JTSC777

Turn off or remove all your useless anti- virus software. I have had no problems with my HD500/Variax 500/ Workbench/ HD edit etc... because I dont use any of that crap. Your computer has built in virus protection. Using any of that other stuff conflicts with it and causes all kinds of problems.Norton/ Maccafee etc... all useless snake oil. Save your money and dont use it. You dont need it. If you still have problems after trying that your computer may have viruses etc...that must be removed. line 6 software is fine.Never had any problems with any and I just did all the HD updates and added vintage model packs via my Windows 7 Toshiba laptop. Rock Solid!

The Altos are good.They have made me quite a bit of money.If you are doing any travelling even out of town overnite gigs get the Yamahas . They are very very tough. I dont tour anymore almost all of my live gigging is local so for me the Altos are fine.

I used to put a bit of heat shrink on the ends of my strings on my strats to stop breakage .Slide a peice down to the end and heat it up with a lighter. Better than tape maybe.

I use them for FRFR/ PA mains/ monitors/on the floor in front of me/ one behind and one to the side of me/as a PA on a stick on a stand/10s and or12s in all the configurations I have listed they sound good. They sound musical. They sound smooth. Take care of them. Dont throw them into your truck. Dont run them with the volumes cranked for 8 hours and you will be fine. I am gigging mine in 2 hours outside as FR FRfor my GR55/Boss ME70 rig with a 6 peice soul &R and B band.They have a nice PA so my 10s will do the job.

For now I am most certainly a believer in the Variax. No doubts about it's potential. I only regret not getting into it sooner.

Indeed I will at some point soon. Right now I am figuring out how to utilize it best for my needs and also doing a lot of refrets/ crown and polishing etc... to my 14 other instruments lol! I took inventory recently of all my electeics/acoustics/ mandolins and I guess I gigged a lot last winter because my insteuments are almost all in need of attention. After that I will upgrade the piezos on my Variax 500 and start looking for a del on a used JTV69!

Connection to Variax 500 /Workbench using HD500 is seemless. Spent some time editing this morning getting things leveled out a bit more. Blew the bands mind last night at rehearsal. It is an eight peice events type band with three guitars / keys/ sax/drums/bass. To be able to play a different guitar than the other two guys on every song was a huge thing. The band leader will leave the acoustic at the studio for the next gig. I will cover all the acoustics.I have to say they are quite good for live use and I am a GR55 user. The older Variax acoustic models are much better than my GR55s are.Thanks for all the help gentlemen!

I will be using my Variax 500 with my HD500 most of the time but will use batteries sometimes too. Which rechargables are you using Charlie?

Thanks Silverhead! My VDI cable is on the truck today!

I have the venerable HD500

A question. Before I interface this guitar with my window7 computer with no virus protection running on it. Which of the many versions of the workbench should I install on my laptop? I have never had any problems using any Line 6 editing programs on this Toshiba laptop.Possibly because I dont do much more with it than these sorts of tasks.Any suggestions would be helpful.I would rather avoid the alternate tuning problems others have experienced.I am also not a big user of alt. tunings but might use them for a few things. thanks, TC

Talked to a guy I have known a long time at a jam I host on Sundays. He has a 700 he loves and will never part with. This guy has plenty of money and could buy and has bought many expensive guitars. I actually enjoyed playing Jessies girl because I could play the verses with a 6 string Rick and then go to a 12 for the choruses!

Gigged again Saturday night. Amazing! My band mates were floored! I don't even have the VDI cable yet nor the workbench software and I am amazed at how easy to navigate the presets are. Saturday I cranked it through my HD500 and a Fender HRDLXiii with an extension 1x12 cab. A JTV is definitely in my future.

Gigged it yesterday out in the heat at a Farmers market with my usual trio playing all the usual tunes. Used it for 2 out of three sets with my HD500. Used my older Japanese EMG strat for set no.2. I must have gotten lucky and gotten a good one. Sounded/ felt good.Actually made life easier. Played lots of country(tele)/Beatles(chime models)/Setzer(r-billy) etc...

Dont be too sure about that. 20 years ago a Roland service tech in LA old me the problem I was having doing basic sequencing with my $1100 GR-1 guitar synth was possibly all in my head.Three phone calls on my dime and three days later a technician told me the trith. And that was that the unit did not do everything the manual said it could . It did not send all the midi information down the 13 pin cable as the manual said it did. Roland may have more service centers but you better have a good backup if you give it to them as you wont see it for about three months if you are lucky lol! I had a Roland VG strat for a couple of years. My Variax 500 kills it in every way. The build quality was good but the tones were poor. I own 2 GR55s. I also have a GR20 and have owned a VG8 and a lot of other Roland stuff.It is made very well yes. I just received a mint condition Variax 500 and I cant believe what a resonant instrument it is . Plays great! Nice tones.Looking at a JTV for myself now. I hope the OP gets this sorted out. I guarantee you that Line 6 will do a lot more than Roland would to make it right.

So the HD500 with VDI cable will allow me to interface my Variax 500 with the workbench software?

I have just taken delivery of a mint condition Variax 500 after wanting one for about 10 years. Plays great with very little adjustment. I am astonished at how good it sounds through my Fender BDRI and a couple timesof pedals.Amazing! I am playing in yet another band lol! and one of the things they do is a Beatles tribute and it is of course perfect for that. For all the terrible things I have read about these things I guess if you get a used one that hasn't been messed with much you are in good shape. Mine is Korean made with USA patents pending. I have ordered a VDI cable to use with my HD500. I got it stupid cheap from GCs used webpage. I will give more observations after I gig it a few times of course but cranked up through a good tube amp it sounds really good.Now I understand why Steve Howe and John Macfee have used even these older ones. The modeling sounds much better to me so far than my GR55 guitar models do.

I work with several gentlemen with doctorates in jazz composition and theory who would disagree with you.I was just telling this student who could already play pop and rock pretty well what he was getting into by maybe disappearing down a jazz rathole. Along the way some of my teachers like my junior high art teacher save me a lot of trouble. She told me I sucked at it after one week. I was crushed but I got over it and took a music theory class that worked out very well for me.Your side of this isn't wrong but neither is mine. If everyone had the same approach to teaching the world would suck worse than it does. Jazz is not performance art. Pop and rock is about a performance in fact it is almost all about how it is performed/delivered/ looks etc...which is great. But they are two very different languages. I know as I speak both of them fluently. And I love both of them. We agree more than we disagree but I have enjoyed reading your thoughts.I learn a lot more from reading opinions I disagree with than the ones I agree with.

Maybe we can agree on this one thing.The more you know the more you can do.

Feel free to vote me back down lol! I don't do the " voting" thing here. I do that at my local polling station.

I was specifically taliking about being a good jazz musician.I have played many gigs/shows with some great ones. It is an entirely different skillset from the one used to play pop music. As far as athletes go my sons who were good baseball players both quit playing when they became tired of being rewarded for mediocrity.You don't learn anything from being told everything you do is great. My teachers were tough on me and I am glad they were as I can play almost any gig I am asked to do.Kids today cant even sing and play at the same time because they think it's too hard lol! My teachers told me I had better learn to not only sing and play at the same time but sing very well and front a band if necessary . Many of my former students are able to improvise and sing and play at a high level. Thier chops that they have learned on their own speak for themselves. I teach improvisation . How to have your own voice. I dont teach you how to play your favorite song.Thats not building musicianship skills.It is just useless mimicry and wont give the student a lasting desire to play or a lifetime of music appreciation whether they coninue to play or not.IMHO.

Movies that depict the reality of the struggle to become a great musician and improvise at a high level like "Bird" and recently "Whiplash" are not inspiring young people to be musicians . It is all American Idol and keeping up with The Kardashians. But what the hell do I know? I still listen to Miles Davis records lol! My only real concern is that the art of being able to improvise i.e. make art right in front of an audience is slowly going away. The last student I had who was very gung ho about learning to be a jazz player looked at me like I was from Mars when I showed him one of my old beat up Real Books and told him to practice the heads to Autumn Leaves/ Take Five and Moments Notice for about 15 years and he might be able to sit in with some jazz players once in a while lol!

I should have added that I post from an Ipad I guess. At the NAMM show I did see several groups of young folks using elements of EDM and conventional instruments and doing some interesting things with it. Not as intersesting to me as Chad Wackermans solo drum peice at the QSC booth but still kind of compelling. They were definitely having a lot of fun.

From my teaching experience I have learnd that in these times young people are not picking up an instrument and working at and studying it for 20 years before they can play proficiently.Those days are about gone. Being a real time working professional musician is very hard work by young peoples standards today.As an example my 21 year old bass playing son who is pretty good with decent reading skills cannot find enough younger players to get their faces out of their bong/Facebook/video game/ girlfriend etc....to do the rehearsing and work involved to play music at a high level live. At last winters NAMM show the biggest draw was anything related to EDM. Electronic Dance Music for you older musicians here. Every EDM booth was packed while a bunch of geezers hung out at the Marshall booth which was surprisingly quiet.Things have changed a lot. I rarely see the musicians work ethic in young folks that I was taught was a requirement to be even a casual musician much less a pro.I will be 54 years old in a couple of months and have played professionally since I was 12 years old. I am not against any of these changes as change is important and must happen. I see a marriage between EDM and conventional rock/pop insteuments as the next wave in popular music. I have been very fortunate to have played as long as I have and make my living from it but I had to learn to do a lot of things well. It's all Blood , Sweat and Tears. No shortcuts. My 2 cents.

I use my Altos for GR55 monitoring/ acoustic electric guitar/ HD500 FRFR/ monitors for full bands and sometimes mains. If you have done your homework on your GR55/ HD500 etc .... you dont need to fiddle with eq on your FRFR speaker . Even the exalted CLR powered cab has no eq knobs.But by all means get a powered cab with eq knobs if you find it helpful.A small mixer works better IMHO if you must have more eq.I play a lot of one nighters so I need easy setup tear down.All controls on these powered speakers are on the back they dont put eq knobs on the front. PITA to get at in the heat of battle. Thats why I make sure its right before I get to the gig. The eq in the HD500 is easier to get to than the back of a powered speaker.