snhirsch

You are modifying only a single guitar? In my opinion you're better off stripping them by hand.

Uncle Frank could have used Zircon-encrusted tweezers while making Maple syrup for the pancakes of our land... Seriously, though, what PCB are you talking about soldering to? The main electronics board? I haven't seen the GraphTech saddles other than in photos, but I doubt they rely on contact with the bridge plate for grounding.

Interesting. Does it have enough S/N ratio to be massively conservative in gain matching - to the point where even the heaviest pickers cannot run out of headroom? This is one of the issues that gives me pause when thinking about the GraphTech bridges. I suppose one could get in there and twiddle the feeback around the input op-amps if required.

I've tried to be patient, but am coming to the unfortunate conclusion that Line 6 is short on software development resources and not placing any effort towards fixing the known problems with Variax HD firmware, WB, etc. Taken together with the chronically slow response to support tickets, this has all the classic signs of a company running short on cash. If not for Yamaha coming into the picture I would say they weren't long for this world.

All the discussion I've read about the Workbench level settings suggests that the gain adjustment occurs between the piezo pickups and the AD converter. While that certainly would be a logical place to put it, does anyone know for sure if that's actually the case? I'd certainly hope so, but it would be nice to hear confirmation from the Line 6 technical folks. Hard to believe this would be considered proprietary information.

It's definitely possible to strip teflon insulation by hand. I did it for years before finding the hot-tweezers in a surplus store. The secret is do not try to use a pair of strippers! Unless the size match is absolutely perfect, you will either break the wire or nick so many strands that the connection will be mechanically weak. The razor blade or x-acto knife approach is far safer. Use a light swiping motion, holding the blade at 90-degrees to the wire. Even with thin wire you can feel when the blade gets through the insulation. After you make a couple of nicks, it should pull off using a thumbnail. Take a close look through a magnifier to check for broken strands. A few is fine, but if it's more than about 25% shredded cut it off and try again. If you are going to do a lot of termination on teflon, the hot-tweezers are majorly cool. Once you get the temperature dialed in (5-900 degrees, depending on insulation characteristics), it's just a matter of a light pinch, twist and pull. Fast, and no broken strands at all. I do a fair amount of work on classic computer systems and often need to use 30g Kynar wirewrap wire for repairs or modifications. Wirewrap wire is solid core and breaks even easier than the stranded cable. The tweezer system was the best $25 I even spent. If I go the Graph-Tech route, I'm probably going to take a deep breath and try tacking on new pins under a magnifying glass. Butt splicing and heat shrink is fine, though. I'm just fussy...

Sure, why not? Personally I'd prefer to leave the originals intact, but if you don't care about that then your approach should work fine. One thing to be careful of: GraphTech claims their wiring is Teflon insulated, and that can be nasty to strip cleanly without nicking a lot of strands or outright breaking off the piece you're trying to strip. The gold standard for stripping Teflon involves thermal tweezers, but you can do it mechanically with some difficulty. Just leave yourself some extra to allow for breakage and general "...oh, crap..." moments :-)

The fact that the GraphTech saddles fit mechanically on a JTV-69 is only about half the battle. Removing the original pickups will require popping the pins from the mini 8-pin header at the PCB end, cutting apart the joined shields in each group of three and slicing the gray plastic jacket on each group along its length to separate the wires. After installing the new saddles, all six GraphTech leads must be terminated on the 8-pin header. Pins are probably available from a good electronics supplier (Mouser or DigiKey), but I can tell you from experience that insertion pins of this size are not a lot of fun to install without the proper tool and crimp die. Such tools are invariably proprietary and tend to be shockingly expensive. (Yes, you can probably solder the pins on but it requires a needle-tip, temperature controlled iron, a very steady hand and more than a bit of luck. Any overflow down the body of the pin and it will either not insert into the body or will fail to retain properly). None of this is rocket science, but it takes good bench skills, good eyesight and a lot of patience. It's not a given that a guitar tech - even a very good one - will be able to pull this off. I have been corresponding with Mr. Bramwell at GraphTech in the hopes that I can convince them to offer some sort of dedicated kit having the pickup leads pre-cut and pins mounted ready to poke into the connector body. All I received on the first round was the same canned response posted above, so I'm not terribly hopeful.

To the extent that this sound is caused by a loose pickup hitting the sides of the bridge, I have a suggestion for curing the problem. Pickup a roll of thin teflon tape of the type used to prevent thread-on plumbing fixtures from leaking. Remove the strings from the instrument and create enough cable slack to lift the pickup element clear. Cut a strip of tape to be the same width as the height of the element and wrap a bit tightly around it. The tape tends to self-adhere. The idea is to build up just enough that it fits tightly into the bridge without being able to rattle around. This may take a bit of trial and error, but shouldn't be all that difficult. Once you have figured out the appropriate length, it will be quick to do the other five. With a little care, this modification won't be visible when they're back in place. I have never noticed the sound myself and, to be honest, I cannot hear anything out of place in that MP3 track. But for those with fussier ears this trick might be worth a shot.

All I can tell you is that they appear compatible with contemporary 6-inline precision tuners. I originally had Schaller Minis, but swapped them out for the original Line6 machines a few months later. Both had the identical hole size and retaining screw location.

I have a MIghty-Mite Strat neck on mine and no shaping was required at all. Just a matter of locating and drilling the mount holes. I paid a local guitar tech $75 for his time just to get some peace of mind, but I probably could have done it myself. The Warmoth necks are certainly nice, but about 4x the cost of the MightyMite IIRC. The machine heads mount with no issues at all.

Hmm. Good point. I guess I just assumed that because it was in a list with a bunch of parts that definitely were for the JTV Variax.

Then it's fortunate for both you and Line 6 that almost all parts are available from third-party distributors, e,g.: http://www.fullcompass.com/product/341982.html

If you have issues with the 69 neck you can simply replace it with any aftermarket strat neck. I tried hard to like the OEM neck on mine, but gave up after a couple of weeks of fighting with the overly-narrow string spacing and jumbo frets. Since installing a MightyMite compound radius neck it's become my favorite instrument. I'm realistic enough to know that no two players are going to feel the same way about a given neck setup. I just prefer a traditional fret cross-section and my fingers are too large to play cleanly on closely spaced strings.

One other option is to have the guitar setup on a Plek machine. That prevents minute high spots from causing string buzz and lets you lower the action closer to the frets. But, if the distance from the fingerboard to the fret top is an issue you may need to consider re-fretting.

Thankyou! That's the first complete explanation I've seen. It addresses the issue I recall having where it wasn't clear what was supposed to be on or off after rearranging the pickups. Looks like it's been up for a while, but I must have missed it.

According to comments made by Line 6 when it was released, firmware 1.9 has the same HD acoustic models as 2.0.

For some definition of "clearly", I guess. I tried following it and the procedure simply made no sense and did not correct anything <shrug>. The details are a bit fuzzy four months out, but I think I had problems with the wrong pickup being active after swapping them.

If I recall older discussions, saving new patches to the 2nd switch position kills the correct pickup arrangement. How do you get that back? There was a bunch of advice on this back in August, but unfortunately none of it made enough sense to me to make me risk playing with the strat sound. I'm sure it was all well-intended, but there always seemed to be something glossed over or a step missing.

That's an old post. As many folks pointed out, Hendrix did indeed restring his guitar. I have no idea where I picked up the impression it was otherwise.

At a minimum, you will need to locate and drill four holes for the mounting screws. It's not rocket science, but things do need to be carefully aligned and the holes drilled to the proper depth using the proper drill size. I chickened out and had a local guitar tech do it. In my case, the set angle wasn't quite right and the neck needed to be shimmed. I cannot remember if the nut was pre-slotted or not. Initial results were quite good and the playability was greatly improved. This round cost me about $75 on top of the neck purchase. A few months later, I sent the guitar to Steve Weber for a Plek setup. He fixed the neck set properly by shaving the back of the heel. Results this time were spectacular! I know there's controversy about the Plek machine, but I have never seen such a perfect job of fret leveling in my life. No buzz, no choking out on high string bends. Expect a Plek setup to run $2-300. Basically, when you start this type of rework expect the results to be proportional to how much effort gets put into it. Unless you have a fair amount of experience working on guitars it's probably not something to tackle at home.

I realize that Line 6 advises connection directly to a USB port on the computer. However, I'm beginning to suspect that the dongle's current draw is right on the hairy edge of what a USB-2 port can provide. At this point it may be worth trying to find a USB hub with external power supply and connect through that. I have run into several devices over the years that refused to work reliably unless connected through a powered hub.

Not to mention what it does for the playability! I tried real hard to like the OEM neck, but it's just too narrow at the top for my fat fingers and jumbo frets don't cut it for my playing style.

Nice! Care to share that patch?

Here you go!