livepoor

Edstar, thanks.  You've convinced me to re-run the firmware update again and again if necessary.  Somehow having an explanation about why this is needed would make me feel better about doing, but just the fact that several people have had success on the 3rd or 4th time is enough to give me hope it'll actually work.  When it didn't work the first time, I quickly rolled back to make sure I could get all my old tones back.  After the 2nd time I thought maybe it was some settings adjustment (but everything sounded bad even straight through to my L2T without the POD).  The Variax has so much capability and versatility, I tend to be forgiving of the technical weirdness.  I work in the tech field and have never hear nor seen anything like this with regard to firmware (a partial FW update?  It's just not a thing).

I'm not happy with the variax 2.0 firmware update either.  I tried flashing it twice, and each time afterward, playing through the models, they sound thin and screechy.  When I roll back the firmware to 1.9, they're round and balanced again.  With 2.0 installed, I tried adjusting EQ, going into patches to start from scratch, but nothing helped significantly.  I just want the models to sound good on their own, without any amps/effects, but even starting with no amp or effects, the models sound nasty.  I went into workbench to try to make adjustments because the string volumes sound off as well (strings 4,5,6 are louder than 1,2,3).  I'm playing through a POD and L2T like I always have, and they sound bad through that, and through headphones.  I've tried adjusting the output settings from studio, to the combo options.  Any suggestions other than reflashing the firmware again?  Did anyone have luck on the 3rd/4th time?