snhirsch

That's exactly what I was referring to. How is Variax tuning not a pitch shift?

Are you tuned down for those demos? I agree the plink is extremely prominent using a 0.046 low-E. I'm not hearing very much of it with the 0.052 Elixer.

Crank pitch shift down 1/2-step and you're set.

I had to drive 250 miles to find a GC who actually stocked Line6 instruments. And even there, they were tucked into a dusty corner and had corroded strings. With this type of support from their "dealer network" (and I use the term loosely) they should give some thought to doing a Carvin and selling the instruments directly to consumers.

My '68 LP Standard weights in a tad under 13 lbs. Wearing that baby on your shoulder all evening is not for the faint of heart. With a wide enough strap it's not as bad as you might think, but still tiring.

You use a pair of spoons with the curved side down as levers to pry the knob straight outwards from the guitar. If you have any doubts at all about the process, please don't try it yourself. A guitar tech should be able to do this in less than 2 minutes.

On my '69 the shaft nuts on the volume and tone pots were fastened over the plastic. You can tear it away as I described above, but to remove all of it does require loosening the nut.

That's the statement that Line6 should have made months ago. My JTV-69 does not exhibit the problem, so I have no dog in this fight, but the waffling and stonewalling was certainly getting counterproductive.

If you are not handy with tools, just lift it from edges and work your as close to the control shafts as possible, then pull laterally away from the shaft. It should tear far enough under the knob to be invisible. Otherwise, pry up the knobs (a pair of spoons should work if careful), loosen the nut a turn or so with long nose pliers and peel out from underneath.

Thanks for confirming door #2!

Yup - same boards with either different jumper settings or low-level software initialization (probably the latter). Would be interesting to see some hi-res photos of a 69 and 59 or 89 board side by side to see if there's anything obviously different besides data coding (I bet not).

I have a feeling that the main PCBs are physically identical in that they're built on the same production line. However, it seems reasonable that there is a mechanism for telling the firmware which instrument it's running on. I'd imagine this is done either by jumpering pads on the board with chip resistors or possibly through the bootstrap portion of the firmware. Explanation: Any device that can be re-flashed must have a small bit of software called a bootstrap loader to give it enough "smarts" to communicate with the outside world and accept new operating software (like when you connect to Line6 Monkey). The loader is typically installed at the factory by connecting an in-circuit programmer to a special set of contacts on the board and directly writing it into a "safe" location that won't be overwritten by the firmware. It would be very simple to code the guitar type into that bitstream. If I had to guess, I'd say this how Line6 is doing it - less trouble than customizing final board fabrication. But, it also means that you are very unlikely to be able to change it. Even if you are able to obtain the correct programmer it's not a sure bet that you'd be able to read back the bitstream (there's often a protection bit that can be set by the manufacturer). BTW, accidental corruption or erasure of the bootstrap loader is often the underlying problem when a device gets "bricked".

Yes, I took another look and it seems like they are still selling some of the parts required to rack mount the guts from a 1st generation Variax. There's also an adapter to go from a Roland 13-pin cable to the Variax processor board, although the price seems very steep to me.

FYI: RackVax is dead. No idea why their website remains active. According to comments posted on VGuitar Forums, it was built around the earlier Variax series and developed in the hope that Line6 would continue to sell them the necessary parts. When the JTV series came out, they refused to supply any more electronics and that was the end of the product.

I've heard opinions both ways with regard to headstock mass.

You're one finger ahead of me. I am very much an all-fingers player in terms of my left hand (which seems to be a rarity nowadays), but the pinky on my right hand is currently underutilized :-).

The JTV-69 floating tremolo system is unique to James Tyler / Line6. I doubt you'll have much luck dropping in an after-market replacement. A lot of factors can contribute to poor sustain. Might be worth having a guitar tech take a look at the setup. FWIW, I have no sustain issues on mine.

Sorry. I never meant to imply that Mark Knopler used a pick, but it happens to be the most comfortable way for me to approach it.

I've been using pick + middle finger + ring finger for years. Works great for Knopler-ish things.

More members of the JTV-69 "sane neck" club. Welcome!

Based on Toby's videos (linked from VGuitar Forums), I would have to concur with that statement. Line6 does not want to be alienating players of this caliber.

Exactly. Which is why I'm not going to lose a minute's sleep over it in the unlikely event that I ever do want to use both outputs.

You will have to ask Steve Conrad for more details. Personally I remain skeptical about the potential for damage when both connectors are in use, but life is too short to butt heads over this issue on a public forum. I wouldn't give use of both connectors on my JVT-69 a second thought, but everyone needs to find their own level of comfort.

I would recommend an alternate approach suggested by Steve KC / Elantric on the VGuitar forums: <quote> Its conceivably possible that damage / strain on the Variax internal electronics may occur if you connect a standard mono 1/4" TS Guitar cable while also using the VDI cable connection. There are internal voltage steering diodes to prevent shorting these two power entry points - but Line-6 has seen these fail, and the result is a smoked / burnt VARIAX DSP board If you want to be safe while using the VDi cable, always use a 1/4" TRS cable with "open" Ring contact to connect to the Variax 1/4" TRS jack. But know the Downfall of using a stock 1/4" TRS cable is that you typically are connecting to a battery powered floor stomp FX, but the floor FX will not "turn on" unless the TRS "Ring" contact is grounded. So build a custom 1/4" Guitar cable with an open "Ring" connection on the TRS (Variax) side, and a normal TS plug on the Amp / FX side. </quote>

Yes, I'm pleased to say the JTV-69 is going strong as ever. Just got back from rehearsal where it swung it's weight handily :-). Adding the ground wires and damping foam has done wonders for the sound and stability.