jon_bondy

I just spent 30 minutes first playing the Variax directly through (1/4" cable) and changing the tuning preset knob by hand, and then playing the Variax through the Helix while changing the presets and snapshots using the foot switches on the Helix. Same guitar, cable, and Helix, but there were no failures. Erratic failures are a real challenge. I just did a factory reset and a restore from backup, but given that I could not get it to fail today (but it failed repeatedly yesterday) it is all a muddle. Thanks for your help Jon

@codamedia Thanks for your thoughts. I am using pitch shifting that is created on-the-fly by the Helix. This cannot be done using a 1/4" cable. That is, I cannot test the full system unless using the Variax cable. Are you suggesting that I set the guitar up with some pitch shift and play it through the 1/4" jack for a while, to see if the guitar pitch shifts are stable? What do you mean by "snapshot options are not set as expected"? I switch to a patch, switch to a snapshot, and after a few minutes, without my touching any Helix or Variax controls, the pitch changes. The patch and snapshot start out working correctly, and then stop working correctly, spontaneously. I do not understand "as expected". What does "recall" and "discard" mean? Enabling and disabling patch aspects as I go through snapshots? Jon

I use my Helix combined with my Variax to let me play bass on parts of a song and take a solo in the middle. This has worked well for months, but recently there have been a variety of problems. 1) sometimes the pitch shifting does not work at all: I want to hear bass, but all I hear is normal guitar. I then try disconnecting/reconnecting the Variax, switching to another patch and back, etc. Sometimes that works, sometimes not. All unpredictable. 2) today, the low E string would suddenly shift from an octave down back up to normal tuning, with no obvious precursor (I was not touching the Helix or the guitar knobs). And sometimes on normal patches, a string would suddenly be a bass string. I would appreciate any points to help me troubleshoot this. Given the erratic and unpredictable nature of the failures, it may be challenging. Thanks. Jon

Thanks. I figured it out. The UI is basically undocumented. Under Manage, the tunings on the right are stored in the Workbench program, and those on the left are in whatever guitar you have hooked up. You select one from the left (guitar) and one from the right (Workbench) and then transfer them over, one at a time. Jon

So. Not entirely fixed, yet. If I put the Tune knob on Model for the New Variax, the Helix controls the New Variax correctly. Progress. But. The tunings controlled by the Tune knob are not the same on the Old Variax vs the New Variax. I still do not understand how to copy all of the tunings from the Old, store them on my computer, and then upload them to the New. Jon

Yes! Turning the Tuning knob on the JTV to Model fixed everything. Thank you!

I am running firmware 3.710. Every time I power up the Helix Floor, it rebuilds EVERY patch. It takes 10 or 15 minutes. I let it rebuild everything and then removed the USB cable and turned it off and then on. Now it boots without any rebuilds. If the USB connection is causing the rebuilds, I would consider this a bug, Line 6. The rebuilds are unnecessary.

All patches and tunings were generated using Workbench HD. I did a File, Save Bundle As from the 1st guitar I connected to the 2nd guitar and did a File, Open Bundle. I did a Transfer, Upload All to Variax And the tunings are not transferred. I do not see any other facilities within Workbench HD for transferring the tunings

I was using Workbench HD, but what you wrote is imprecise. Not sure what "the manual method" means. I mentioned that I saved and restored a Bundle. Can you provide an explicit, step-by-step method for the cloning, please? Thanks! Jon

I have two Variax JTV guitars and want to copy all of the settings from the 1st guitar to the 2nd one. I tried to this by saving a Bundle from the 1st one, loading it into the Workshop and then Transferring all of the settings to the 2nd guitar. That seems to have worked a bit: when I rotate the knob with the presets on it (Lester, Acoustic, etc) they are the same on the 2nd guitar as on the 1st guitar. But... The tunings on the 2nd guitar are not the same as the 1st guitar. In addition, the 2nd guitar does not work properly with my Helix. Patches that cause the 1st guitar to change key (electric capo) fail on the 2nd guitar. Any thoughts?

Thank you. Reading the manual, for any product, is always useful. For some complex products, it is not always easy to recall all of the details. Once I decided that Stomp mode was not for me, those details drifted away. And, now, the exception to that rule. What you said is very helpful. Jon

I am using the Helix in the mode where the left 2 foot switches are Bank Up/Down, the middle 4 foot switches on top select a Patch, and the middle 4 foot switches on the bottom select a Snapshot. The upper right foot switch says Preset/Stomp and the lower right says TAP. I have added a Looper to my signal chain, but cannot figure out how to assign a foot switch to the Looper. Within the HX Editor, I can right click the Looper, select Bypass Assign, and then assign (say) Footswitch 11. First off, I don't know which switches are which. Where is Footswitch 1? Upper left? Lower left? Secondly, no matter what foot switch I assign, nothing changes on the Helix, and there is no foot switch that I can press that brings up the Looper. Perhaps the [unconventional] way that I am using the foot switches means that I cannot assign a foot switch to enable/disable the Looper, but I have not seen any error messages. Thoughts? Jon

@silverhead: after spending an hour with a 'scope, trying to compare my known-good JTV-89 with the new one, I came to the same conclusion. A visual inspection of the wires in the connector in the guitar revealed that a few of them were bent. At the suggestion of my local luthier, I made a small wire hook and pulled a few of them, gently, back into place. The guitar works now.

Contact cleaner fixed my ailing VDI cable, but not the new Variax. Not many options at this time other than returning it.

The fact that the Workbench HD software works indicates that at least some of the hardware is OK. Perhaps a few contacts have some oxidation. I don't have a parts diagram to understand which pieces I could purchase (like just the connector, for example). But I agree that a simple fix seems unlikely.

Thanks! Interesting idea reinstalling the Variax firmware, but the guitar works fine via the 1/4" jack, so that seems like a long shot. I will try to clean the new Variax's connector. The cable is essentially new, and works fine with the original Variax, so I doubt the cable is the culprit. The cable is a genuine Line 6 cable, a month old. The Helix does power both Variaxes. But when I connect the new Variax to the Helix, and fiddle with the smart knobs on the Variax, nothing changes in Helix; the older Variax works perfectly.

Putting things slightly differently, does Helix require that you "register" each Variax by serial number before it will work with different Variaxes? That is kind of how it is behaving.

I have had a Variax (JTV-89) for a while, and it works well with the Helix Floor using the "ethernet" cable. I just purchased another JTV-89, and while it connects to Workbench HD, it does not seem to like the Helix. I get no sound out of the Helix with the new guitar, but the old guitar works fine, so it is not the cable, the Helix, or the amp. When I connect the new guitar to Workbench HD, the software loads all of the Variax presets, so the "ethernet" connection is not entirely dead. When connected to the Helix with the "ethernet" cable, power is supplied to the new JTV-89. The new JTV-89 works fine using the 1/4" jack, just not with the "ethernet" and the Helix. Could there be a configuration error of some sort? I don't want to send the guitar back if the problem is stupidity on my end. Thanks. Jon

I am looking for long sustain on a clean chord. I tried a few of the compressors, but they do not seem to do anything. I know I can get super sustain if I am willing to cram the signal into an amp and over-drive it, but I need the tone to be clean. Can anyone point me to a patch that does this, so that I can play with it? Thanks! Jon

Never mind. I figured out a way to get it to work.

I am using a 12-string sound on a Variax, where some strings are doubled up 12 half tones. When using the Variax guitar, I can select a 12-string acoustic guitar model using the model selector knob, and then use the tuning selector knob to alter the pitch (perhaps to bump everything up by 2 half tones, to simulate use of a capo). At that point, the doubled tones are essentially 14 half tones above where the base tones started. When using the Helix with HX Edit, it seems that I can only specify a tone for the base and a tone for the 12-string, and the latter is limited to 12 half tones above the base. Thus, I cannot simulate both a 12-string guitar and a capo pitch shift of 2 half tones. I cannot find a way to select a position on the tuning knob, even though I can select a position on the model knob. For "Tuning (Preset)" I cannot select a tuning as defined by the tuning knob on the Variax. What am I missing? Is it true that HX Edit cannot control the Variax with the same flexibility as I can when using the Variax manually? Thanks. Jon

@silverhead: excellent thinking outside the box! I will give it a try!

If you watch the live videos for Hotel California, you will see that he uses a double-neck guitar, with the 12 string capoed and the six string straight. No time to keep taking the capo off and putting it back on. I thought that the Variax would be the perfect solution, but it appears that this may not be the case.

I want to create a 12-string sound, only with a virtual capo at the 5th fret (for Hotel California). That means I need the Parallel Pitch tones to be 17 half tones higher than the real strings, not 12. I cannot see any way to alter the notes for the Parallel Pitch values: they are either on (12) or off (0). I tried to inspect the files that Workbench saves to disk, to see if I could trick Workbench into using the pitches I want, but I did not get far. Thoughts or comments? Jon

I wish I could register the guitar, but the last 2 digits of the serial number have worn off. The guitar is on its way to an authorized repair shop in New Hampshire. Fingers crossed.