clay-man

I prefer the sounds of my HD500 over my POD Farm (software version of X3/XT). Sounded more real and more warmer. X3 can get good sounds through tweaking, but it has that old generation modeling overtone that new modelers fixed. It's all personal taste, and besides, your last comment said you like the X3 more, so either try them out more or get the X3 if you like it a lot.

I've yet to try another PC. I've tried to diagnose if anything is triggering it to halt communication. It still did it again. I'm starting to wonder if the USB chip was damaged and is randomly erroring out, because I've tested the USB port multiple times. I've even moved it to test if it would mess up and it never does. I'm wondering if the USB chip is malfunctioning. I'm considering taking it into a repair center but I'm not sure if they can fix it. If it's going to cost more than getting a new one then there's really no point. Thank you all for your help. If I do get another POD I'm making sure it's new with warranty this time because I'm tired of dealing with this between the POD and my Variax.

You can try. Since it's piezo pickups, acoustic strings work, and bronze strings sound nicer for acoustic stuff. Perhaps use lighter gauges as well, same as electric.

Sounded awful and unusable, so I stuck with electrics. The acoustic models sounded amazing though and sounded spot on realistic.

So as many of you know, the USB port on my POD was busted. I resoldered it a week or 2 ago. Everything was fine until a few nights ago when my computer would freeze when using my POD with a DAW. This is the same problem I've had before hand when the port broke. This would happen for almost every 20 minutes from starting up the computer. I opened up the POD again and resoldered it that night. Next night, it improved, but happened again. So now I am trying this one last time. I took off all the solder and started over. All the points had just enough solder. Not too much like a few times before. Solder melted onto all the pads, and melted on all the prongs of the USB port. Volcanic like appearance like they should be. This is the last time I'm doing this as I don't know what else I could do. I'll try another usb cable and port I guess. Here are some pictures, what do you think?:

DO NOT buy the Variax PCB from fullcompass yourself. It does not come pre-flashed and it will do nothing. Neither a POD or USB dongle will recognize it. I'm pretty sure this is for a service center to install if they need the part.

How do I set up MIDI to control the HD500? I know how to set up MIDI to go out from the POD, but not the other way around. I might use it.

What can I do with midi input on the HD500?

So you got a replacement?

I have to try that later, that sounds insanely fun.

Cruisinon, the problem is that the 2 string materials give 2 different sounds to work with. The Variax's sound prior to modeling is basically what a string would sound like prior to going through the pickups, body, electronics. This is why it's easy to model steel string instruments because they use the same base for their sound. Nylon gives out different tonality, something that a convolution impulse response isn't going to cover completely. You can only shape it to sound like the nylon's frequencies, but there's a lot of characteristics it could possibly miss. I put acoustic strings on my Variax once as a joke and the acoustic models actually sounded even better, because bronze strings and steel strings sound different, but they're close enough to get a good enough representation to model an acoustic on the Electric Variax. The question is, if they went through with it, would you guys care about it? Is that gap from difference in material going to throw off the sound too much for you to not like it? That's what they have to consider.

It's modeling not synthesis.... modeling takes a sound and shapes it to sound different synthesis analysis a sound then forms a replacement sound with data based around the original input sound.

Proof that Workbench is your best tool to working with the tone. If you're not happy with something, take some time to know how to work with Workbench, there's most likely a way you can shape it in your favor.

Problem is mainly on high gain metal tones. Backed off tone and treble on the screamer on POD and it sounds better now. Les Paul, Strat, and Tele sound insanely chirpy in E standard without backing off the tone knob a bit.

explain "able to do it"? Did it sound convincingly like it? The problem here is that a nylon guitar uses nylon strings, every model on the JTV uses metallic strings, ergo they can model the sound very accurately. How convincingly can they make steel strings sound like a nylon string?

It's this: http://line6.com/support/topic/157-jtv-89f-low-e-chirps-when-using-modeled-tones/ I'm getting this problem. It was barely an issue before, but now it sounds pretty awful. I put some plastic between the string and the piezo and it helped, but I started noticing it again.

Well, not overload, but sound really clanky in the attack, especially on the fat E string, something a lot of people have made a topic on even in the JTV threads.

Yeah I'm aiming for the full maple fretboard model. I'm doing an all or nothing thing.

Pretty sure it's still 800, without the rebate is 900-1k if it was 600, trust me, I'd get that right now. The problem is that I'm trying to save up for a trip, and if I get that now it might clip into my budget for that trip.

I put contact cleaner on the E pickup and it actually sounds worse now. I replaced that pickup for now with a piezo replacement and it still sounds pretty clanky so I put a bit of plastic between the string and the pickup to muffle that clank a bit, sounds good again. I'm wondering if that's the piezo overloading? It only happens on the Les Paul model. Will ghosts help get rid of that? I'm trying to do some repairs on my 600 to get it back to 100% but I'm still waiting on a component, else I'm just going to have to deal with it and wait for an opportunity for a JTV.

As much as the mail rebate would be nice, I'm trying to watch my money. I'm trying to make a budget during a time span for an event I have coming up, which is why the topic says I'll probably buy it next year instead of now. I'm glad the price is a bit lower now though, 1.4k was just wayyy too much. Even 1k would be nicer, but it's still pushing it a little bit. I with the mail rebate lasted longer but the guitar is lower on my priority list, and in that time span I think 150 dollars isn't going to hurt much.

Can a setup void the warranty?

Oh and about my previous post, that doesn't apply to if your input is so loud it clips the input. If that happens use Guitar Pad or back your pickups away from your strings. Personally I'd make the pickups as loud as you want without any clipping, distortion can always be done in the POD, using input clipping is bad if you want to get nice cleans.

Money is becoming less and less of an issue, but I'm still waiting for the right opportunity to get my ultimate dream guitar. I got a 600 at the end of 2012 to compensate not being able to have a JTV, and I've been very happy, but the gap between the JTV and the old Variaxes has grown bigger since then. So basically I want feedback and suggestions of how I should purchase said model: JTV 69s, black, maple fretboard. I just can't go back to rosewood or anything besides maple, I feel like it helps playability. My questions: -Should I avoid buying used? -What online store should I buy it from? Sweetwater? Musician's Friend? Anything else? -How much is the upgrade really worth? As many of might of heard me say, I'd really like to have the ability to alternate tune on the fly. Even just the alt tuning knob itself is a huge upgrade for me. I still struggle to this day keeping a balance between alternate tunings and alternate models. How much better is the 2.0 and above HD update? Let's disregard the Strat complaint for now. How much more accurate and nice is the LP sound? One of the things I don't like about the LP is that I think it's a a bit unusable in standard tuning. Anything lower sounds great, but in E standard, palm muting sounds way too plunky and chunky.

The worst thing I can think of is that I burnt a component during soldering. I was having trouble getting the volume pot out until I tried another technique to pull it out. Hard to heat up 6 solder points at once unless you use a lot of solder to transfer heat. Another possibility I can think of is that the pots aren't soldered in 100% correct which is crazy because I swear they're soldered in fine. I melted the solder multiple times to check and the VDI part still sounds fine. The reason I think this is because before I changed the pots, the volume pot had a problem where the 1/4 volume would crackle and be cut out at very specific spots of being turned. It sounded like a grounding issue, as when I touched the strings or metal I could hear a little bit of buzz. The thing is though, that there is no buzzing sound when touching any metal so I'm conflicted about it being the same problem or a grounding problem, so there must be a part that I need to check.