clay-man

Yeah, I'm really happy that Line 6 is still helping people out. Some guy sent their Acoustic Variax to get the piezos fixed and they did. They're still helping repairs 100%, and the supplies are still here. You can dismiss whoever made that rumor.

It was a rumor. They're slow when restocking items, so be patient. Like Zap said, maybe not every single part is available anymore, but a lot of common things still get restocked. I think the most common thing you'll want are the piezos, since those go out the fastest.

I borrowed a soldering kit from a friend today. I opened my guitar up and removed the tape. I decided to solder the 2 wires together. I striped the old one a bit and joint the wires together, tinned the iron, put it beneath the wire and applied some solder on top. It seemed to turn out really nicely, formed a nice mold of solder around the wire joint. I tested it out and I think it's finally fixed for real this time!

Are you talking about the wire running into the piezo? I know you can't solder that, it's basically impossible, However, I mean the PCB board where the piezo runs the wire to. I broke off my piezo to the wire by accident a while back, though the piezo was bad anyways. I ordered a new one and want to solder that to the PCB or the excess wire of the old piezo.

Hey, can you please tell me how it went when you do fix it? I'm going to solder up a new piezo but I don't have a solder gun yet. Please tell me what you did when you do fix yours. I assume I need to take off the old solder first before I solder the new one, right

Aaaand I had to do it again today, because the wire jutted out of the tape, losing connection to the old wire. I'm going to try to solder the 2 wires together when I can pick up a solder kit, but for now I threw out the tremolo bar again (because that's what caused it, YET AGAIN) I kind of hate the guy who sold me this guitar now. I have bad luck with defective technology.

I've replaced a piezo on my 600. Here's what you have to do to access the piezos: 1)Take off or detune all your strings until they have no tension against the bridge. 2) Take off the back plate and undo the tremolo springs. (loosen them and pull all of them off, and put them aside) 3) Gently take off the Molex-esque cable that attaches the tremolo piezo PCB to the motherboard of the Variax. 4) Uncrew the 2 hex screws that hold the bridge down to get the bridge out an then carefully take out the bridge and trem block. Now you should be able to reach the piezo PCB and fix it up Reverse steps after you're done, and you should be fine. If the PCB is coming off the tremolo block, add some support with more tape, as it just uses double sided tape to stick to the tremolo block. After that, you should be good to go, and your guitar should be functioning fine again.

I'm sure a lot of you are aware that the fret/wound string noise when moving your fingers across the fretboard is quiet amplified compared to a real guitar. This is really annoying when doing high gain stuff. Is there a way to reduce the noise? It can be ear-piercing at times and is not ideal for recording riffs cleanly. I heard fast fret helps. Anyone?

Ghosts are really high quality piezos that are built to minimalize if not completely eliminate bad piezo characteristics, like the quacking and all. I'm not too familiar with the new LR baggs system, but I know it's a major step above the original Variax 1 piezos, and that's why people say the JTVs sound better than the V1 Variax, because it gets rid of some piezo artifacts. I'm not sure how well it stacks up to the Ghost system, but I'm sure it's very high quality since it's SPECIFICALLY designed for the Variax this time. Variax 1 piezos were just x-bridge piezos stuck into it, and it wasn't really designed for the stuff the Variax is trying to do, but it passes with some minor flaws.

Thanks Dave. I have a feeling the Variax chokes the strings a slightly more than on other guitars. It might be my piezos being old or something, but it does have a bit of an edge on the saddles and piezo, which is where I think it's choking the strings, so you basically might have a sharp angle that the string bends and sits on, both maybe weakining the string a bit and breaking it more than normal saddles. I did lower the action a bit because I think the saddles were angled a bit up so that might be doing some choking too, but I don't want it too low or else it'll start buzzing out on the frets.

Yeah, if it was out of phase it would be extremely thin sounding. Phase outs are very thin sounding unless the two pickups sound drastically different. Basically if you doubled a signal exactly and phased it out/inverted it, you literally would hear nothing, because it cancels each other out. Basically like "1 + -1 = 0". Since the pickups are a positioned a bit off, the signals don't sound exactly the same, so you basically get a "difference" signal, which is the remainder signal of what wasn't cancelled out since there was some difference between bridge and middle pickup's signal. Usually this results in a thin tone, which is why it sounds thinner than even the bridge pickup alone.

Hey Chris! Give us some demo videos when it does drop by. :P

JTV's piezos are a lot more rounded than the V1 Variaxes so it probably reduces string breakage. V1 Variax piezos protrude from the saddle a little bit, and might have a little bit of a choke angle. link doesn't work

Anyone notice any increase in string breakage with their Variax? I've noticed that I break a string within a month of play on my Variax. On my Davison Tune O Matic SG, my strings virtually lasted forever. I used GHS 11's on the Variax. I recently switched to Ernie Ball Power 11's to see if it'll help. Do you think the piezos are choking out my strings on the bridge? It seems like a slightly sharp angle where the string bends over the piezos, so it might be cutting it in half over time. Does anyone have better string life with the graphtech ghosts?

Thank you. I turned the capacitor to max and I couldn't tell if I was just hearing things or if the tone at 10 changed too. I'm basically trying to model my Davison SG and the capacitor is much deeper than the Les Paul guitars, but I want the SG models I'm making to be like a LP with more bite.

Kind of a noob question, but does the capacitor value effect the tone when the knob is at 10? I'd like to be able to turn the tone down lower but without any difference at max tone.

I used to use Amplitude 3, then switched to Guitar Rig 5. I did make some nice presets. Guitar Rig 5 is really great and I like the professional approach it has that Amplitude 3 doesn't have. The only complaint I have is their Big Muff sounds awful, or rather really off. Other than that I've been happy playing through digital amps.

Well, I basically mean amp software -> eventually Stagesource speakers Just want to know how nice it is and if you're satisfied using software as a live amp.

Anyone ever do this? How does it sound? What software and what settings on the program and StageSource? Any examples on how it sounds?

It honestly would be nice to change string type in the JTV acoustic models.

I use 11's on my Variax 600. Nothing different that I can notice. I'm sure it'll be the same for your JTV. go for it.

Yeah, I know. Can't wait to hear them.

Wow, that's amazing! I didn't know Line 6 still supported the acoustics too! I'm glad you got your stuff fixed. I felt a little bad when my method didn't work for you. To be honest, my method kind of backfired and I had to replace the piezo in the end.

Nice, I was hoping the graphtechs would make the old Variaxes sound as nice as a JTV. Someone said the JTV's modeling is the same besides the new acoustic sounds, but people argue that the JTV sounds better. I'll consider the ghost saddles in the future.

I'd like to know too. I'd probably switch in the future, but for now I got LR baggs. Also, have you guys noticed increase of string breakage on a stock Variax? I keep breaking a string after a month. On my SG I never broke my strings, I just eventually replaced them to get rid of crappy rusted old ones. I put 11's on mine. I found that higher gauges = less string breakage, but like I said, I've been breaking a lot lately on my Variax. I know the Ghost saddles would definitely decrease it though, because they said it's their string savers with piezos in them. Anyways, back on the topic of tone, I'd like to know too. I've read that they kill chirping, which would be nice. What about other characteristics? Does it sound as nice as a JTV? Also, I would like links to schematics of installation, specifically on a tremolo Variax if one exists.