israz99

http://line6.com/support/topic/6899-jtv-pickups-wire-colors/ If put a SD distortion in the bridge and in the future I will also change the neck pickup. The change is worth the effort, the guitar has a good tone but the stock pickups are just bad, now it souds great for metal.

See my post, it's about my experience replacing the stock pickups in 89F.

I still think this has more to do with the modeling software than a hardware problem, the modeling program/software might be more prone to do this strange noises in some JTV variax models (read mdmayfield last post) than in others but ultimately it is how the modeling program/software reacts to the electric impulses send by the graphtech piezos that is causing the problem and you know this problem is more obvious in some virtual guitar models than in others, if it was a hardware issue then the noises would be the same in all models but actually there are models where I can`t hardly tell there's the noise while in other is so big that I can´t play with distortion. Anyway if badmelonfarmer posts some sound samples again I want to hear the official answer from Line 6.

Yeah, check out this topic to see what I went through in order to do so http://line6.com/support/topic/6899-jtv-pickups-wire-colors/

That´s right, what I did was easy because I was just replacing cable but in order to change the pickup configuration you got to messed up with the wiring in the switch and maybe other things since the JTV´s doesn't´t have a traditional wiring. Also it becomes more difficult if Line & doesn't´t provide any additional information.

Si lo llegué a ver anteriormente, lo revise con más detalle estos días.

Well, below is the answer form Line 6 to my request: "I'm sorry but the wiring diagrams of our products are not available to the public. We can only give them out to our authorized service centers. Thanks for your patience on the matter." Certainly this is disappointing since such easy and safe piece of information is not provided to a customer who spent USD 1,4999 in a product. Fortunately and with great effort from my side I have installed the pickup but this is big drawback when considering buying another Line 6 in the future and I've been considering getting a Relay or a Stagesource system. Definitely not a good way of making business for a company.

I have created a ticket in the tech support section regarding this topic but since I don´t know if the necessary info will be provides, I have installed the pickup with the following results. I removed the stock pickup and found out that the manufacturer is a Korean company named G & B, I looked for information on the Internet about this company but didn´t find anything. Below is the link with the image of the original wiring which is the same that you can see in the diagram provided by Line 6. Red to W8, Green to W7, White to W6 and Black to W9. https://www.flickr.com/photos/israz99/13861877024/ The pickup that I put is a SD Distortion and which has the same colors for the 4 cables as the G & B pickup but the association of colors to the north pole and south pole pieces and polarities varies from one pickup to the other. So I made several combination to see what was the one that sounded the best and the best one in my opinion was White to W8, , Green to W7, Red to W6 and Black to W9. Below is the link with the image of the new wiring. https://www.flickr.com/photos/israz99/13861876164/ This combination not only sounds the best but also the coil tap works in position no. 2 and there's absolutely no hum noise in humbucker mode while in coil tap the noise is the same as in the coil tap of the neck humbucker. Below is the link with the image of my guitar with the new pickup. The stock pickup was not bad but the new pickup is way better, specially for metal. https://www.flickr.com/photos/israz99/13861642463/ Anyway I'll wait for the tech support answer and see if I can get the information that confirms that I did it right or not.

Yes, that's it. As you might know the association of colors to polarities and pole pieces will vary depending on the manufacturer and based on the diagram you can assume the correspondence of colors but you can't be sure if you're right.

Does anyone know what are the magnetic polarities and winding ends of each of the 4 colors for the pickups of a JTV-89f? Which colors correspond to north start, north finish, south start and south finish. This is in order to install a new set of pickups in a JTV-89f and the diagrams that are available doesn't show that information. Thanks.

I'd like to give you an update. I have not posted the ticket I`m doing some test before and I want to post some audio samples that help identify the problem. What I got so far is this: -in my case the noise is more notable in some models than others, bridge position of Es and Les Paul is where I can hear it more and there are others like the neck position of the Jazz models where I can´t actually hear it. -It is not present when playing any of the positions of the mag pickups. -If I play the guitar acoustically (unplugged of any amp) I believe the sound is present if I play the 4th string palm muted in the first frets, which leads me to believe that the sound is a frequency that is actually there but that the mag pick ups or some models don't pick up but some other models magnify. -Someone on this forum said he tried to switch the cables of the piezo that are connected to the electronic board. I switched that 4th and the 5th but the 4th string still makes the noise. -I rolled back to 1.9 and so far the noise is not present but I need to make more tests, by the way, it is the first time I use the models of versions 1.9 and I think I don´t like them, they are vey muddy, I only liked the acoustic models which I can actually play now though my Fender mustang amp, as you might remember the acoustic models in V2.0 are "mic guitars" and though they sound greta you need a PA system type of channel to meek them sound great. Anyway I will create some audio samples before I post the ticket but at this point I'm convinced the problem has to do mainly with the algorithms created for some of the HD models, these algorithms magnify the frecuencyes that produce this noise that some of us can hear in the 6th, 5th or 4th strings. I hope all this helps Line 6 to identify the issue.

I have the same problem in my 89F, I bought the guitar on august and I must say that I did not notice this noise until a couple of months ago, I can tell if it was there before or not. The noise is on the 4th string mainly when a do palm muting in the first 5 frets or the string is not fretted. The noise is not there when I use the mag P/U and is specially noticeable when using distortion although in some clean tones I can hear it too. The 5th and 6th strings doesn't have this problem. I tried this week to fix it by changing the regular slinky strings for some half round strings, it reduced the problem a little bit but it is still there. Now I want to try Elixir Polyweb which supposedly help reduce finger squeak and also try other suggestions posted in this forum. I will try to open a ticket so we can be more and more. This is a great guitar but this problem makes me want to get rid of it and maybe I'm screwed and this doesn't really have a fixed but I'd like Line & to at least give an official answer about what is the real problem.

and it will be interesting to read what was your experience on half rounds.

I'm convinced that strings make a huge difference. My guess is that the tone of the modeled guitars will vary depending on what guitar you have, what type of wood, body or bridge. My case is the opposite to your case, I used to have Ernie ball Slinky 10's in my JTV-89F and didn't like it. I consider most of the modeled sounds as very very good but the piezo system is too damn sensitive and mainly when I use overdrive you can hear all the time the friction of my fingers against the 4th 5th and 6th strings, specially the 4th string was very noisy, I even thought that something was wrong with the piezo. Then this week I bought half rounds D'addario 9's, these strings are similar to flat wound strings and therefore the friction is reduced a lot. I must say that although there is still somewhat noise there was a huge improvement. Also the sounds are less metallic, they sound more real and the low E string sounds less bassy. Next time I'll be using the same strings but the gauge will be 10 -46, let's see if a higher gauge improves things even more. I'd like to hear other players experiences with different strings. Also what JTV model do you play?

Totally agree that the 89F guitar itself is very well made, the fret job is real good, action is low with no buzz, great floyd rose and a very resonant guitar but as you have said here the mag pick ups are totally useless, I'll be changing at least the bridge.

This got to be an update worth the waiting, I hope they can increase the sustain in the models beacuse it is very poor, the sustain of the mag pickups in my JTV.89f is not bad but the sustain in the models needs to be increased. The sustain in the real guitars they used to do teh modelling is not the on in the variax models, there´s no way on earth for that.

I agree that is way too loud, I have the JTV-89F and I al so have a Gibson Les Paul Studio with a 498T on the bridge which is a hot pickup from Gibson and it doesn´t sound as loud as the bridge position of the Lester humbucker model of my Variax, of course I have lowered the output using WB HD but I have never played a guitar with such output so I still think something´s wrong here, Workbench HD has shown to have several flows and I hope they can release an update soon. Also in this up update they could add more sustain to the models because I have made tests and the sustain of the mag pickups is longer than the one in the models which is not correct mainly in the Gibson models which tend to have lots of sustain, this option should be available in workbench.

You might use the mag pickups with modeling guitars, remember you have the option of blending both in WB. Now, about the idea of changing the mag pickups, this is actually something I have previously asked and although there were some answers it is still very difficult for someone who is not an expert, I've changed the pickups of one Epi I used to have but this is a bit more complicated and I would not like to ruin a guitar that is 7 times more expensive than the Epi. Someone should post a video about how to do such task. we'd really appreciate it.

It's all very subjective, I own the JTV-89F and while I consider the mag p/u to be useless, I love most of the modeling guitars. Again it's all very subjective because everyone has a different idea of how a certain guitar should sound, in my case I have spent several hours tweaking the different models making direct comparisons with the real thing and based in the rig I use and I have found excellent results, it's not easy and the most modeling guitars just like they come out of the box won´t sound as good to me as they do after I have worked on them.

I've modified the spank settings in WB 2.0 and next week I'll be posting some samples and see if our camarades here think they sound better.

I own the JTV-89F and you're pretty much right, the sustain is not as good as the sustain in the guitars I've owned with fixed bridge, I guess this is a well known issu with guitars with bolt-on neck and FR, I'm not sating the sustain is bad it is just less than the other guitars, but that is the price for having such a versatil and creative bridge.

My Gibson Les Paul Studio 2103 has clearly much more sustain than all the bolt-on guitars I've owned, including my jtv-89F, now that doesn't man the bolt-on guitars don't have a good sustain, it is just that the LP is extremely good at that. I've never played a Fender American Strat and I think they must have a good sustain but if they beat the Les Paul then that means that Fender is the only company who really know how to build bolt-on guitars.

Yeah I'm waiting badly for this update I tweaked the spank models and I like them a lot more now, the stock ones were not so good. I wonder if they're planning to include some other updates when they realized it because it seems a lot of time just to fix the strat bug.

That would be good to know. When I received my JTV-89F I checked the factory settings, I'm not a pro luthier or anything compared but I know some things. The neck was perfectly straight, The action was really really low, on the low E string the action at the 12th fret was 3.5/64 and 4/64 at the 17th fret in the high E string it was 2.5/64 at the 12th fret and 3/64 at the 17thy fret. Amazinly there was only minor buzz in some frets but later I discover that depsite this, a higher action is better for the modeled guitars, as you may know the piezo totally captures the vibration produced even by the minimal fret buzz whilst mag pick ups can hide this alot more. I ended up raising the action1/64 in both sides. The pick us were at 4/64 on the bridge and 5/64 on the neck, agian I made some adjustments, the reason is that the sustain in this model is not as good as other guitars, i.e. my Les Paul's sustain is almost twice the sustain in the JTV so I lowered the P/U's to try to improve the sustain. Nevertheless I'm happy with this guitar and one thing that might help is to look for factory specs of similar guitar like some Ibanez models like the RG or S series.

I've been playing my JTV-89F for a month now and it's a great guitar (you can read my post reviewing the whole guitar) and I've come to the conclusion that at least for me there are 2 things that could make the guitar almost perfect, one is to make this guitar using a neck through design and the second one is to put a pair of excellent hot pick-up’s there. The stock pick-up’s are not very good, in fact I think they’re bad, they sound just like many low budget Asian guitars that I’ve had in the past, they’re muddy, the sound is not defined and every model sound is better than the stock pick-up’s. Some might say that you don’t buy this guitar to use the mag pick-up’s but since WB 2.0 has the ability to blend the sound of modeled guitars and the magnetic pick-ups it would be great to have the pick-up’s of your choice there, besides is you run out of battery and you only have the option to use the mag pick-up’s, then why not change them. So, I’d appreciate any comment from someone who has tried to change them successfully or that know how to do it since the cabling of the Variax is not a standard cabling. I’ve change the pick-up’s in other Ibanez and Epiphone guitars but this is something different. Also if you think my ears are bad and that the tone of the JTV89 pick-up’s is good, your comment is welcome.