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OK, so they will sound "dark".... is that something that can't be EQ'd out? Or, what about adding a 19k resistor in parallel with the pickup.... wouldn't that drop it down to around 8k? So, what happens if I don't feed the signal from the magnetic pickups to the Variax motherboard at all, and just run it directly out through the 1/4 jack? IE- run the mags through the tip and the Variax output through the ring of a TRS jack? Obviously I know I would lose the ability to power the Variax through the ring. I do this now in a PRS guitar I have that is loaded with a Ghost LB63 bridge... I run the piezo's out via an Acoustiphonic preamp on the ring and my mags on the tip. I'm then able to switch between either source (or blend them) on my Kemper by feeding the ring in on an effects loop return.

I hate to say it, but if the op is that unfamiliar with the guitar that he doesn't know how to work with the locking nut, tuners and fine tuners of a Floyd Rose system (much less trying to introduce the concept of intonation and adjusting saddles), my advice is to take it to a guitar tech and have him set it up properly for the $50 to $100 it'll cost to get it done right. That should give him many months to enjoy the guitar and research how to tune it properly going forward.

Just curious... is it still possible to get the mainboards for the JTV guitars? If so, how do I order them?

Thanks for the reply, Marc. I've installed a couple of Sustainiacs, so no problem for me to do the job myself. I had just read all the warnings about active pickups and such, so I thought I'd check if anyone had any experience with the Sustainiac. But it sounds like it'll work since others have managed it.

"he did say the sound of the X100 on its own was pretty awful" Well, take that with a grain of salt because tone is obviously very subjective and let's face it, the cork sniffers have been against ANYTHING without tubes since the Rockman was invented. The fact that that was THE go to sound for so many studios in the 80's, because of it's ease of use, kinda puts that opinion in perspective (at least for me).... YMMV. Here's a photo (though, it's not a great one) on Phil Collen's XPR rig that he used for Hysteria and in the studio... note the Palmer simulator on top, the Randall 220 amp in the bottom of the top head, the Rockman Pro Bass in the top of the bottom head, and the XPR under it. Phil has been using the Palmer with a Marshall JMP-1 for a long time, and that is his overall preferred tone. def2.TIF def1.TIF " something that had that rockman characteristic, but sounded more rounded out" Yeah, that's pretty much the Rev 20 Sustainor.... it has that Rockman characteristic, but also has the bite of a real amp. "so is the XPR just a processor" Yes, and there was a modified version called the XPRa, which had extensive mods to reduce the noise floor on it quite a bit. There was also a "boombox" style one called the XP100 with a 100 watt stereo amp in it, as well as a rare XP212 which was the XP100 in a cabinet with 2 12 inch Celestian G12-T speakers. Then of course, there was the full stacks with the 500 watt amp. I have all of the above, including the full stack, XP212, Rev 20, etc. I temporarily bypassed the cab sim circuit on my Rev 20 Sustainor and took some Kemper (sorry Helix guys) profiles of that, then ran that through Ozone Isotope for some EQ matches of various tone and created merged profiles. I was able to get some pretty damn close tone matches that way. "X100 characteristics in a helix tone, have you got any tips on how to do it? Should we be boosting 800khz or adding a static wah etc?" I used to have an HD500, so I'm only vaguely familiar with the Line 6 amp modelers.... but yeah, I think I recall using compression, then an EQ curve like the 6 band photo posted from my web site (ahem!, without permission... LOL!) and a Plexi amp. From there, the cab sim IR's posted should get you in the general ballpark, I should think. You can trade out the 6 band EQ with a cocked wah, and/or you can add a cocked wah AFTER the amp for an even more pronounced effect. Like I said, this is pretty much what I'm doing with my Kemper and the tone matches are pretty close (I think so anyway, YMMV). Here's a couple of examples... first directly from the master then followed by mine (which admittedly is a bit thinner, I think, but the honk is definitely there). MTAF_Clean.mp3 MTAF_Lead.mp3

So, I've spent the last several days reading over the forum and the internet about controlling a JTV guitar (guitar models, tunings, mags vs models, etc) using MIDI... specifically SYSEX messages, though regular patch change commands would be easier. I've seen where people have built a cable to convert the VDI interface to work with standard MIDI connectors. I've seen people "claim" to have figured out the SYSEX messages to change models, tunings, and even switch between mags and the piezo models (though, that user never seemed to respond when asked for that documentation). Is anyone willing to share that info and/or how they made it work? I'm a software engineer and can handle building simple electronic circuits, so I'm ready to go down the hole of getting a MIDI SYSEX monitoring software going to sniff out the messages, but it would be nice not to have to reinvent the wheel if someone has already gone down that road. I also have a Raspberry Pie 4 that I'm looking at adding Windows 10 ARM OS onto and am wondering if anyone knows if the Workbench HD software will run on it? Can the Workbench software respond to incoming MIDI commands (SYSEX or Regular MIDI patch changes) to change models, tunings, etc on a JTV guitar? I also saw the RackVax, but the page seems to be down now. It also seemed to be the older Variax guitar guts, not the newer JTV guts. Has anyone tried taking the guts out of a JTV and doing the same thing?

Hello again, I'm looking to add a Sustainiac ( https://www.sustainiac.com/ ) to my JTV 59P and JTV-59. I saw that there are some issues with active pickups, but I should note that the "driver" goes in the neck pickup. If need be, I have no problem disconnecting the neck pickup from going to the JTV motherboard since I usually don't use it in active pickup mode (though it does sound quite beautiful when playing clean!!) Any issues?

Hello, I have a JTV-59P that I want to put a DP209 in the bridge and JTV-59 that I want to put a DP100 in the bridge on. I have read all over the forum and some people have said they've added a DP100 to a JTV-59 with no issues. Of course, I've also seen the resident Line6 Tech here saying that I gotta stay in a certain range of "bulk resistance". I love the sound of the P90's in the 59P, but they are just pretty noisy. And, I've always been a Super Distortion player so.... Yea/Nay?

Def Leppard used the X100 for the recording of Hysteria, but used a modified Rockman XPR processor for the tour (since it handles all the switching of sounds via MIDI). I always find it interesting when people talk about "THE" Boston tone.... my response is always, "Which one?" Tom used many different tones over the decades. Each song usually had its own tones, and multiples of different tones were layered up or used for different parts in a song. For example, on "More Than A Feeling" there are 2 different distorted tones used in the chorus rhythm (and each are double tracked), another one used for the distorted rhythm during the solo, and another less distorted rhythm used for the very last chord of the solo. The clean electric tone is run through a cocked wah as well for a very low-fi sound. For the leads, there's a lead tone for the fills, but then the main lead solo lines have a different tone all together (a really nasally cocked wah AFTER the gain stage). BTW, there are actually 6 tracks played (3 part harmonies double tracked) for the last 4 notes of the lead solo!! And that's just for ONE song. The other songs on that album use different tones too, as do the songs on all the other albums. The first 2 albums mostly used a Marshall Plexi, and then Third Stage was mostly Rockman IIB, X100 and Model 100 Sustainor. Walk on was mostly Model 200 Sustainor and the Ultimatum Distortion Generator. Since then, he's mostly been using a VERY rare "Rev 20" revision of the Model 200 Sustainor for some time now, both live and in the studio. Like, maybe a dozen or so were modified at the factory? Yeah, THAT rare!! I've seen them go for upwards of $5,000 IF you can find one. They do sound quite different from your run of the mill Sustainor... more gain, more bite, and the auto-clean works very good. I can do the Rev 20 mod on a Model 200 Sustainor, but it takes me like 17 hours to do it. Very intensive!!!