mistake can spell disaster that only Line 6 can remedy, and even then at their discretion. Officially, Line 6 would likely advise you to use the Variax for its intended purpose of creating a model bank in which switch positions 1 and 5 are the 89 humbuckers and 3 is just a tele. But being as I’m not Line 6, I’m curious to see what you end up doing.

We’re rooting for you. Great work, so far.

I’m afraid not. I recall owners requesting this since Workbench was first released in 2005. I liken it to L6 receiving requests for a three amp stereo path in a POD built to run two amps at the most. You can try to move two pickup types around in Workbench until the sound is approximated but, alas, the Swiss Army knife philosophy of the Variax means it can’t replace the main guitar(s) of players such as us who utilize unconventional switching.

I don’t use a GK pickup on my JTV89F anymore, but I used a conversion pickup ring I bought on eBay to mount the GK3 with zero permanent modification. You just replace the bridge humbucker mounting ring with it and it gives you the clearance and a flat mounting space that doesn’t contact the guitar body. You may want to look into fabricating one yourself with a sheet of metal or plastic.

Did you wait to try it before you insulted the guy?

Just a random Artec PAF set from a parts box - Put whatever you want in. FYI, I’ve had four JTV89s (multiple return-exchanges due to sub-Squier QC); and none of them had pickup routing deep-enough to lower the stock pickups enough to balance them with the models. A less-invasive option is to air or swap the pickup magnet, or shim the neck and raise the bridge.

I dealt with this issue by swapping the 89’s high-output pickups for a lower-output set. This alleviated the balance issues between the 89F mags and the pickups in my other guitars and, should I want that sound, I still have the factory firmware’s modeled ‘89 pickups to use with the neutral body.

The red is a dark transparent maroon.

^True. This would be a more thriving community, if only every thread didn’t end with needing a support ticket to blow your nose.

I own and have owned many of the guitars modeled in the Variax series. Even in the original line, I had to use Workbench to bring the modeled pickups' and strings' output up or down to what I had the real ones set up for.

The 89F I own is my third (the previous two were returned, before I settled): Each had the same CNC and QC issues ( neck pocket routed too deep to achieve low action, humbucker routes too shallow, action way higher from the factory than other brands at the same price point, Graphtech Floyd unable to be lowered into its route without compromising the pivot point, all three are extremely body-heavy, frets need leveling, etc.). The Variax line has always accomplished the "Swiss army guitar" feature with the electronics constituting most of the cost, but rarely do they come out of the box set up to compete with much cheaper instruments. As others have said, a TLC session with a good tech (and perhaps a neck shim) can make it less of a chore to play. The issue for me isn't that Line 6's official position is to withhold setup specs, but that James Tyler allows his name on it.

Yes; you can either rotate the pups or re-solder the leads, depending on whether or not you wish to keep the screw coils on the outside. If I had to guess, it's because Tyler or someone at Line 6 judged that splitting to the screw coils resulted in either too bright a sound for the 500k analog pots, or perhaps the "Tyler-designed" pups have less of a drop in output with the slug coils selected. In either case, I prefer the outside coils, as well.

I too would be interested in replacing my 89F neck at some point - Please post photos if/when the mod is complete.