clay-man

One of the annoying and outlandish things in the warranty, or somewhere, is where Line 6 states "tone is subjective" as a defense to a guitar sounding off. Tone is very much subjective, but the fact that the guitar is making a tone that it wasn't designed to, isn't about tone at all, it's about a guitar with a problem. Saying "Not all guitars are the same" when the guitar is making a honking noise while everyone else's isn't, isn't a valid excuse to dismissing a guitar with a sound issue. I'm glad Sweetwater recognized this issue and helped to resolve it.

Don't get how people complain about the strat/single coil models being quieter, because they're supposed to? You don't complain about that with an actual Strat do you? Even then, you can literally boost the signal via workbench.

There's virtually no way I can play efficient hammer ons and pull offs on the E strings without it sliding off, the only thing I can do is let it slide off as fast as possible to make it sound like it's not happening. If I don't, it'll either be too quite, and or warble in alt tuning modes. Regardless of hand size, I have never seen a neck with the edge strings so close to the edge. It's ridiculous. If it really is a hand size thing, then why isn't the string spacing reduced as well?

I meant that they never really thought about it, and assumed that a Strat player would want a neck like that, and they assumed there wouldn't be people who'd really play hammer on/pull offs, or any crazy stuff that would reveal to the company that the neck is actually incredibly small and allows the E strings to slip off. They do know NOW, and they tried to "fix" it, but that's debatable, and it just reduces, and doesn't get rid of the problem.

I would think the E slippage on the 69 is from the assumption that a Strat player would want a really small neck. They probably also assume that a strat player would never have a playing style that would make the E slippage problem a concern. Now, I'm not much of a shredder guy, but when I want to tear on a fretboard, I'd like to be able to without any limitations.

Any overhang between the saddle/piezo and the ball end is a culprit and can cause high pitched ringing via synthetic resonance when playing that string. As far as I can see, the 59 and 89 have overhang as well. There was a picture of someone putting a strip of felt between the bridge and that part of the string to mute the overhanging part.

A luthier might be able to fix some things, but sometimes with a beast like this, it could cause further damage to assume you know what you're doing with it just because it's LIKE a regular guitar in some aspects. I junked the 1/4 jack on my 600 by replacing the pots. A luthier would probably have a way better job at fixing it than I did, but that doesn't mean he's qualified for any of the Variax parts.

I used masking tape, and it worked. I noticed virtually every string has the problem, just some more than others, but if you play in certain ways, you can get it to ring out, so it's helps a lot to put tape around that part of the strings. (ball end to the place where it meets the saddle but NOT over the saddle, as that's where the string meets the piezo. If you put it there, you will dampen the tone of the string as well as kill sustain.)

If anyone has this problem with their guitar, I strongly suggest taking your pick, go behind the bridge, and pick the part of the string behind the saddle and hear if the sound is similar to the sound over the string making that strange noise. I found out that the reason this happened on my guitar, is because picking the string normally, sends a vibration to that part of the string behind the saddle, which gets picked up by the piezo. Essentially those parts of the string hanging behind the saddle are high tuned notes. The way I fixed this on my JTV-69, was wrapping tape around the strings near the ball ends and before the saddles. No modifications, just loosening the strings, putting tape on the string to make sure that part doesn't ring out, then tuning them back up, then bam, the noise is gone.

You should never give a Variax to a regular guitar luthier. The only thing someone like that should do is a setup, but nothing dealing with the electronics. You need to send it to an approved place that knows how to do that, or you will junk your guitar.

Make it better? Well, I don't think anyone can get closer than what the JTV modeling already does, do you mean to make more realistic models though? Tone is subjective, and if you want the Les Paul setting to sound like a different Les Paul, that's understandable. I'm not saying the Tone is perfect, but it's subjective with variables.

The new Variaxes have rounded piezos which allow the strings to contact when using the whammy bar. It shouldn't be happening. Either it is a setup problem, or the slack of tension causes the piezos ground to short out.

I do. It was the best neck I've ever played on. I did a lot of "work" on it to try to help kill severe fret level problems, but ultimately, right now, it has low action, but it buzzes, but not enough for it to come through the modeling. Also, priority for that guitar would be to fix the 1/4 jack. My JTV is setup great. I lowered the action a bit when I got it. No buzzing at all.

Too bad the old 89 is gone now. I personally hate floyds, but they do stay in tune better, they just are annoying to set up. My B and G string like to fall flat when I do bends after using the whammy, so I don't do dive bombs. I don't much of that stuff in the first place. I'd more or less like to just use it as a downwards vibrato.

I might need to just get a new neck for my 600. The frets are worn to hell. A Fret job would require shaving off a lot of the frets.

If a replacement neck is set up right, the action shouldn't be a problem, should it?

That would be cool, but it's obvious that the JTV bodies are specifically designed to be based off of a Strat, Les Paul, and Super Strat. Regardless, the specs should of been tweaked to be as superior as they can be, considering how praised of a luthier he is, but yet I find it difficult to play on the edges of the fretboard because of the narrow string space from the edges. It makes certain playing styles needlessly more difficult.

Variax had a processor upgrade from the Variax to the JTV series. JTV and Standard series both have the same processing power and memory. There are some hardware differences to identify which guitar is which, but the hardware upgrade was from the original Variaxes to the JTVs. It's why you can't have JTV updates on the old ones.

Even with the supposed fix, the E strings are still very close to the edge of the fretboard. You either have to adjust to it or get a different Variax.

I use the battery when connecting to an amp, VDI when using the POD or connecting to my DAW. You think the battery situation is bad, it's 12 hours, which is astonishing, especially compared to using freaking Double A batteries on the old Variax. If you truly hate charging to make sure you have juice to run on, just get more batteries.

Should we not use a TRS? I've been using one all this time and it works just fine. Both my guitar cables are TRS/stereo and they work fine for me. Did the OP solve this problem by switching to a mono TS cable?

Aw darn, maybe I coulda got some stuff from having to return Variaxes 2 times. Oh well, having a working guitar is all I ask for.

One of the biggest reasons I got the 69 was the tremolo. Maybe I would of gotten the 89, but I hate floyd rose systems. If the 59 had a bigsby, I'd love it and would of considered getting it over a 69, but I don't know. I'm not the biggest whammy user, but I want the option to have it there if I need it. I did want a Strat/fender style guitar though. I might get the 59 next if I ever do get another Variax, but it'll be a while.

I'll probably swap my neck once the warranty is gone. I've gotten used to it, but it's still annoying how close the E strings are to the edge. I don't have that problem as much anymore, but honestly, what were they thinking? I suppose they just wanted the neck to be smaller to the hands without compromising the string spacing. I don't have the headstock as much as I used to. It looks better in person.

This is what I mean by quality control that could obviously be resolved. Obviously the adhesive and/or amount used isn't keeping the model knob top on the 69 guitars. Superglue is a great fix, but they obviously can resolve this.