clay-man

Keep returning your JTVs until you get a proper sounding/working one.

Remember, it has to be SAFE ON PLASTIC, and FOR ELECTRONICS. Don't use car contact cleaners, and don't use ones that can damage plastic. 1/4 second spray on each side of the pickup selector should do fine, then wiggle it back and forth for like, 10-15 seconds. MaxPro did great for me http://ep.yimg.com/ay/attictrunk/12-case-max-professional-contact-cleaner-4-ounce-or-11-ounce-19.gif If it doesn't work, then some ribbon cable or connection might be disconnected.

I assumed it was a rebranding of their old feedback pedal. Strange. I wouldn't know how they'd make actual feedback happen besides boosting the signal really high for a moment. There's no way to feedback your guitar through the guitar cable or anything.

If it's not disconnected circuitry and just the pickup switch acting up, I fixed my Variax 600 by spraying plastic-safe electronic contact cleaner into the pickup selector, wagged the selector back and forth for about 15 seconds, and bam, brand new. No more position 5 being read as position 4 ocassionally. If it is because of a disconnection in the guitar, this wont help your problem, but if the problem is inconsistent, then it points towards the pickups selector being dirty. Either way, be safe when working on the guitar.

I believe a feedbacker pedal is just a fake feedback tone being produced by the pedal, and not actual feedback. It's to simulate the sound of feedback. You do NOT need an amp. There's no physical way a pedal can create real feedback. I believe it reads the pitch of the note you're playing and then gradually fades in an overtone to that pitch that sounds like feedback.

They can't just drop it right there and now, they'll need to fade out support over time.

I love my JTV, but discontinuing production is the first step of it being faded out. They can't be like "HEY CHECK OUT OUR JTV LINE THAT WE NO LONGER SELL", it's not realistic. I'm hoping that the Standard will be a bridge between the JTV series and will keep some of the support alive for it.

It's actually pissing me off, honestly. They're great guitars, and I finally get mine and they're already going down with the old Variaxes. They better continue support for it at least, a lot stronger than the old Variaxes. This isn't something I'm going to use for a few years and throw out.

Sadly though, if people been getting JTVs and they're suddenly stopping now, it's further evidence of the possible JTV being dropped.

Yup, the USB dongle does not provide power, just communication. You have to use the 1/4 to turn on the guitar, or plug the VDI port into a POD device with a VDI cable.

EQing the pinging noises is not an acceptable answer. Here's how I see it: If others don't have the problem with the guitar, neither should you. It's doing something it's not intended to do, therefor it should be fixed. EQing out the sound defeats the products and makes you have to basically muddy your tone so badly that the modeling feature basically becomes useless. If you have to EQ out a nuance that strong in the signal, it's going to kill everything off on the model, so what's the point of having the guitar in the first place? I must ask though, did you ever try what I told you do to?

I really think it's the tuning switch potentometer. The pots used for the model selector and tuning use indents if I remember right, and if they get something wrong with it, the DSP wont read it right.

I actually have to say, I like the old modeling and new modeling, but after owning both generations of Variaxes, I have to say, the piezos on the old Variax are horrible. When I hit the strings hard on the old Variax, it makes this quacking attack noise. None of my regular guitars can make that noise. I suspect it's the piezos being driven too hard. The new JTV piezos seem to not clip when I play hard, and it sounds very natural. The dynamics between modeling and magnetic sounds virtually spot on compared to my 600. Now, I love both 1.9 (or, old modeling, which is the same modeling on the old Variaxes) and HD, but I think HD is more consistent to the guitars being represented, while 1.9 is more about personal taste and the ability to really diversify the guitar's tone. (Ex: 1.9 Rickenbacker is exaggeratedly thin and bassless, yet no Rickenbacker videos on youtube sound like that). 1.9 was probably more focused on nailing specific tones on songs, while HD was more about nailing what the GUITARS sounded like. I don't know. I still like the old Variax a bit, but the JTV really stepped things up when I got it.

I can't find anything brighter than the tele without it not sounding like a tele, until I got to swapping the tele body with the firebird, which sounded amazing until the 6th string, which has no highs at all. It's weird how they did that. They rolled off the highs on the 6th string to balance the brightness of the mini humbuckers, I guess. I do realize that they did model a Telecaster Custom, so it's not going to be as bright as more contemporary teles.

The only real gripe I'm having with HD right now is the Tele models. Are thinlines brighter than normal teles, or is it the other way around? Backing the pickups in HD workbench doesn't work as well as old workbench, as backing the pickups towards the bridge also shifts the tonal aspects as well, not just making them brighter. When that happens, it sounds nothing like a tele. I do think the HD models sound like a Tele, but just not as bright as I'd like. My real Tele seems brighter, but then again, they used really old teles and strats, when strats were apparently brighter than teles back then.

Are the mags still passive when using a 1/4 with a battery?

When the Variax turns on, I hear a click noise turning on the modeling. What is the mechanism that turns on the modeling? What is that clicking noise? Are the mags completely passive when the guitar is activated or does it go through some weird circuit? Is this the mechanism to keep the guitar passive and the mags working when there's no battery?

It's not the Variax that needs to handle processing to simulate a guitar cable resistance, but the POD or Helix. If you're using a VDI, it's going into one of those products. I guess we could use a high cut filter, but you'd need to turn it on and off when turning modeling on and off. It's just kind of awkward switching between mags and modeling on VDI, but oh well. So if I understand correctly, since the modeling stages are active, there is no tone rolloff, but the passive magnetics are effected by the cable?

It is, it's just, I don't get why they don't emulate cable capacitance on the VDI signal.

Ebay is your friend when it comes to a series of Variax guitars being laid to rest. I'm sure it'll circulate well throughout the internet, but hopefully they really aren't discontinuing. I really don't want to go back to 1 option of guitar design being available. I love Strat style guitars, but I want variation in my guitar collection.

USB = guitar communicates with computer Jack = turns on guitar for computer to see, and you can hear what the edits sound like live.

The one I posted uses GK magnetic pickups, the one you posted uses piezos. Kind of proves my point that piezos have a better frequency range. That also means that the quality of the product will vary on what pickups you use for the 13 pin system.

They better have support for JTV repair going strong. That stuff isn't cheap..

I did back the mag pickups a bit because of sustain issues, so that might be why, so mine are probably less hot sounding. I honestly can't hear a difference when running it into a clean amp setting. If I run it completely dry, the modeling does sound like it has a slight high frequency cut. Other than that, it sounds spot on to me. Even then, I feel 1.9's single coil sound sounds way more quacky than 2.0, and I don't get any real quack out of my mags on the guitar besides the obvious 2 & 4 position. The quackiness is nice for that bright tele sound, but ultimately it seems a bit over exaggerated. It could be from comparing the JTV to my 600 (which I just basically lable as the same modeling as 1.9 just in an older version guitar), but then again, the hardware could make a difference. I also noticed that the rickenbacker is less exaggerated in the thinness of the tone though it still sounds nasally like a rickenbacker should. The only thing I can really think of that they skipped is all that "simulation" of hardware noise, like the bigsby ring, and spings ringing, but in all honestly, who wants those noises in their guitar playing? Pretty much everyone mutes their trem springs as much as they can. Personally, I just really grew on the HD modeling, I don't know. I don't get why they don't simulate cable resistance on the mags through VDI though.

What's going to happen to replacement and repair for JTV guitars? :/ I really don't want the JTV series to be hard to get service for.