snhirsch

Line 6 has a chronic mechanical tolerance issue with the JTV-69 mode switch that prevents you from pushing the shaft far enough down to activate it. Try this: Carefully pull the knob off the guitar by grasping it around the sides of the knob and lifting straight up. Do NOT pull on the chrome cap as they tend to separate from the knob easily. When the knob is off, push down on the shaft with your thumb and see if you can get it to switch that way. If it works, drop a little circle of cardboard into the hole on the knob and push it back on gently. That should let you depress the shaft a bit further and get more reliable switching.

When I moved to 2.0 firmware, I rolled off the bottom 4 strings about 6db on the overall gain settings. There's been a strong concensus that relative levels are not right "out of the box".

Are you saying that the trailing edge of the new pieces might be in contact with the plate?

I'm a bit puzzled by the lengthwise position of those bridge pieces. Is that really where they ended up when you adjusted the intonation? Modern string sets with solid 3rd strings almost always require a distinctive 3-slanted + 3-slanted pattern where 6th and 3rd string are furthest from the nut, then 5th and 2nd, etc. Also, the "clacking" you demonstrate in the video suggests that the bridge pieces are too tight against each other laterally - so when you loosen one screw it cannot twist enough to settle tight against the plate. Is there any daylight at all between the pieces? The original Variax pieces have about 1/64" of daylight between them. I'm not sure what material the GraphTechs are made of, but you may want to consider grinding a bit off the sides to open some clearance. They do say not to file the actual saddle area, but I doubt the pizeo element extends to the sides.

I just don't feel right about taking advantage of liberal return policies. Also, that wouldn't have given me both instruments side by side to play with.

After driving 250 miles to Boston in order to find a store with both a 69 and 59 in stock, I bought the former for two reasons: The neck was replaceable if I didn't like it (and it turns out I didn't) and you could select all five positions with one hand. It just seemed like having to use both hands for pickup changes would be problematic.

I'm always surprised to hear reports of behind-the-saddle ringing on a JTV-69. I've plucked the free portions of the strings with a jeweler's screwdriver and hear essentially nothing but the tick of the blade hitting them.

Can you get the circuit board out of the guitar easily and post a photo? I doubt they are using anything terribly proprietary in an analog preamp.

Is the center-to-center spacing between height screws on the GraphTech pieces the same as the originals? If so, I bet you can pickup some pointed set screws with the correct thread size (I'm assuming from your comments that the GraphTech screws are not pointed).

Not sure whether "IKnowathingortwo", but you may address me as "..he who knows enough to be dangerous..." :-). Seriously, I'm not sure I'd recommend trying to angle the holes unless you are setup with a good drill press and a clamping fixture to maintain the angle while you bore it. If it was me, I'd simply oversize the hole along its current direction to the point where the screw wasn't binding against the top.

Nope. The OEM tuners have a large knob on the rear to tighten the string lock. I see no locking tuners on that page.

The fact that you have lateral force on the intonation screws could well be the source of the problems. The load on those screws is supposed to be straight out from the holes on the back of the bridge plate. As long as you have a new bridge coming anyway, try boring out the holes enough to relieve that torquing stress - then counterbore in from the back to let the larger screws seat inside. And, yes, your bridge assembly looks a bit different from one in my JTV-69.

I would strongly advise against anything labeled "Control Cleaner", as many of these leave a horrible oily residue that tends to get everywhere (and in my experience does not really protect things in the long term). A very small shot of non-residue electronics cleaner should do the trick. Spray it in an opening on the pot and immediately run the control back and forth through its full range a few times. Watch your eyes when you push the button! That stuff can come roaring back out at you :-)

The pull from the pole-pieces of strat style pickups can cause very strange overtones. Certainly possible that this would be audible on the piezo output.

Hey, don't keep us all in suspense! How did the GraphTech conversion work out?

Sounds cool. In looking at mine, it seems like you could countersink for the new screws (unless they're really huge). You'd want to do it in a drill press with the bridge piece clamped at the correct alignment. If both sides of the piezo element are floating the polarity probably doesn't matter as long as they're all consistent with each other. I'll be very interested in hearing your impressions on the sound!

I suspect they didn't know the "RO" kit was required for a JTV-69! Now that they've figured this out I'm betting it will become a product offering again.

Methinks the photos on their site are still screwed up. They did change things around since yesterday, but the -00 system (as you pointed out) is now 1/2 and 1/2 left and right. Yesterday it was all "right" sided. If they can ship a 1/2 and 1/2 kit, then there should be no problem supplying the correct parts for the Variax.

That speaks well for GraphTech. Keep us in the loop on your progress? I may be right behind you making the change.

You are Elantric? Yow. Quite a background...

I can't see where discussing perfectly visible aspects of the Line 6 internals even remotely compromises intellectual property. It's not as if anyone's sitting here trying to reverse engineer the firmware.

Yes. That was exactly the point I was trying to make in an earlier post. In a perfect world, Line 6 would have designed things such that the pre-AD gain could be software controlled. If the current setup has monster amounts of headroom, it may be physically impossible to overrun the converter. But I pick harder than hades myself and wouldn't take that bet. Piezo transducers can put out some serious peaks. Do they still teach analog circuitry in an EE cirriculum? Sometimes I worry that analog design is a vanishing skill set.

I think they definitely have the pictures bass-ackwards. From their FAQ: Can I replace the saddles on my Line6 Variax with ghost saddles? You can replace the LR Baggs saddles on your Strat-style Variax bridge with Graph Tech ghost saddles (PN-8000-00). These are made of String Saver composite material, and house pickups similar to the ones that came with your Variax. Unfortunately, at the present time we do not offer saddles that are compatible with the wraparound design.

I'm afraid my playing style is basic enough to make the missing fret the least of my worries :-). But, yes, the Mighty-Mite neck was a big improvement.

Thanks for reminding me of that! It's probably a year since I've been inside the spring cavity - just plain forgot that was there. That is indeed the obvious place to connect in the new pickups. I also didn't realize they relied on the metal bridge parts for ground return. That doesn't thrill me at all. Doesn't take much build-up of corrosion or crud around the bridge pieces to start affecting a hi-Z source like the piezo pickups.