clay-man

If I turn my noise gate off and roll down my volume I can hear it extremely faintly, and I think only on the les paul model. Nothing I'm concerned with as it's blended with the noise floor and hardly noticeable, something I cut out with a noise gate anyways.

Ah sorry, I misread the title. It seems like you can't. Not 100% sure. It says it doesn't have workbench support, and I don't think there was any other way to change tunings other than through workbench prior to the JTVs. Detuning a Variax physically can sometimes be a bit sketchy as it needs the tension of the strings to be on the piezos to respond properly, so if you ever do tune down physically you might need thicker gauge strings.

By the way, whoever suggested the felt idea, it doesn't work for me. The ping on the 6th string of my guitar is very faint already, and not bad like yours is, but it's enough to notice the 6th string's attack sounds a lot different than the other strings on humbucker models. It makes the 6th string on the Les Paul KIND OF sound like a single coil. It's the worst on E standard but not on downtuned settings. I tried putting felt, paper, and other things between the string and piezo and it actually made it WORSE. I tried even 2 times the felt and it is really pingy when I do that. Just wanted to post my results for your idea.

Workbench is great if you're not using it to correct things. There are 2 major different firmware differences, pre 2.0 is the original Variax modeling, 1.7 is original Variax modeling with original acoustics as well. 2.0 and above is the new HD modeling for all the guitars. I do personally think the modelings on the Variax is a lot stronger than the VG strat, mainly because of the piezo pickups instead of using magnetics to base on modeling.

Alternate tunings are assigned by a patch by patch basis through workbench. Patches = every pickup selection position for each bank on the model knob. Once you change the tunings through workbench, it will always be that tuning on that patch and you cannot disengage, change the guitar model that's tuned to that tuning without doing it through workbench again, this means if you want a Strat in E standard and a Strat in Drop D, you have to have 1 bank have the 5 pickup selections be in E standard then copy those to another bank and make all the pickup selections Drop D. I suggest using Custom 1 and 2. It depends on what you value more, different models or different tunings. The more tunings you want the more models you'll have to replace on your model select roster.

I know I should feel it out, but honestly it helps to have a visual point to know exactly where you're rolling your knob, so my question is, can I replace the volume and tone knobs with fender hat knobs? I know they come off, and I took them off many times, I'm just wondering if the hat knobs will fit and which ones you think I should get? Preferably white knobs to match the pickguard. What do you think of the idea?

I really hope you didn't pay too much for that guitar. Mine was a bit sketchy too when I got it but the guy said it was fine and you have 2 kind of big problems, one of which completely ruins the functionality of the guitar and makes it almost useless imo. Like I said, piezo elements are 12 dollars a piece, I strongly suggest replacing it if it isn't working right. It was worth it for my broken piezo, zero grounding issues since and I can actually use the whammy bar without worrying about the grounding messing up.

You're acting like workbench will kill your guitar. It will do absolutely nothing like that. It's not like it's updating the firmware. Trust me, it's fine. Workbench is great and I'm sure it can help solve your problems. Backup your current patches if you ever want to roll them back.

Either it was whacked or he's lying. My D string was my culprit too. The sound volume dropped about in half and there was a lot of static. It sounds like yours has a grounding problem that can't go back to normal at all so it's stuck in half volume all the time. When you do try to clean it and all, be careful as the wire is delicate and thin. If that doesn't work, you can order a piezo element replacement from Line 6 or you could order an x-bridge insert from LR Baggs directly like I did. It only costs 12 dollars per piezo pickup.

It depends on how you want it to sound. I have a patch based on my actual acoustic so I EQed the low end and mids, then cut some of the highs to make it sound close to my mic'd up acoustic.

I have those wires, they are screwed into the guitar and attached to the coffin.

That's a bit harsh, but yes it is kind of stupid. I'm sure the code to make old workbench work is probably not even 1 MB. Just because the old Variaxes are 10 years old doesn't mean there's no old Variax users left. It's not very fair. I know I'm never getting a 500x because of this, and this ultimately means I'm getting a 500 without paying Line 6 through ebay. This isn't because I don't want to support them, but because it's my only decision.

Go in workbench and adjust all your patch levels down until the volume matches the other guitar.

I could hear it, it's a small pick noise on the attack, but other than that, it sounds exactly the same to me.

I agree, it isn't as bad as you said. Perhaps it's the piezos too?

Weird. I thought they were supposed to be calibrated between guitars. They really should do that, the inconsistencies kind of defeats the purpose of the Variax. They should put a modeling offset before the actual modeling begins. It's probably because of the scale length body and material.

Highly appreciated. I have a backup folder called "default" but I think some of them were still tweaked. I noticed my Tele's pot values were off on certain patches and I can't remember what the default pot value was for them.

I'd like a default Variax batch file please so I don't have to reflash my Variax. Can anyone share one?

Firebird X is pretty terrible. The only decent Variax-esque guitars is the Roland Strat and the Auto Tune guitar, but I still personally like the Variax the most.

acoustics should go through the PA and not an amp. It'll color the tone of the acoustic sound.

This is a very helpful post, but I must say that I think Line 6 is wrong to say that there's nothing wrong with the guitar. Obviously the piezos are faulty, oversensitive. The least they could do is replace the faulty piezo element. Not everyone has the plinking problem and it's not because of the way they set up their amp. I can set up my amp settings anyway I want and there's no plinking going on at all for me.

Can anyone with an old Variax with Ghosts tell us how much of a difference does the piezos make in the quack factor for acoustic guitars?

Kind of the piezo's fault on how the attack sounds from how hard you play. It works with electric models, but with acoustic models, it sounds weird. That's why people like the graphtech ghosts because they're supposed to compress any hard playing to not sound weird.

The power unit is noisy even when not connected to the guitar. By noisy I don't mean constant noise, but I mean popping when moving the cable in the jack, or buzzing when it's unplugged. This doesn't happen without the power supply and just batteries. I'm hoping if power from batteries can result in no buzz or popping when changing pickups/models then a VDI would be clean enough to do it as well.

It's dry signal, so remember to use no effects, amps or cabinets when comparing.