Howdy!
I'm thinking of purchasing a JTV-59P because I can get one on sale and I don't have a guitar that has P-90's in them, plus the scale length is like that of a Les Paul, or so I've read. And I'm starting to really dig the smaller scale length now that I'm getting old. And I've read they put .10's on the guitar which I'm using now.
I used to have a Line 6 Variax 600, but I sold it because it had one problem that just nagged on me: the weird palm muting sound, especially when distorted. Plus it had some weird overtones at times and I didn't care for the tremelo.
The main reason I want to get one is because of the ability to store custom tunings and a few of the models. I have a few guitars, but I don't really care for tuning one in open E, one in G, and so forth. I do use a few guitars for E-flat tuning, I tried that with the Variax 600 and couldn't get past the weird sound. I know about the 3 position switch versus the 5 position switch, and that doesn't really bother me much. I'm more interested in the Lester, Special, RBilly, Semi, and Jazz-box sounds (maybe the D-28 and the 12 string too).
I am hoping you guys can answer some questions for me.
1) Is the palm muting on the HD models more realistic?
2) Any weird overtone issues or palm muting with the 59P when modeling with distortion? I'm not talking about melt-your-face distortion, but classic rock/fusion type distortion.
3) Is there an actual issue with the string balancing?
4) Is the build of the 59P's good? I know it's overseas, but does it stay in tune and not fret out when bending? My 600 had some dead spots on it, another reason I sold it.
5) When you switch models does the sound cut-out? I don't think the Variax 600 did that, but my VG Strat (first model) does it.
6) Are the Tyler made P-90 pups good?
I don't plan on getting "the dream rig" or anything. I plan on just playing the guitar through my studio rig, mainly for messing around, playing some covers, and trying out some new tunings.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!