JTSC777

if you need massive noise gating you are not setting your gain structure correctly. Randy Rhoads did not play with massive over clipping saturated crappy tone. He played wirh very little distortion. Listen to Tony Iommi on the Heaven and Hell at Radio City Music Hall recordings for a real heavy guutar tone reference. Nouse Gates suck and should be avoided

These batteries must be " exercised" or they wont work properly. I bought a mint JTV69 last month and when I saw the dusty battery in the charger covered with dust I knew it would be a problem. Once it fully discharges and sits it will not fully charge. These batteries suck. Had to order one just to have the option. I prefer the battery pack on my old Variax 500 to the hit and miss JTV camera battery. Of course I have the VDI cable but occasionally like to use my Line 6 wireless unit.

I will attempt to revive this one before I give up.I have to try something before I spend $50 on another one

I was intrigued by a transplant as well before I got my JTV69. The guitar is an absolute strat guys guitar.And I have some nice strats! Now all I want is to sell 3 or 4 of my guitars that sit most of the time and get another JTV69 lol! Great thread!

yeah I have not pulled the trigger on it yet.It is still sitting at GC. Weight is a consideration for me too and I have been gigging a JTV/HD500 and light powered speaker(s) now for a few weeks. I have a 1982 JCM800/JCM 200 DSL 401/Fender Blues Deluxe RI/ Fender Pro Junior and Vox Night Train head for tube amps that dont see much gig time. My gigging needs will change after rhe end of the year as I will be doing much more leading of my own trio instead of the side man gigging I have done for about the last 10 years. Thanks for all the opinions/ advice I appreciate all of you!

I guess "Nope" means you have no setting to blend mags/ modeled pickups in your Workbench HD software? Okay.Mine has that feature you may have a different version of the workbench for your older Variax.I have an older one too a Variax 500 and the older workbench on my PC.

I just bought a JTV 69 and an HD500. Playing through a powered speaker.Works very well.Wondering if its worth it to get the last part of the system the DT-25? My local GC has one for $429

I have a battery that wont revive. Wondering if I should try to jump start it with a little low voltage out of the charger? it either shows 7.4 volts and wont charge or 0 after I let the JTV drain it.

in the Variax HD workbench there is a setting to blend mags/modelled tones.Investigate that also its easier to make your HD500 input settings global instead of per patch. That is done with the HD509 pc editor

I have only recorded my Variax 500 a little bit.Dont see myself recording much if at all with this one.I look at these Variaxes/ PODs as great live gigging tools.I am assuming that many here are heavy metalish palm muting kind of players. Thus all the problems with the plink palm mutitis disease. Having the individual string levels lower rather than the default 100% helps with this too.First thing I did is lower all of them a bit.I dont really do any heavy palm muting and even when playing Crazy Train type stuff mute using the fingers of my fretting hand as well as lightly palm muting.Not a bridge mashing player no lol! And yes it is a radical instrument and a hell of a lot of fun which as long as I have played is what I am looking for FUN!

Electric guitar tone wood is pretty unrelated to how they sound.The neck wood on the other hand has an influence. An electric guitar is not an acoustic guitar.If electric guitar tone wood was that important it would be very expensive to make these Variaxes.They would have to have top quality cork smeller tone woods throughout and be blessed by a priest.Smeller rather than sniffer I say!

Mine does not have noticable plink.I put a piece of velcro behind the nut to dampen those overtones.

I have just purchased a used minty fresh JTV. After reading all the negative posts here about how crap the Spank HD models are I had to laugh! They are as rich and beautiful as all the other modelled tones in this guitar.I am an old strat player for many many years. Line 6 got this critical model right on. Through FRFR speakers or my friends Mesa they kill. They do exactly what a vintage Stratocaster pickup does which is not much lol! Players of more modern Super Strat designs wont like this model but I love it. It is faithful to the old Strats I grew up playing.Kind of thin and anemic.A good Strat player plays the amp too and that is a big part of it. He/She also knows how to work the string against the fret and make other subtle adjustments too. Really enjoying this marvelous very well concieved instruments.All my older grizzled jaded geetar player buddies absolutely love it!

Just bought a real nice used JTV 69. The piezos made noise / and had low volume issues when I used thw whammy bar. Sprayed contact cleaner into a little clean cat food can/ used a q-tip to wick some down into the saddles. Works perfect now.They get dirty and need to be cleaned. This JTV I bought had sat a very long time. Really enjoying this guitar and I have many

I traded my HD500 for a beautiful telecaster a week ago. Will a POD XT Live work as an interface to workbench with my Variax 500 guitar? thanks!

My EMG guitars never sounded good with my HD500. I really enjoyed and used mine a lot but last week I traded it to a student of mine who bought a DT25 combo.I got a mint Squier Classic Vibe Tele he did not like for it.That is one hell of a great guitar.Now he can control his Dream Rig with the HD500 and I can enjoy the tele for an Eagles tribute thing I am doing.

read the giant threads about players replacing these saddles on this and other forums.It has solved a lot of their problems.Peizos have inherent crappy plinky tone.I have played Roland synth guitars and pickups for over 25 years.Peizo pickups are unusable with guitar synth.That means they are not so great for what Line 6 tries to do with them either.Better ones help quite a bit or many of these players here and elsewhere are lying about. They may not be shouting from the rooftops but they are awfully damn happy about it. Keep any guitar gear around you want that does not work for you.That is a personal choice.If something does not do what I need it to do I get rid of it ASAP. These things are tools for my business.I dont have time to be obsessive/ compulsive about "blank" that does not work properly. If you are not a working pro player you will look at these things differently.

Seems that Line 6 purchased a huge amount of crappy quality peizos and installed them on a lot of guitars at the factory and the guitars got past quality control.I am starting to think that this is what this whole thing is about.It happens with large manufacturing these days. Look up Fenders Mustang amp fizz debacle lol! I used my little Variax 500 in the studio a couple of weeks ago for some killer dobro sounds and a couple other things.No plink/ plank or kerplunk. Sell that guitar with bad peizo saddles and disclose it to the purchaser or replace them yourself and add it to your selling price. Don't keep it. It will just bring you down.

is "farty" a real word?

While of course far from the same thing I recently purchased one of those tiny A/DA micro cab units with no power amp through. I turned of the cab modeling in about 20 of my HD500 patches off and pumped it through my Alto 10 in powered cab. Sounds fantastic! The preamps in the HD500 are very good it is of course the cab modeling that is weak. What a difference for $120. I personally am not interested in an IR loader as I would never record with any of this digital stuff. I use amps for that purpose. Some of you who are flustrated with the HD500 cab modeling may want to try one of these.Everything I have run through it( Boss ME70-Zoom G3-HD500/ individual pedals etc..) sounds really good.

I have just finished spending 2 hours with 4 of my favorite home brewed patches turning the presence control all over the place whilst playing my PRS guitar and I can tell you it has an effect on treble mid and especially the low end of the cabinet modeling if you are playing through any kind of FRFR speakers. Some amps more than others of course but it is a real difference maker for sound creation. Thanks to all on this and the other thread who have contributed so much in this area.

This is a great thread! Keep the posts coming please!

My HD500 kills in 4 cable with my Egnater Tweaker and my 1982 JCM800 combo.I found a guide on The Gear Page that finally put everything at ubity gain. Good Luck!

When I occasionally play in a band with another "volume wars " star guitarist I simply change my POD output setting to combo return and plug it into either my Marshall JCM800 combo or my Fender BDRI and watch his little Vox AC15 get squashed like a fricken bug lol! That little Marshall will peel the paint off the wall.

I recently told the non-gigging arms folded guitarist in front of me that he is not one of the " music police". After that I then told him to get " bent".