clay-man

The modeling has a little less presence than magnetics if you listen to them dry, but if you plug it into an amp you can't really notice.

I think he's saying that the string volumes are so loud that he probably has notes bleeding into other piezos from other strings.

Anti-static is a very obvious thing to go through when working with computers in general, but previously working on my 600, the board is pretty durable. The 600 has a coffin case though so it's easy to extract, the 700 on the other hand does not. That could present a problem with handling the circuit boards, as said about the static. Good luck on your project.

Sadly you could have a problem guitar. Faulty piezo.

I saw in a Rob Chapman video where he was making a Chapman guitar, there were JTVs in the factory as well. It was the Korean ones. Really cool stuff.

If you have no problem with your guitar, then don't mind it. It doesn't inherently make it a problem guitar, it just was produced during a time when there were errors based around that design.

And now I want a Helix, too bad it costs so much.

Yes, but I think that's probably the best we can do right now. I wanted a Fender Jaguar model so I used trial and error to A/B compare with a dry Jaguar recording. I got pretty damn close with strat single coils on a les paul.

If that's what's blocking it, then you probably do have to remove some material from it then. I'd wait for more replies first just to make sure if anyone has any more info on this.

If it's not fitting into the saddle with the piezos, then you're out of luck. Any alteration of the piezos can ultimately damage them. You can only get away with altering so much of the shell of the piezo elements, otherwise it'll cause damage.

Not that old. I replaced it with a set of elixirs a month ago.

These guitars only have so much memory on them, and I think the current firmware is already pretty brimming to the max capacity of the memory on the guitars. Sadly because of this, additional models is probably not going to happen.

So the neck was moving a bit up and down, so I tightened the screws as much as I could. Sustain did not improve. Like I said, sustain is pretty low from about 11/12 and up on the strings, but below that, the sustain is just fine. It's weird. I did lower the pickups and it helped a little bit, but other than that the sustain is still like 2-3 seconds.

Oh I'm sure they probably have discontinued some versions for not selling, but I think ultimately we will have the JTV around for at least a few more years if not longer.

Well, Cruisinon, one of the factors of getting the specific guitar I got was for a maple neck. I'm willing to part way with the neck one day, but I'd like to keep it in the maple range. I wouldn't rule out the fact that the neck is hurting the sustain though. Could it be a truss rod issue?

That was just speculation. There are 2014 and 2015 models so obviously the line of guitars are still being produced. Before, I only saw 2013 JTVs popping up last year, but that's no longer the case and they're shipping out new batches. I hope the JTV keeps going strong as buying it just last year and having it end so soon would lollipop me off rather bad, because as Indianrock said, support dies off after a product is no longer produced.

I don't like models matching volume levels because it kind of breaks the idea of emulating the guitars. A single coil being quieter than a humbucker is part of the sound, in my opinion, and bumping that up changes that. There are some tweaks I did, but not that much. I did bump up the volume on most of the models, but in general, they're still varied. More or less single coiled guitars being a little bit quieter and humbucker guitars being loud. It's all personal preference though, so have at it however you want. Whatever you can do to make you happy with the guitar!

I usually base sounds off of other bands if I'm playing their stuff, so if they're using certain gear, I will try to match it as close as I can with the guitar model and amp model. Examples: Telecaster -> Vox AC30 for high twang Les Paul - > JCM 800 for smooth mid range high gain Les Paul or JTV 89 -> Mesa Boogie for serious metal stuff That's the beauty of the Variax, you can now nail a sound even closer than before, and if you want something original, it opens the palette of sound wider than before.

That explains why I got a 2013 guitar last year.

If it sounds like complete crap, and you're anal about how it sounds, but then again, it's also personal preference. A crappy practice amp could sound great to someone and sound like garbage to another. I have a honeytone pocket amp that sounds grating when the overdrive is on, but sounds nice if I put an Amplug in front of it for the overdrive instead. And don't forget the lovely Boss Metalzone pedal.

Edit models, volume settings, and specs of certain models, custom models I prefer to add to the roster (fender jaguar, fender jazzmaster, 3 way humbucker strat, bass model, JTV 89 models, SG model) I like to also still use the model tunings for any tunings that I might want to access on certain models when I already have so many tunings on the tuning knob (Yes, I use that many tunings). Usually if I really want a random tuning, I'll just throw it on Open D and edit that, but sometimes it's nice to just have a tuning more instantly than fiddling with virtual capo.

I'm getting problems with sustain around the 12th fret and up. Notes dying way too fast regardless of amp gain.

Sweetwater usually just does it even if you don't ask. All 3 guitars I played when trying to find a flawless JTV were preinstalled with at least 2.10.

Rofl they're going to people with the defect to try to fix the problem? That's some devotion.

I think the cool thing about the Variax though is that you can kind of do that. That's the whole beauty of it. If the certain guitar model doesn't sound right, try another, you know? There were times when people posted a tone example for amp software, I replicate it and it doesn't sound right even though I have humbuckers too, well because there's more variables than that to what gets that tone from the guitar, and with the Variax, that opens up getting that tone down even better. I'd play my SG for the longest time, and it sounds nice for what it is, but it won't nail all the sounds I want. For the longest time I wanted that thick layered honky/droning attack sound from In Flames Colony/Clayman and I can finally get that with the Les Paul models on my Variax, but not my SG because it doesn't have the same attack sound. You know what I mean?