davec69

So I got my Graph Tech Saddles installed over the weekend. The process is fairly simple. The hardest part is splitting the two wires on the graph tech saddles. I found that if you use an older x-acto blade, it actually works better. You have to be real careful using a new blade, or you can cut the wire off fairly quickly. With an old blade, just make a few very light passes right between the two wires and it you're done. I soldered the silver wires to the pcb, like the original saddles, and all of the blue ground wires to the pcb, where the screw passes through in the rear. Then used the screw and nut to tighten it down when finished. The Graph Tech Sadles work very well. Not a huge jump in sound quality, but I feel more confident that they won't fart out on me like the stock saddles did. Actually took the Variax 300 to a gig last weekend, and was looking forward to pulling it out for the sitar solo on Steely Dan's Do It Again, but the song came and went, and I completely forgot I had the Variax with me. Oh well, maybe next time. Just replaced the batteries and everything. This brings another question to mind. Is there any difference in the sound quality of the Variax 300, when using the Mini XPS power supply or fresh batteries?

Ok, So I received my Graph Tech saddles for my Variax 300 today. I've installed the saddles, threaded the wires through the bridge, then stopped short of cutting and stripping the wires. Tomorrow I'm going to start soldering. Can anyone tell me where you soldered the ground wires for the saddles? I don't want to clip the wires too short.

Thanks for the info. I bit the bullet and ordered a set of the Graph Tech saddles for my Variax 300. I've heard talk of some Install instructions floating around the forum. Would anyone happen to have a copy or a link?

Well I changed the strings to a set of Curt Mangan 10's that I had lying around. I really like them on a couple of my guitars, but they did nothing to improve the sound of the Variax. Actually, I much preferred the sound of the Elixir Nanoweb, they sounded much more focused. I'll try a few more sets. With that said, I managed to somehow break one of the thin wires going to the piezo, for the G string. That was just bad design on the Variax 300. I noticed that a couple other piezo wires are also stretched to their limit, and any movement of the saddle will probably break them as well. I just want to play my Variax 300......now I'm on the hunt for another piezo replacement saddle. the first was shorting out when I got the guitar. Luckily I found one at Haight Ashbury Music in San Francisco. I doubt they will have another one on hand. Probably have to go online. Maybe I can find the Graphtec Ghost saddles locally, and be done with this madness. Can anyone tell me which set works on the Variax 300?

Thanks for the suggestions, I'm pretty sure that the Elixirs that I'm using are the Nanowebs. I will mess around with the pickup angle in Workbench, though. That might help. Maybe I just need to move the low string side of the pickup back a little. I'll try it tonight. Another question more out of curiosity. My Variax 300 came with all the pots set to linear in Workbench, but pretty much every guitar that I've owned has had audio tapered pots installed. Why the linear pot setting by default??

Thanks, I have a box of D' Addario 10's somewhere, I'll have to give them a try.

The problem that I have is not so much the volume, but the tone of the wound strings. The high strings sound fine. The wound strings seem a little muffled and bassy. Do the strings that you use on the Variax 300 drastically affect the actual tone produced? On a my regular guitars, I'm really picky about strings. I go through many brands to find the right set of strings for a particular guitar. Is this worth doing on the variax, or will they all sound pretty much the same?

175,000 Ipads can connect at the same time...............this allows you to give everyone in the audience a volume control at your gigs.........(what? huh?.....oh that's not true?) Nevermind.............

Thanks for the response. The saddles appear to be stock. I have swapped out one of the piezo elements with a OEM part. Do the Graphtech saddles use the same OEM piezo part? Yes, I have a Pod XT Live which was included with the variax. I have done some tweaking on the models, but nothing with the volume. I'll take a look. Anyway to eq just the E.A. and D strings from the guitar from Workbench? the wound strings are giving me the trouble, which is why I thought it might have something to do with the Elixir coated strings.

Picked up a used Variax 300 last weekend in a trade and I used it at rehearsal last night for the first time. I'm using the Mini XPS to run it through the front of my Kemper profiler. Basically, I just unplugged my normal guitar and plugged in the Variax 300. First thing that i noticed is a large increase in the low end over my Vox Virage. Not really a nice clear low end, sort of a muddy low end. Is this normal? One change that I made after getting the Variax home was to put on a set of Elixir 10's. To be honest, I'm not a big coated string guy, but after reading a few posts here, Elixirs seemed to be the string of choice for many people. Do the elixirs give a big boost to the low end? On a side note, when i got the Variax home, the piezo on the A string was shorting out. Miraculously, a local store had one in their parts drawer. Probably been there for years....... So I replaced the piezo, and now everything is working fine, except for the extended low end. Any suggestions?

I've discussed this issue at length with Line 6 support. I'm not sure that we ever figured the cause, but this is what I came up with. Basically if you create a new setup called "My Band A" for example. Whatever initial folder that you create on your SD card to hold recordings for that setup is the only folder which could be used. If you tried to use that recording folder with any other setup, you get blank recordings. If you opened setup "My Band a" then selected a different folder on the SD card, you get blank recordings. If you put the SD card in your computer and deleted that initial recording folder, then put the SD card back in the M20D and created a new folder, even with the same name. You get blank recordings. At that point, the only thing that would work was to create a new setup from scratch. Then create that your initial recording folder again. I think all of this has been fixed in the latest firmware update. The setups are no longer tied to a particular recording folder, and the recording folders are no longer tied to a specific setup.

Since we updated to the latest firmware, we have not had the problem occur. Make sure that you have the latest firmware installed.

Sadly, our M20D again provided us with some very large 1gb blank tracks after our rehearsal last night. This time, we triple checked everything. Then triple checked that the recording was stopped after the recording. Still nothing. Just 16 blank tracks. We've given into the fact that the recording feature on the M20D is broken, so we always have another recorder running alongside it now. Hopefully, Line 6 will fix the problems. Maybe while they're at it, they can add some metering to the recording process. The recording interface leaves much to be desired. The square blocks with barely discernible green flashing lights say's nothing about what's going on with the recording. We put in another support ticket last night. Nothing yet.

This is really becoming a problem. I hope someone at Line 6 is working on this problem. If we at least know what's causing the problem, we can avoid doing that. After several successful attempts at recording, (we though we had solved the problem) we got a bunch of blank files again last night. Our M20D is setup in our rehearsal space. Same as last time. No changes. This time.....nothing, just 16 blank 843mb audio files. I started the recording by going to the root of the SD card and creating a new folder, which worked previously. Not this time. Fortunately our drummer has become leery of relying on the M20D for recording, and setup his little Zoom handheld recorder beside it. If it wasn't for that, we would have been screwed. We have an important gig coming up and everyone is cramming to learn the new tunes that we added. These rehearsal recordings really help in between band get together s. What's going on with this thing?

I can't remember if I mentioned this previously, or if it even matters, but one thing to watch out for if you create a folder or folder structure on your SD card, using your PC, instead of in the M20D. When I did this, the folders created on my PC were marked "Read Only", when I right clicked on them and went to properties, in Windows 7. Maybe these folders would not be writable on the M20D? One other suggestion. When you are working with your SD card on the M20D. Always make sure the you use the back arrow, to back all the way out to the root of the SD card, before creating a new folder for a project. I was having a hard time creating a new project folder for recording, until I realized that I was already inside a previously created folder, and inside another folder in that folder. A better view of the folder tree would help a lot when creating folders for recordings, maybe even showing the setup name for which that folder was created. I don't even want to imagine what would happen if you try to create a new project folder for setup 1 for example, inside a folder which was created with a different setup 2 for example.

If you have waveforms displaying on the line input tracks in youer DAW, then you should have good recordings. In my case, I had an SD card full of 800mb line input tracks, but there was no waveform display in my DAW, just flat line. When I tried normalizing the tracks, it just boosted the noise floor as hiss.

This was the same problems that I had, and the reason I started this thread. I could not save my blank line input tracks. It looks like they just did not record. To resolve the issue, I had to create a new setup from scratch and re-record. One thing that I mentioned to support was that I noticed the folders on my SD card were marked as "Read Only". I don't know if this had anything to do with the problem.

Try creating a new setup from scratch, and recording again. Worked for me.

Success. We were able to make a recording tonight of both the Main Outputs and the Line Inputs. We tried a bunch of things, including deleting folders on the PC, re-formatting the SD card, and nothing helped. The SD card wasn't being recognized by the M20d. The fix for us was to create a brand new Setup from scratch. I then added all of the instruments and microphones to the Stage again, did the usual auto trim. After we did this, the SD card was recognized, and the recording was successful. I have updated my support ticket with the steps that i went through. Maybe someone smarter than me will chime and tell us what's going on. All I can suggest is to try creating a new setup from scratch, if you are having problems with the M20d recognizing your SD card, or if your recordings are not working correctly.

I have now opened a ticket with support. i will report back, after I hear from them.

If the issue gets resolved, then I'll agree with you. So, far I've just got messages telling me how good a deal it is, and messages telling me to call to get the problem resolved. Any techs around that can actually assist with the problem? Actually the wireless forums, and the stagescape, stagesource forums are already an exception to this, as they are actively monitored by the project manager. No offense to the support guys... but the guys monitoring the aforementioned forums, really know these inside and out... I think you're getting a way better deal.

Thanks for the response!! Is it possible to get someone from support to monitor this forum and reply to users? This is much more convenient ........well.........forum........for some users. Trying to get a hold of phone support is fine, but personally, I'd be ok with posting questions and getting responses here. The added benefit would be that, all M20D users could benefit.

Yes, I watched your video. Our problem is a little different. We actually get activity indicators when we record. We can see the little green light going on and off. We just don't have anything recorded afterwards. Have you run the Auto Trim, to set the recording levels? Are the Channels Muted? What do your level meters look like on the setup page? Can you see the level indicator moving?

I can report that I tried recording again at last nights rehearsal. Basically, we had Bass, Drums, Guitar and Vocals last night. Went through the usual auto trim routine. We tried just recording one song, then stopped to see if we actually recorded anything. I was able to playback the Main Out channel using the Media Player. There was sound. I then tried loading one of the line input tracks into the media player, and nothing. After a couple attempts, we just gave up. I'll wait to hear from someone who can figure it out. One question while waiting. Does muting the channel have any affect on the recording? I was under the impression that the recording was taken pre fader. We rehearse in a small space, and cranking all the instruments through the PA, while we record is not feasible.