njglover

At the core of things is also that having a wireless receiver inside the unit adds physical bulk and a risk of crosstalk/interference with other internal components, so there is a potential for radio noise coming through. Much, much better to have your wireless gear physically separate.

I mean, I am a pro in that I get paid to play gigs. I use the G10 live. I have no need to move more than 10-20' from my receiver - partly because we play small venues and partly because I don't move much in general. If I was playing arenas, I would probably get something else, if only because I'm pretty sure I could afford it by then. TBH, though, the G10 has less drop outs than Shure's digital wireless ever did for me.

I notice that with the 3OSC generator, too. I can set the attack to real slow so it swells in, which is exactly what I want, but the decay parameter seems to be completely useless. I'm trying to set up a patch where I have two different chords set up and I can trigger them as nice synth pads, but it cuts off really abruptly and is a little odd.

As to why, well... it would cost extra and it's a little short-sighted in a way. You pick one receiver that works with G30 and G50 but maybe it doesn't work with G55 or G10. Or maybe they come out with something newer down the road. Sure, you're not required to use it, but it's a feature that would up the price of the unit by at least $100, not add any value for a lot of folks (who either don't want to go wireless or can't because they use Variax like me), and could get outdated anyway.

The 3OSC effect is an oscillator generator, as is the 4OSC effect. They are not synths in and of themselves. I doubt you will be able to achieve that exact sound, but you may be able to use it in conjunction with some other effects to get close. I suggest you do some digging on oscillators (and their uses in synths) to get some ideas. I took an entire semester dedicated to synthesis and I still can't figure it out.

You can split the path using a crossover split. Send some frequencies to one path and pan it one day, send the others to the other path and pan it the other way. That has always been available.

How does one do this? I saw something mentioned about snapshots earlier, but I would love to do this without involving snapshots. In one of our songs, I have been using a looper to record some swelling chords so that I can play over them, but if I could just set up an auto swell on a synth and trigger it with my feet, I could completely eliminate that hassle.

How else would you try it? :P Seriously, though. I have played with both the new pedals, but none of the amps or cabs. Both pedals are very welcome additions. Can't remember what they are called, but one gives a real growly/grindy distortion that works great for heavier genres. Better than any other option I have tried, real or modeled, actually. Really like that addition. The other is an overdrive and fuzz all in one and gives us (finally) a great option for bass-centric fuzz. Can finally do away with my complicated split-path big muff routing, I think. It's not perfect - I'd still really like to have my Malekko Plus Ultra in there - but it is much better than anything else we had before.

No kidding. I have spent almost no time in Workbench. Way too much to do and experiment with. I have made two changes to the stock sounds - boosted the volume of the Strat models (frankly, I think nearly all the models could come up to match the magnetics) and made one custom model that is just the magnetics with the volume and tone tweaked to sound like the normal magnetics so that I can easily switch between magnetics and models in one Helix preset without having to deal with a bunch of different paths.

Which is pretty awesome.

I didn't do much. I am using the Gibson acoustic setting with the tone rolled back very slightly, then I have it go into the studio preamp for a little extra gain, an EQ that is mostly just boosting the mids a little bit (I eventually want to configure it to cut some of the boominess of that model), and finally a reverb for some space. Basically, it is set the same way I would run an actual acoustic.

Now that I've got my handy-dandy JTV89 back from Line 6 all tuned up and ready to go, I have been spending some time actually playing with the models. Previously, I had pretty much only used the magnetic pickups and the Strat model. I am finding that I like the Special in particular, but finally took the time to set up a preset on my Helix for messing with acoustic tones and I am really impressed with them. Not only do they actually sound very close to the things they purport to model, but they also really capture the nuances of the acoustic sound. Don't know how you did it, but kudos to you, Line 6!

Blank, you have to load IRs. Try it :)

Since I was only having a problem with the 6th string (low E), that is, as far as I know, the only string that was worked on. Here is the exact quote: "The plink or over-ringing is dealt with by doing some adjustments to the channel in the piezo casing and de-burring the nut slots." What this says to me, in more plain English, is that the nut slot was smoothed and the piezo and casing around it were filed until they fit together better. I still notice the sound when using the Strat models (so I may make some adjustments to that model), but it is pretty much gone on all the other models, including the Tele. I do notice one thing that is odd to me and seems to suggest that it is not JUST a hardware problem. If I rub my finger along the string, the 6th string is actually the only one where I CAN'T really hear any sort of high-pitched sound acoustically (though that is clearly where the plink is coming from), but the high-pitched sounds coming from the other strings do not seem to come through the electronics at all, as if they were being filtered out on all the other strings. That is, acoustically I hear some high-pitched sounds that I do not hear coming through the wires.

For me, it was only the 6th string - I believe that is also the case for most folks. I don't recall hearing about other strings, but I haven't read the entire thread (I think I can be forgiven for that). I have the JTV89 with the hardtail as I hate floating bridges. I seem to remember hearing somewhere that the Floyd models use Ghost saddles, so I would imagine them to be less prone, but I could be mistaken.

Okay, just got mine back. That's about... 2.5 weeks, so not that bad. They covered shipping both ways, too. I am... not really sure if it's fixed. I first plugged in it and played around with it for maybe 20 minutes and thought that it seemed to be mostly resolved as long as I didn't play super hard (like smacking the crap out of the strings with my pick hard). Then I came to write a post about how great things are now that it is fixed and picked it up again and the problem seemed to be back. Then I played around with it for a while to really see what was going on and, lo and behold, the problem pretty much went away again. I have no idea what is going on, but it seems like it is probably mostly fixed, it just needs some time to settle and be played with. What was fixed, according to the tech, were the nut slots and the piezo slot/shell (the shell that holds the piezo element must be properly contoured, but only so much so that the acoustic coupling is not ruined). That is to say, they were filed/smoothed, much as I originally suspected (but was a little to chicken to try on the piezo). This points to, again as I suspected, a hardware issue. Generally speaking, any imperfections in the slots will naturally smooth out over time anyway, so my suspicion is that the problem will get better, not worse, as time goes on. Perhaps quality control is not great on the piezo elements and some are worse than others. Perhaps the investigation is on the backburner because they are not using these saddles on future models. In my testing today, it seems to me that the problem is now basically non-existent on any model other than the Strat models. This is because the Strat body model amplifies the nasty characteristics - for example, removing the body model and just letting the real body tone come through virtually eliminates the problem. So, in that sense, there is, perhaps, some better filtering that could be done on that particular model, but that isn't really the root cause of the problem. When just playing the guitar acoustically, it seems to me that the 6th string has a different set of overtones than the other strings. I do not have a good way to verify my suspicions quantitatively, but it seems to me that is likely why the 6th string is the only one with this problem. It happens to produce an (ugly) overtone than happens to be picked up by the piezo and amplified by certain models and amps. My advice, based on all this, is to either send your guitar to Line 6 (if it's under warranty) or take it to a good tech and have them work on the nut and saddle slots. Barring that, you could also try ordering new piezo saddles (available here: http://www.fullcompass.com/prod/234088-Line-6-11-00-0010)and swapping those in. They are a relatively cheap part, so you might order a few and keep going until you find one that works. I believe that Line 6 is willing to work with you on this, but there is no magic, instant fix and it may not be 100% perfect (because guitars never are). I am also going to try a couple different coated string options in conjunction with the fix Line 6 did for me to see if that further mitigates the issue (the coating should, theoretically, mute some of the overtones). If you have not yet bought a Variax (and I still think you should!), make sure to test it first or buy it from a reputable dealer with a good return/exchange policy.

The Variax is great, and that's coming from a guy who owns a US limited edition Strat, a US PRS, a vintage Gibson, and has owned a Music Man Luke III. I expected it to be good enough, but was surprised to find that it is just plain good, no modifiers needed.

I would just like to weigh in and say let's please not let this thread devolve into the mess that is the Variax thread in the Variax forum. We do not need to go through that again.

That's... Just plain not true. VDI and ethercon are the same, yes, and both are nothing more than a CAT5e cable with a XLR-style shield around them. The one that comes with the guitar works just fine or they wouldn't include it. I use it all the time to run my JTV89 with my Helix. Have not had a single problem. You could grab an Ethernet cable and use that, too. They are not magic cables.

Awesome! Excited to get it back, hoping for good results. I'm sure the Variax forum lurkers will love some good news, too. Thanks!

US made. US custom shop guitars are always going to be expensive because US labor is expensive.

Gonna second this. If you look in the Variax forums, you will see an extremely long thread about problems with the sound of the 6th string on the Variax. Psarkissian can attest to that (I believe they are the one fixing my JTV89 now, actually). I suspect that these refurbs are models that have been sent back by various users/companies because of this problem and that the problem has been fixed now. So buying the refurbs may be more likely to result in a "good" guitar.

Maybe, but it's pretty hard to find the hardtail JTV89 in stores now. And I think this is less than I paid for "scratch and dent" from Sweetwater.

All guitars will hum/buzz to some extent when you are not touching the hardware. That is why the ground wires connect to the bridge - so that you touching the strings can complete the circuit. That is expected behavior. Considering that you should be touching the guitar when you are playing it, this shouldn't be a problem. That's just how guitars work. As mentioned by others, certain things can make it worse - for example, we practice in my vocalist's basement every other week. Even with my active bass, if I face one direction, the buzz is pretty bad. If I stand in the exact same place but face the other direction, it goes away almost completely. At the end of the day, your pickups work via electromagnetism and will interact with other electromagnetic elements in the room.

I mostly use an Ownhammer Mesa 412 IR and I don't run any cuts on it. However, the stock cabs I usually have to cut pretty aggressively if I have any distortion going through them. I have also found that the numbers on the amp controls on the Helix don't really seem to correspond exactly with the real amps, or at least there is not a terribly great way to line them up. So it's extremely difficult to just create a patch based on numbers alone.