cruisinon2

Been a while since I replaced the pickguard, but I do recall it looking slightly alien...nothing under the hood looks like a normal guitar. One or more self-contained "boxes" (for lack of a better term) containing God knows what. Now admittedly mine was not through inspection of the guts, and for all I know it might be stupid easy to trace the pickup wires and figure out where the new ones need to go, but at first glance it doesn't seem as simple as wiring any old set of pickups to a 5-way switch, which I've done any number of times.

If you think that Kemper and Zoom are similar products, then there really isn't any point in discussing this any further...

It's a question that gets asked all lot around here... trouble is there's no real answer. It's like arguing that your "Red Delicious" is better than my "Honeycrisp"...at the end of the day, were just two guys with apples. The local forum-dwellers use all sorts of FRFR speaker solutions, from the inexpensive to the insanely priced, and get good results either way. Figuring out HOW to get a particular speaker(s) to sound good is the tricky part... doesn't much matter how much it cost, or what claims are made on the spec sheet. Not all "FRFR" stuff is created equal... they'll all have slightly different response cures, and if you lined up three different ones and played the same patch through each one, you can still expect to hear differences. But most importantly, NONE OF THEM are gonna sound ANYTHING like your amp does. There tends to be an adjustment period moving to an FRFR rig. Any patches created through your amp will have to be re-worked. A lot. They are very different animals. Bottom line is, you should be able to get good results with anything you choose, provided that you put the time in and figure out what you'll need to tweak. For most of us "regular" folks, it'll come down to how much you're willing to spend.

Don't hold your breath...

Never, under any circumstances, should you believe a word a retailer says. Not even "hello". Half the time they can't reliably tell how many units of a given product are already in the building, never mind when something new might show up. This rule applies to everything from tennis shoes to monster trucks. "...because retail clerks seem to need 'special help'..." - George Carlin ;)

I'm not sure what the logic behind that is anyway. Seems to me having things loose would actually make the problem worse.

I'm surprised the Epi is that light... Weight aside though, you're comparing a bolt-on to a set neck. The bolt-on will lose a sustain contest every time.

This could be a couple of things. A poorly seated fret will do it, or just a dead spot. I've seen that a million times over the years....some necks just have one or more spots that don't ring out like they should. Just about every Strat I've owned has had one note that would just drop like a dying quail. I suspect it's either an unfortunate resonant (or lack thereof) quality of that particular piece of wood, or a construction issue. Who knows, but it's common.

No one is ever going to know the difference if you put a small amount of silicon grease on the squeaky pedal... especially if you don't announce to the world that you've done it. ;)

That's because it weighs 83 lbs...;)

1) There will always be new gear. Tube amps have remained essential unchanged for decades, but this stuff will never be like that. When is anybody's guess...L6 is notoriously tight- lipped about it anyway, so blind guessing is all we've got. Plus, if you ask 5 people what "near future" means, you'll get 5 different answers. 2) I seriously doubt it for the same reasons already mentioned above.

Yes, unfortunately L6 is notorious for refusing to divulge even the most insignificant set-up specs, as if the recommended pickup and/or string height were the same sort of "proprietary" info as the modeling algorithms themselves. It's absurd, but a long established policy. The excuse that's usually trotted out is that "too many people don't know what they're doing and damage their instruments". Boo-hoo. The resulting "logic" is to leave everyone twisting in the wind, as if that would somehow translate into fewer morons ruining their guitars. Morons will do that anyway, specs or no...it's what they do. But I digress... On the bright side, the dirty little secret is that there is absolutely nothing mystifying about setting up a Variax. It's still a guitar, and subject to the same stresses and tolerances as any other. Set it up so that it's comfortable for you, whatever your preferences are, and you'll be fine. Like any other guitar you'll want to minimize fret buzz, as the piezos tend to react poorly to it. And make sure the intonation is spot-on so the alt tuning algorithms don't get confused. In other words, nothing that you wouldn't be doing to any other guitar on earth if you want it to play properly. Don't let the fancy electronics scare you...

I know exactly what it is, and I know what it costs. I was speaking in general terms about signature model guitars, not this one in particular...I specifically said "in most cases" when referring to price discrepancies, and I stand by that statement. The vast majority of signature models are laughably overpriced for what you're actually getting. You're paying for a name. There are exceptions to every rule, however...this being one of them.

If this were true, a 20 ft cable would be nearly unusable. A few ms is imperceptible, even for those who claim to have "Princess and the Pea" levels of sensitivity. But 20ms or more and you're starting to get into slap-back delay territory. If cables did this to us all, nobody would be able to play in time, ever.

Mag pickups themselves are almost indestructible. They either work, or they don't. This is some kind of intermittent switching problem related to the model knob. It's service ticket time. The more complicated the plumbing, the easier it is to clog the drain...

Yup. $1K is a psychological hurdle, for the most part...but a hurdle nonetheless. Now it's probably worth every penny, as is it's big brother, but the $500 demographic is gonna have a hard time with a thousand dollar product, no matter how good it is.

Which was inevitable.... But at $1K, it's still gonna be a tough sell to the $500 crowd. I thought it would be end up having fewer features, and be closer to the $750 price-point. At that price, I think PODers would be lined up around the block to get one...but the $1K threshold is a harder nut to crack.

Could be the room...if you're used to playing in a reflective environment with lots of natural reverb, the highs are gonna bounce around and be irritating, especially at volume. Take the same patch to a dead room, and it'll sound like there's a blanket over the speaker.

It's a smart move... and I'm sure it'll sell, but I wonder about the price. Still double the cost of a POD. Not sure how many of that demographic will be lured away. Personally, I'd wait till I had the extra $500, and buy the big brother.

I tend to agree...though they haven't been around all that long, so who knows? But it is a "niche within a niche" product. I doubt it'll be a massive seller. I've never really understood the "signature model" anyway. I mean, I fully understand why they exist...in most cases they're just slightly tweaked versions of guitars the company is already making, peddled at 3-4x the cost of nearly identical models. From a marketing perspective it's a no-brainer. What I don't get is the desire to have one...doesn't matter who's. Because no matter how much I might like a given artist, I'm not that guy. Buying their guitar won't make me better, or sound like them, so why part with all the extra money when you can often get essentially the same thing for far less?

Yes, you can control both alt tunings and swap to different guitar models on a per-preset basis with the POD...but that is all independent of the chosen amp model, or any FX in the chain. They have nothing to do with each other. Download the POD "advanced guide" manual, it's all in there.

Mag pickups should function just like any other guitar with the 1/4" cable, with or without the battery installed. Workbench can't "turn them off", as it were. But even if it could, you weren't able to connect to it anyway, so it is somewhat of a mystery. Once you do manage to connect to the computer, I'd start with re-flashing the firmware...for whatever reason that seems to remedy some of the weird issues that these guitars tend to have. Plus, if the previous owner claims to have never connected to a computer at all, then it's likely that you're running an older version of the firmware, perhaps much older than the current one.

If either of the lights on the USB dongle are red, then you have a connection problem. Is it on the computer side or the Variax side? When connecting everything, you need to have a fully charged battery, AND a 1/4" cable plugged in. This "turns on" the guitar, and is probably the reason the computer is not recognizing anything. Those dongles are a crap shoot, and can be very finicky. The mag pickup issue is more of a mystery. Even with no battery installed, they should still function just like any other guitar.

And if you save a few duplicate patches of the ones you're using most today, and go back and listen to them 6 months from now, you'll probably wonder what the hell you were thinking ;)... that's happened to me more than once.