Inerzia

But, you can always replace the individual chips and other components on the board, can't you? or is there any single component on the variaxes that is exclusive to L6?

That's a bit arrogant, don't you think? As if strats were hard to come by... I may have played just one or two strats before buying my v700, back in 2004, but have played many more since, and, probably, every one of them delivered a different array of timbres. I loved the 2 and 4 positions on preHD firmware because it had *THAT* Knopfler tone, and that IS a strat tone. Aside from the workbench bug and the string volume issues, the current spank position can sound like a decent strat, and more realistically so, being HD and all, but the previous spank DID SOUND LIKE A STRAT!!! It did, and I loved it for that. Many of us loved that model and we miss it. What's so hard to understand about that? It's been a month or so, since I installed 2.0 on my JTV and, even though I would still prefer a 1.9 spank kind of tone, I'm not rolling back because I still have the v700 to get that tone. Besides, the new one is nice, and it's starting to grow on me.

Well, that may be, but the fact is that my 700 hasn't failed and my JTV is starting to. The piezos on the 3rd and 4th strings are damaged (the strings have carved their way in) and they're giving me a nasty "quack" sound when I play hard. What do you, people, recommend to replace them? Should I replace them all for new ones? Same brand? Other?

A friend of mine used to control his POD XT from a Behringer FCB1010 with no problem at all, but... are you sure a POD is the best option for you? I would go for something more fx-oriented, like L6 M series, something from TC Electronics, Eventide...

I like how my jtv89 plays, The neck is really comfortable and all, and it sounds better than my 700 ever did, modelingwise (with the exception of the spank, semi, and jazz models, that I still prefer to the new 2.0 fw), but my 700... I simply LOVE playing that guitar! When I got it, my hands felt at home right away, and I just couldn't stop playing it. That's why I'm putting magnetic pickups on it (pictures coming as soon as it's ready). Never had any tuning problem with bendings, but I did have problems with the trem though, kicking some strings out of tune whenever I used it. Don't ask me how I did it, but the fact is that, after some tweaking, I solved that too, and now it's behaving as it should, that is, if you abuse the trem, strings will go out of tune, the same as they do on the best non-locking trems, but for regular up to Beck-ish use, it holds.

My HD500 is 2 years old now, has about a hundred gigs on it, several thousand Kms of traveled roads, and... not a scratch on the surface! I guess it depends on how you treat your gear. I'm always on a tight budget, so I try to protect my investments the best I can.

I don't think you're being fair saying the Variax USB adapter sucks. It's your experience. I understand how p¡ssed of you may be, though. Actually, for me it was the other way round with 1.9, the PODs didn't perform the update correctly, while the USB adapter did.

At last! the experts acknowledged there is a problem that needs to be fixed. We're saved! BTW, the strat DOES have another problem. Strings 1 and 2 are quite lower in volume (and it's not just my case, it's something that many people have reported since 2.0 came out), something that doesn't happen with other bodies. Yes, I know I can fix it with workbench, and that's exactly what I did, but it's still a defect ...and please, no one tell me it's a matter of taste...

Happened to me too, but I reflashed until it was gone :D Well, no, it wasn't gone... I realized just half an hour ago when I started playing with spank 2 and WTF'd several times until I opened WB and saw what was happening. So now, thanks to Derek, the quack is back!!

For me, aside from the acoustic 5 position, the sounds I've been using the most are also the most affected by the 2.0 update, that is, the neck positions of the jazzbox models, the thinline telecaster neck position and strat 2 and 4 positions. With my 700 I also use a custom made les paul preset, because it doesn't have the magnetic pickups. There's not so much to win, feature wise, in comparison with 1.9 so... why am I keeping 2.0? Well, I loved strat 2 and 4, and I don't think I'm ever going to be able to replicate them with 2.0, but the thing is, after a while, I'm not so sure I prefer those sounds, that I've used so much and grown to feel at home with, to the similar ones I'm getting with 2.0. Up until now, all I've been doing is editing guitar models with workbench and playing them through their associated patches in the HD500, so I can better notice what has been changed and what hasn't. Sean Halley suggests that we may appreciate the new sounds more if we listen to them with an open mind, not expecting them to sound instantly right through existing patches http://line6.com/support/topic/2018-version-20-hd-update/page-4?do=findComment&comment=12649 Well, I understand that, but I still need to hear what's going on and hear the differences. Now it's up to me to redo some of those patches. Why am I willing to do so much effort when I can simply stay with 1.9 and sound OK? Well, that's where I'm getting to I love having all variax patch volumes sound the same, in terms of perceived loudness, so it took me a while to get that with the new models, and had to create a custom bank to replicate the one I had before. One of those patches I created is a jazzbox with the R-Billy Tron neck pickup, which sounds as woody as the previous jazzboxes did, and another is a strat 2 substitute with the tone pot about 85% that sounds more mellow and can be an instant substitute (not replica, but substitute) for the former strat 2 position. And finally, the reason why I decided to keep the 2.0 is that it's simply more musical. I did hours of A/B testing yesterday, switching back and forth between the v700 and the JTV-89, and everytime I went back to the JTV aiming to replicate the sounds on the 700, I came up with some really good sound. Never a replica, but a better version. Anyway, if I miss the older models, I have my 700 for that, but I bet that, once I've redone some patches, I won't miss the old models so much. That said, the JTV-89 custom bank in 1.9 led me to expect to be able to split coils, but instead, I have to use actual single coils for that effect. Will I survive? Yes, it's just that I was counting on this new feature. Oh, and I want the thinline body back! On the "undoubtedly better" side of things, I have to say that the new Rick 12 string models are amazing, and the P90's, and the wide range humbuckers, and the LP, and all resonators, and the tone pot response, and... and...

Well... to each his own, I guess. I recommend to look at some demos on youtube and look for comments on both units. Having played both units, I think it's absolutely no surprise that most of those comments you'll find are favorable to the 55

I'm also using a JTV, an 89 in my case, with an HD500 and a GR55. I run GR's outputs into HD's loop return inputs, (so that I only take 2 channels on the mixer) and a midi cable from HD's out to GR's in, to change patches simultaneously. I can even control some parameters on the GR, like wha, voice on/off, effect on/off, and pretty much every (non-system) parameter on the GR. Problems? None, it just takes more space in front of you :) The main advantage of the GR over the Fishman system is that you don't have to deal with computers on stage. The GR55 is solid, stable, and very powerful. Plus, on top of the two sample based synth layers, there's another layer of physical modeling that can do electric and acoustic guitars (not bad at all), basses, and modeled analog synth tones (the GR300 emulation alone is worth the price of the GR55 for me), and there's a fourth layer that uses the sound of your guitar (from the guitar's own jack output to the GK pickup's guitar input), but I don't use it, because I don't like Roland's amp modeling at all. Inconveniences? Well, I have two cables hanging from my guitar, instead of just one (the VDI cable), but it's not that much of a hassle.

In mono I just use one amp, but there are some combinations of amps that can sound OK together when panned to the center, depending on what you're looking for. I've "found" that layering different sounding amps with very different settings (i.e. one clean, one dirty) produces less phase problems. If it's metal tones you seek (or any high gain kind of tone for that matter) and you are running mono, better use just one amp. You can try different combinations of amps, if you have time to spare, but if you don't, choose one amp and cab that you like and work with it. Now that is something that can be improved. If the cabs were phase-aligned, we wouldn't have these problems

Competitor? Hardly... Every now and then the big guitar companies come up with something as embarrassing as this LPX thing, which only shows that they have no clue what people are looking for and they're better off doing what they do best. Variaxes are not perfect, but the approach used is still the best, not to mention the integration with other L6 products

It's what phil said, phase problems. Try different combinations, after all, those two amps you mention aren't that different from one another. I have lots of dual path patches because I usually run both channels to PA, but for different gigs where I can't run in stereo, I have a different setlist with mono-able patches

-MarkIIC+ and more Rectifier channels/modes -"Power amp" or "no amp" model, to be able to use just the cabs. That's a really easy thing to implement. (...or different blocks for preamps/poweramps/cabs, although that would require a lot more programming I guess... maybe for next version) -Stereo versions of some effects that are now mono -4 BAND PARAMETRIC EQ!!!!!!!!!!!!!! -Auto wha -Separate output modes for different physical output pairs

That's exactly how I feel, like a beta tester who paid, instead of being paid.

In one of the bands I play with, we cover Alicia Keys' "Girl on fire", and it's me who plays the organ part with a Roland GR55. Then there are some dance/disco songs that don't need any guitar but do need other stuff, and there's layering. For example: I'm playing a JTV acoustic model and need some extra kick for some section of a song, so, on the correspondent GR patch, I have another 6 string acoustic, or a 12 string, ready to be used. There are many other examples of layering I do. I'm using the GR55 into the fx return of an HD500, and two variaxes (JTV89 and 700)

So I hope too

All those synth-like effects work better with warmer guitar sounds (neck pickup, maybe with the tone rolled off a bit) and that's why I use the T-Model 4 position of the Variax on those presets

That would be really good. Freeing up resources from something I never use. It shouldn't be done globally though, but on a per-preset basis, otherwise, turning the looper back on and trying to call up a heavily loaded preset would result in failure to load due to lack of free resources.

I was planning to get a G-Major 2 to go alongside the HD500, and I think I'm gonna stick to that plan. That will be my hardware (and software) upgrade.

I just hope they don't leave us, existing users, hung out to dry. There's so much of the basic stuff that they still need to adress. Eq, "no amp" or "power amp" model as it was on XT and X3 (to use the HD with an external preamp), different output modes in different outputs...

That would be the fairest ...but I just found some images of the insides of the HD500 and... maybe that's too much soldering for me :(

Me too, I'm calling it fake. I think too many things are off in that picture