snhirsch

Brilliant! That's helpful. If you get a chance, can you model the effect of the volume pot bypass cap we've been discussing?

Change the position of... what? At the risk of appearing extremely dense, I'm still failing to see the entire view of either the problem or the solution. That said, I do appreciate your efforts at making the remedy available and will try flailing away this evening. Enjoy your day off - I'm stuck at work :-(.

Ok, now I'm even more confused. I was getting the impression that both Strat2 and Strat4 showed the problem. Is it only Strat2? I'll take a shot at uploading that file to my guitar this evening. Thanks very much for the link!

I downloaded "fixed" Strat2 and Strat4 models the other day, only to find that the "2" didn't have the correct angle on the bridge p/u. This failed to inspire a lot of confidence, I must admit, and I didn't go any further with them. I just tried to access the ones at your link, but they require an account. Any chance of PM'ing them to me or - better yet - putting them up on custom-tone?

Yeah, yeah, rub it in :-) I suspect I'm closer to your Dad's age.

I admit to an incredible level of confusion trying to follow this workaround. When I tried it, things don't make a lot of sense. The pickups report themselves incorrectly when clicked in the workbench, I have two on top of each other and the results are not at all good. It would be great if someone could take the time to make a short video with a _narrated_ step-by-step. Particularly if this is an officially recommended move. It may be incredibly obvious to those who have done it, but it sure isn't to me.

Yes, that's a great article. I think the reason I always regarded it as a simple RC high-pass filter was because this same scheme is widely used for guitar amp channel volume controls. There, you are not generally dealing with an inductance on either the source or load sides, and the load impedance is >> than the pot value (for a tube amp at any rate). I think the original designers in the pre-R+R era were thinking about Fletcher-Munson loudness curves and trying to approximate that behavior on the high end. Loudness compensation was a real staple on classic stereo gear, but I don't recall seeing a loudness switch in recent decades. Now that I've thoroughly dated myself, I'll stop wandering off-subject :-).

The issue of which electrical effect dominates is certainly up for discussion - only a set of analog simulations at various frequencies, pickup impedances, cap values and control settings will reveal all. Getting a reasonable coverage of the variable space would be a bit time-consuming. Are you aware of any papers on the subject? It sounds like something that one or more of the botique pickup vendors might have done. And, now that I think more on it, this is an obvious subject for an undergrad EE paper. Someone has certainly done this - more likely many someones. And - sorry for any confusion - I'm indeed saying that I want the effect. I've come to rely on it to dial in on a good rhythm sound. I generally start with volume full-up and dial in a solo tone, then back down (sometimes way down, depending on how far into overdrive I was) until I get a more zingy rhythm sound. Sometimes it takes a couple of rounds to converge on something that works. It's just the way I've always done it. Again, maybe not for everyone.

From an electrical standpoint, that's not quite correct. What it does is form a first-order high-pass filter when the control is at lower settings. The volume pot acts as a voltage divider and you can think of the cap as allowing higher frequencies to "bleed around" it and thus not be reduced as much as lower ones. There is some unavoidable interaction with cable capacitance as well. Some day when I have some time on my hands, it would be fun to do a SPICE simulation (electrical model) of the entire pickup, volume, tone and cable circuit. Maybe when I retire :-) But anyway, technicalities aside, I agree with you that not everyone will want this effect. That's why it should be an option in the HD workbench, just like tone control capacitance. I've always relied on the effect to clean up my guitar when backed down for rhythm parts. Since it's a standard feature on a lot of production guitars, I'm probably not the only person who likes it.

Well, I'm glad to hear that. Haven't wanted to spoil the party given all the talk about "Spank2 and Spank4 not working", but I'm not seeing the issue on my JTV-69. v2.0 Spank4 is a noticable amount less "nasal" sounding than the 1.9 firmware, but it's definitely not the same as 3 or 5. Workbench shows the correct things happening and cycling the pickup off/on per the video is making no difference that I can hear, suggesting this may not be a universal problem (I can definitely hear a difference in the video).

While we're on the subject of cap values, I remain puzzled as to why the Variax does not model volume pot bypass caps. Many electric guitar models use these to brighten the tone at low settings and I find it critical to getting a good, cleaned-up rhythm sound. This should certainly have been a simple effect to model. It doesn't even need to be linear, a lookup table based on volume pot position probably would have done the trick.

If you have large fingers you will probably not like the stock JTV-69 neck. For me, it's painfully narrow at the nut. I'm also not a big fan of jumbo frets. Good news is that fitting a strat replacement neck is quite simple and many of us have made this modification. I upgraded mine with a Mighty-Mite compound-radius neck (Rosewood fingerboard) and have been generally pleased with the results. Depending on your skill level you may want to have a guitar tech do this for you (requires drilling one screw-hole in the heel of the new neck). I suppose it technically voids the warranty in terms of anything that directly involves the neck. But, if you need service on the electronics just reinstall the original neck (4 screws) and who's going to know?

So, the net of those instructions is "flash it twice in a row", or am I missing a detail?

I'm not quite sure I'm following your workaround. By swapping, I assume you mean physically dragging bridge to neck and letting them swap places (?), but what does "changing the models for the PUs" mean? Are you switching to a different type of pickup? I think a brief step-by-step would be very helpful if you have a chance to post it. Sorry to be dense, but I'd really like to fix this on my JTV-69.

It sounds like you have one high fret, probably the 11th or 12th. A competent guitar tech should be able to do a localized leveling and re-polish. I have the same issue with the Mighty-Mite strat neck on my '69, but at the 15th fret. I've been trying to get up the nerve to dress it myself, but will most likely chicken out and let someone who does this for a living have at it.

I remain unconvinced that the tiny length of string between ball end and bridge piece could possibly be affecting the sound of the JTV-69. I reached in mine with a jewelers screwdriver and plucked them - absolutely nothing in terms of resonance. If anything on a 69 is likely to produce unwanted vibration it would be the tremolo springs. The length between tuning machine and nut is a different story and there's a fair amount of anecdotal evidence to suggest it's worth trying a damper (made no difference on mine, but YMMV).

I was starting to think I was the only person using a MagLock on a JTV-69. I'll give your comment a +5. It does its job extremely well.

I'll concede the point. I don't know where I got it in my head that he strung it right-handed! But, doesn't change the fact that you can swap transducer wiring (or the transducers themselves) if you wanted to flip over a JTV-69.

Hendrix notably did not restring the guitar - the high-E was on the top. I get where you're going with wanting left-handed Variax models but all I'm saying is that Hendrix is not a good example. But, if you want a traditional lefty Varaix I would think you could swap transducer assignments without too much trouble.

Ouch. That would certainly cause issues.

That's a completely different arrangement from the JTV-69! It sure does look like they use the bridge casting as ground return. A poor idea IMHO, for all the reasons you brought up.

You are aware that Hendrix played a right-handed Strat flipped over, aren't you?

I could swear that the saddles in my JTV-69 have a braided shield on the lead wires. Are you saying your 59 has no shields? Given that piezo transducers are very high-impedance devices I find that surprising.

I have a JTV-69, which uses an aggressive wrap (I assume that's what the previous poster means by "choke") over the bridge saddles and have never seen a string break at that point. After 8 months of hard playing there are no visible grooves on any of the saddles. It almost sounds like the castings on your bridge were not correctly hardened during manufacturing. Filing does not seem like a particularly good plan. If the unit is under warranty, let Line 6 deal with it. Otherwise, I'd investigate replacing them outright.

I spent a lot of time playing the 59 and 69 at Guitar Center before deciding on the latter. I really liked the looks of the 59, but was very put off by the enormous neck heel. Do you find that bothersome at all? It seems an odd design choice on an otherwise handsome instrument.