cruisinon2

Raise your hand if you have no idea what this request actually is, or what it might be used for...

...and ceiling fans, dimmer switches, that neon Bud Light sign that is inevitably hanging on the wall in the corner where the band sets up, dirty socks, and lima beans. Single coils are noisy, and damn near ANYTHING in close proximity will make them noisier. Humbuckers were invented for a reason...;)

Is the sustain issue present when using the mag pickups as well as the modeling? Do notes ring out normally if you're not plugged into anything? If not, then you have a set-up issue, likely requiring adjusting the action, and/or neck relief.

If you have a Helix, then there's no need to use the battery in the Variax anyway... the Helix will power it. The VDI connection also allows you to switch models and tunings remotely, instead of having to fiddle with the controls on the guitar. I've never used the battery, don't even know where the thing is at this point, lol

When you change the amp you're playing through, the final product will never sound the same... it's just the nature of the beast. Sounds much be tweaked at, or as close as possible to the set of circumstances that you intend to use them. Multiple set lists for use in different environments/ scenarios is the only way to maintain your sanity unless you want to be constantly tweaking back and forth every time you're listening through something else.

"When it first came out" was almost 8 years ago... there have been numerous updates/ improvements since the original firmware. So much so, it's almost like a different device. That being said, whether or not you'll like this iteration any better than what you had back then, is anybody's guess... and there's exactly one way to find out.

Thanks to a handful of geniuses who can't be trusted to charge batteries without burning the house down, what you have is a neutered product... you'll never get the advertised battery life with the old transmitters as the firmware now caps it at 80% charge capacity. Thank a lawyer. Then go shopping...

Start by posting this in the Helix forum... the Lounge is where questions go to die. Most won't even be seen, nevermind answered.

Disputes about the quality of Helix's tuner notwithstanding...I cannot fathom why there continues to be confusion about what to do if you don't like the onboard tuner. It's not supernatural: Buy something else. From $12 clip-ons, to rack- mounted tuners, to stand alone pedals... you can't swing a dead cat without hitting something that you can use to tune an electric guitar. Pick one and soldier on....

This... and they really should stop calling themselves a trio if there's 4 of 'em. The math is weird, lol...

1) Nobody "official" ever frequents this forum... especially not here in the lounge. Feature requests go in IdeaScale. 2) Ask them for anything you want, but in all the years I've been hanging around here, I've never seen anybody request an integrated drum machine in any L6 product...I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you.

Oh, what's the matter, not content with "eventually" as the official ETA? Hurry up and wait! LOL. Welcome to 2022: when all else fails, blame COVID. Like the virus itself, the excuse will be with us forever, lmao... We now return you to your regularly scheduled "new normal"...(insert vomit emoji here).

"Official" proclamations notwithstanding, there is absolutely nothing mysterious about setting up a Variax... been doing it myself for a dozen years, and I've never made a dime servicing guitars... just been dying out myself forever. Fancy electronics aside, it's still a guitar...not the Webb Space Telescope... and in terms of setup adjustments, it's no different than any other solid body electric guitar on earth. It's also worth noting that the Variax guitars are far from being the only fiddles out there with piezo pickups...any luthier worth his salt will have seen them before, and will be able to set it up just fine.

A company man till the end, lol...

I always go for the path of least resistance... in this case, that would be a $12 clip on tuner, roll off the guitar's volume, and chat up the audience to your heart's content... problem solved.

Scanning through all of this, I find it hard to believe that it has anything to do with the Helix at all, but rather it would seem to be a setup issue with the guitars. Super low action can make notes die the way you describe. You may simply need to adjust the neck relief, and/ or action a bit. Does the same thing occur with these instruments if you play through some other amp, taking the Helix out of the equation entirely? You can also just test it plugged into nothing, in a nice quiet room. If the notes aren't ringing out acoustically for any normal length of time, then what you're playing through is irrelevant. You seem to have ruled out most issues with the Helix itself... that being the case, the guitars are the only other place to look.

Rules for Modelers: 1) All presets suck. 2) See rule #1. Beyond that, without knowing what you're listening through, offering anything constructive is close to impossible. Are you monitoring with headphones? Plugging into the front end of a traditional guitar amp, or using the 4 cable method? Are you using studio monitors? The volume at which you're listening to any of the above, versus the volume at which a preset was created (which is an unknown, of course) can also have a huge impact on tone... these are but a few things on a list of variables of Biblical length that will affect tone. What else in your rig, and how is it all connected?

Hey! I resemble that remark... lol

Well that escalated quickly, lol... And none of them care that you don't care that they don't care... seeing the pattern yet? But far be it from me to interfere in a good old fashioned rumble. Let the games begin! "Are you not entertained?!?!?!!" lmao...

Well, like it or not, when you stuff them full of fancy tech that will inevitably no longer be supported as it gradually becomes incompatible with more up to date ancillary devices/computers that you need to keep them functioning as intended, disposable is exactly what they are. It's unfortunate, but it's the truth... besides, I'll start needing to have my parts replaced before most of my traditional guitars will, lol. This is largely the reason I drifted back to my other guitars. Plus, after going wireless with everything else, being tethered with the Variax started to drive me nuts. Oh well.. life goes on.

And I don't understand why brain dead middle managers are always wildly inept, and dumber than the people they manage... but yet there they are, dumbing their way through life, thoroughly convinced that they're geniuses. But who cares? Knowing the answer won't change anything. Fortunately a $12 clip-on tuner renders all the "why" discussions moot, anyway. Next.... lol

I didn't say anything about Line 6...I said "if the world ever gets it's $h*t together". And frankly, everybody and their dear old mother constantly using the catch-all COVID excuse to justify why nothing can be accomplished within a normal time frame anymore, is getting old quick. We're nearly 3 years in... we've all had plenty of time to adapt to our glorious "new normal", yet the blame game continues... but I digress. Regardless, since the virus will be with us forever, so will the excuses, I suspect. Sorry Teach, COVID ate my homework...

1) Nobody who can do anything about feature requests will ever see this in here. Requests need to go in Ideascale. 2) Don't bother putting it in Ideascale, as there are probably a dozen or more requests for the same thing in there already. Folks have been asking for this since day one... and that was back in 2015. If the powers that be haven't seen fit to do it by now, 7+ years into the product's life cycle, don't hold your breath....

Probably not be the answer you're looking for, and obviously it'll cost you a few bucks, but with the world being in the state that it's in, you'd probably have more luck buying a used Variax and cannibalizing it for the volume pot than waiting around for some service center to finally get it back in stock. If it's already been 3 months, I'll bet hard cash that you'll wait another 3, if not longer. It's an ultra-specific part for a very niche product... and a rapidly aging niche product at that...I guarantee the producing/ distributing Variax-specific volume pots is not high on anybody's to-do list. At least then you'd have one working guitar... then if the rest of the planet ever gets it's $h*t together again, you'll eventually get your part, and then you'd have your guitar, and a functioning spare for the next time something craps outs. Just my 2 cents...

Every market gets saturated at some point... and the inevitable self-correction follows. Doesn't much matter what kind of product it is. Even if the economy was robust and booming, there are only so many guitar players out there in the wild. Whenever you have ever-increasing competition for what is basically a fixed pile of money, sooner or later something has to give. Hence the demise of Fulltone and Digitech. Plus, a good percentage of guitarists are stubborn as mules and resistant to changing anything in their rig, and/or they're dirt poor... either way, they're sticking with the same gear for years on end, lol...