clay-man

It's honestly up to you. It will be a little different than a magnetic palm mute, yes. The 1.9 update has added programming to help make palm mutes sound more natural though. You have to listen to it yourself and decide if you like it or not. Personally, there's times where it does bother me, and times when I think it sounds great. It sounds great when it's being down tuned below e standard. I made an SG model that makes palm mutes not sound so chunky and have more bite compared to the LP models. I'm using a Variax 600 though, which is before the 1.9 update. Does anyone know if there's any improvement between 1.9 and the HD update though? You know, if they furthered improvement on palm muting. Obviously it was improved on from 1.8 to 1.9, but I mean 1.9 to 2.0. Anyways, like I said, listen to examples, possibly try one out yourself and decide if you like the palm muting or not. Here's a demo I did with my Variax 600 on a Les Paul setting, alt turned to C standard.. It's going into Guitar Rig 5 with a tube screamer and 5150 green channel with crunch on. Pre gain at about 6, post on 7. I've found palm muting higher up the strings helps lessen the chunky compressed sound. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/21663288/Music/variaxpalmmutetest.mp3

Sorry. I would personally consider the models you get to be part of the features. It's not too bad of a trade, getting a better single telecaster than multiple telecasters. Oh yeah, and the goldtop les paul is gone as well, also the custom les paul I think.

Not really. There's a FEW things you'll lose. You'll be reduced from 3 telecaster bodies to 1. Not too bad, but the thinline telecaster really should have stayed.

I understand where he's coming from, but it's incredibly unproductive to use that 10 year old technology that 1.9 is equipped with. I agree that the old Variax stuff sounds great, yeah, but the new one sounds great too, maybe a few things off or alienating towards people. The thing that needs to happen is that they need to model the correct stuff, not change any of the models they have. We don't need a drastic change of what people bought the guitar for. The idea of the HD models should be upgraded versions of the same guitars and possibly more. The more part was the new humbucker telecaster and 89 models. I also stated that they might be hitting the ceiling of the memory of the JTV, and doubling the library of guitar models with 1.9 models is counterproductive. Hopefully the memory thing isn't the case, but I still think they shouldn't waste is on a mindless thing as adding old technology back. Once again, model the previous 1.9 guitars though their HD technology.

Dude, it would be wasting space. Why would we waste memory space for old technology that they can't work with? They can progress on the HD stuff if it's truly broke. I don't know how many times it's been said that people can roll back. If you're so concerned about the old models, let's use that memory space for them to make different strat bodies and stuff that you guys want to badly.

Once again. It's not possible. You're asking them to use double the memory on the JTV with old outdated technology. Let's take steps forward, not backwards.

I still think making your own guitar from scratch on the Variax is ridiculous no matter how you spin it. You do not have the same tools as Line 6 to create pickup and body convolutions/algorithms correctly. Like I said, maybe adding a bit more depth in what you can edit would be alright, but that depends if the current coding will allow that without having to rewrite everything again. I say just add more bodies and pickups. That's honestly all we really need. SG, Jaguar, Jazzmaster, stuff like that. It all depends on how much memory is left on the JTV to be used though.

Do newly made Variaxes get update to the latest firmware, or has it stayed 1.7 and you have to upgrade manually regardless of when the Variax was made?

I've thought about them doing that, but I think modeling a guitar is more complicated than modeling an amp, and there's reasons. Modeling an amp is pretty simple since you can send a raw signal through the amp to play, then record how the amp sounds. With a guitar, you can't feed a pick up a "raw signal". I'm sure there's some ways to get the frequency response of a pickup, but it's not as easy as an amp. A regular guitarist doesn't have the tools at their disposal to possibly profile a guitar correctly. With an amp, you just need a cable and a mic to record how the amp sounds.

Well, I know, but you'd have to know how the hardware works and all, something Line 6 knows because they're the one that made the guitar. This person is asking for additional stuff though, and making new firmware from scratch would throw out all the features of the real firmware out the window.

You mean a custom firmware from scratch?

Well the source code is the file that is editable to the programmers, not yet exported as the firmware file. That means it can still be open with the editing software and tweaked with it. Once you compile the source code it's not readable by the editing software, but is used to actually run as a process, in this case the Variax's DSP. I'm sure they used something to write up the algorithms/convolutions to model the guitars and other stuff. It would be pretty hard and ridiculous to code in raw computing language (hexadecimal/binary)

I was going to say that you could hack the firmware, but that would be insane to mess with. You'd need to reverse engineer everything. The problem with this is that you don't have the source code obviously. Hacking the firmware could possibly brick your JTV too. It's not really feasible unless you're that insane.

Yeah, basically what you're asking is if you can code the firmware yourself. What you're asking for requires a lot of memory from the presets. Like I said, that's way too complicated to do. Workbench is supposed to be what you're asking, just at a feasible scale. If you're not satisfied with your tone then you should use an EQer. Other than that, more bodies and pickups, but asking to adjust every little nuance is insane.

The presets, bodies pots and pickups are coded in the firmware. A preset doesn't carry the algorithm codes and all, it just tells the variax what settings you're using, as in it picks the bodies pickups and pot values and applies that to the coding inside the variax's firmware to give you the sound you get. A preset is nothing more than values for variables with the firmware to work with. What your asking would possibly require a mass rewrite and is way too complicated. Work with what you got. I agree there should be more bodies and pickups perhaps, but painting a guitar? Making guitar bodies? That's impossible unless you know how to model guitars in their programming yourself. I made an SG preset out of a junior LP body and LP pickups rolled back towards the bridge. It sounds pretty spot on. I also made a Baritone Jaguar preset. I'm pretty sure you can come close to stuff if you just try.

While I think that would help stability a lot, my guitar still needs a better nut as well. I'll probably get them both someday. I just need to know what's the proper nut size to get and how to set it up.

BTW here's a clip of what it sounds like. Rickenbacker neck 1 octave up. Playing at the 12 mark on all lower 5 strings results in a fizzy muted noise. Playing on the 11th on the high e does the same. If I move the tuning down and increase the played fret by 1 (13 fret, then 14 fret, and so on everytime I tune down a half step) it does it. Maybe it's a problem with the convolution? Oh well. I mainly use a real capo anyways, and I could just use a bridge pickup version if I really wanted. I just like the extra octave I can play out of this preset. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/21663288/Music/neckglitch.mp3

It's more expensive than the 300 so I'd hope so. It's nice to have a tremolo again after playing an SG only for years, though like I said, I need to replace the nut because it's making it unusable since the strings are getting caught in the nut. How good is a TUSQ? The problem with my guitar is that it goes out of tune if I do bends, and I hate that, so I stretch the strings until bends don't detune the guitar, but then if I use the tremelo, it goes out of tune. It's a lose-lose situation, so I just use bends for now.

Aww really? Well, the thing that matters is if I like it or not. I love it. 300 was a strat with rosewood (I think) 500 was a strat with a LP headstock and an LP knob layout 600 was the closest to a regular strat, with a maple fretboard and tremelo 700 was a super strat in my opinion ^

I love the alt tuning on my Variax. If it didn't work I wouldn't be satisfied. It's something I use extensively since I play a lot of bands' music with different tunings. It's one of the main reasons I love this guitar. This is why I'm never going to buy a used JTV. It's tempting, but I'd rather have a warranty and the ability to return it to the store if it's broke available.

I know that the 700 is the highest quality in the original variaxes, but is the 600 better build quality than the 300? I know the 600 uses basswood. The one thing I didn't like about the original line up was that they were all strats with just different headstocks and minor design differences. The JTV line offers more variety in what you can choose, though i still think they should make a telecaster model.

Thanks! I suppose I can live with it, but I'm kinda disappointed that this glitch exists.

Totally understandable. 1st gen Variax is obviously outdated technology, but it's still great if you don't have a JTV, which is my case. I'm lucky I have a Variax at all. It's best to let someone who will play it have it though. Sounds like you made some nice modifications. Thanks about the stickers. I printed some images, layered double sided tape on the back and then glossy tape on the front to laminate it and prevent the ink from smearing. Looks great in person. If you looked up close to the fake bridge pickup plate, it has "VARIAX" embossed in it like a Fender guitar. Was definitely fun customizing. Looks great when you take them off still.

The 69's headstock is a lot better than the JT headstock yeah. I guess I just dig the Fender-esque headstock a lot. I like the decals a lot as well. I also put a lot of home made decals on my guitar. They're easily removable if I decide I want to take them off or get sick of them. I also made a custom label for my model knob. Since it doesn't have an LED, and I have a lot of overwritten slots, I thought it would be nice to make a label of my own.

The reason it didn't stay in tune is because it had a crappy low quality nut. My 600 has a pretty sub-par nut as well, though it stays in tune if i don't use the tremelo. I need to replace the nut with a graphtech TUSQ nut so I can use the tremolo actively. Personally, I don't know about the 700, but I love my 600. The design was great. Looks like a Strat should. All that's missing are real pickups. The JTV has superior features, definitely, but comparing the 69 to the 600, I prefer the way the 600 looks. The headstock looks awful, and I love the glossy finish on the maple neck on my 600. I do however think the 59 looks absolutely beautiful, the only problem I have is the 3 way switch. While I know it's trying to keep in style of a Les Paul, I would find it annoying to having to use the push pull knob to switch between 1-3-5 to 2-3-4 pickup selection. If it had a 5 way switch blade, I'd love it.