cruisinon2

LMFAO! You might as well be asking for a foot massage. In fact, you'd probably get that sooner than what you actually are requesting.

Huh? When and where did I advise anyone to keep an utterly useless instrument? Whether one makes their living at music or not, doing so would be a colossal waste of time. And while I'll happily admit that the bulk of my income does not come from guitar playing, that doesn't make my time any less valuable than yours. I'm the one who said "why keep it?" if it doesn't work. Plus, this was never a discussion about guitar synths, or preferring a "better" piezo for a particular application. It's about a glaring malfunction...functional vs. not remotely usable. If all anyone has to do to make it usable is replace a piezo, then it seems to me that this conversation would have died a long time ago. Simple, workable solutions generally don't stay a secret for very long. And if I'm wrong, so be it. In fact, I'd actually prefer that to be the case...because lots of folks who spent significant money on a what is basically a 6-string paperweight, would have their issue solved overnight. So everyone with the plink, take notes: Salvation lies in the post above, and all you guys at L6 can stop burning calories on a solution. We've got one.

If the fix were that simple, somebody would have tried it by now. Given that this thread is at least 2 years old and still going, I would think that if anyone had been successful going that route, they'd have been ecstatic, and screaming it from the rooftops.

Well it ain't exactly an iPhone. It's as "niche" a product as there's ever been. I've still yet to see any Variax model in stock in a store, even the huge chains...and I'm within 10 minutes of 3 different Big Box music stores. I had no choice but to buy online and cross my fingers.

Perhaps he's got more than one problem. Is that not a possibility? And before you fire back with more "end of story" pronouncements to put me in my place, the answer is "yes"...there may be more than one problem. PERIOD. Have a lovely weekend.

Which is the first thing I said...if the mags don't sound right either, not likely a firmware issue. Then again, there are all sorts of oddities and funny noises that users have reportedly remedied with a re-flash, no matter how little intuitive sense it makes, or how tired you may be of hearing it. And since his description of the problem is ambiguous at best, I still say he's got nothing to lose by trying.

Well, a re-flash is quick, easy, and unlikely to make anything worse. Got nothing to lose by giving it a shot.

If by "buzzy" you mean fret buzz, and it's happening with the mags and the models, then it sounds like you're in need of a set-up. You could try re-flashing the firmware, but again if the mags are affected too, it's less likely to help.

Yes, very possible. 3 out of 4 holes should line up, one is offset. The extra hole that needs to be drilled is further in, and far enough away from the last pre-drilled one that you can probably just leave it as is. You won't see it anyway, so if you want to throw it on a Strat one day, there's nothing extra to do. So really all you have to do is drill one hole. For the sake of stability, I doweled the extra hole anyway, as I have no plans to use it on anything else. Doweling is not particularly difficult to do. You can find step by step videos on YouTube...those threads get stripped on old Strats necks all the time. Very common repair.

If it isn't usable because of the plink, why keep it?

If you tweak it, tone will come...;)

Don't take this the wrong way, but you over-think everything to a degree that makes my head spin. Installing strap-locks is about as brain dead a task as there is in this world. Pick a set, and buy them. They're all essentially the same. Shove in the original screws, and go on with your day. If the entire experience takes more than 4 minutes, I'll buy you a case of whatever you drink. I've done it on countless guitars at this point, including the JTV...never once required a trip to the hardware store, and I've rarely used the screws that came with the strap locks. Regardless, there won't be any way to tell if you need 3rd party screws until you have everything laid out in front of you. Trying to guess before you by them is an exercise in futility. Same thing with the set-up...don't over think it. With the exception of intonation, which is completely objective and measurable, the rest is largely personal preference. Some guys like action a little higher, some don't. Some have a light touch, others bang on the strings. Set-ups are done accordingly. No one can guess for you as to action, or neck relief. I have a very light touch. I can get away with fairly low action, and a neck that's almost pin-straight, and I like that tight feel. But if I hand one of my guitars to a guy who beats the daylights out of the strings, he's gonna find it unplayable...doesn't mean there's anything "wrong" with it though. It's just set up for me. Guitars are not shy about telling you when they need work. If you've been playing for any length of time, you know as soon as you pick it up if there's a problem. As long as the strings aren't buzzing, it's properly intonated, and it plays comfortably for your style, then leave it be.

And it's a good thing too. Lord knows what it would do to the space-time continuum if that info got out...

Yup...any more than that and you start getting phone calls from the guys who run the seismographs at Cal Tech...;)

The limiter circuit is supposed to prevent you from blowing a speaker by lowering the volume of the louder peaks in the signal, those above a set threshold...similar to what a compressor does. It helps, but you can still destroy things. You had the master volume dimed out...that will push the limit of any speaker. Never a good idea. Run like that long enough, and eventually you'll blow a gasket.

That's all well and good...but after an item ships to a retailer, L6 is out of the loop, and has no control over what ends up on your doorstep. The world is full of shady retailers, especially online. Stuff gets bought and returned, then repackaged and passed off as new all the time. It's a little harder to pull off in face-to-face sale, but it happens that way too. There's no way to know if the guitar you pull off the wall at Giganto Gear Emporium was bought and returned or not. Unless there's cosmetic damage, it's impossible to tell.

No guitar delivered in a cardboard box is gonna be set up properly...I don't care what proclamations are made about the rigorous 119-point inspection each one supposedly goes through before leaving the facility. Even if you're the first owner, if the production date was 2 years ago, then it's a safe bet that those strings are 2 years old. None of these places are paying someone to wander through a warehouse all day, doing preventative maintenance on guitars that might sit there for weeks, months, or years.

The output is labeled 8-16 ohms, so as long as the cab is rated at one or the other, you should be fine. There are 4 ohm cabs out there though, so just make sure yours isn't one of them.

On the display, the mixer block is the tiny icon immediately to the right of the amp model (unless you've inserted an FX block between them). Just toggle over it with the arrow key....there's a volume control in there, independent of the amp block's channel volume and the physical master volume knob.

The theatrical unveiling was at winter NAMM last year, as I recall, but it didn't start shipping till October...really only been "in the wild" for 6 months.

Well, piezo elements do crap out as well. There's no guarantee that it was a grounding issue in that particular case. Used anything is a gamble...no telling what might have been done to it by the previous owner. Used or not, you shouldn't have to fix things on day 1. I probably would have returned it too.

I love retail shenanigans...

Something ain't right...

The POD can't send commands to the guitar over the 1/4" cable, aside from power, that's what the VDI is for. If you're running on the battery and 1/4", it doesn't matter what's saved to your patches, you will have to change models and tunings manually.

I'm stumped then...if you're able to connect to workbench, then the VDI connecting is intact, but doesn't seem to be supplying power to the guitar. Not sure how that's possible...perhaps someone else will chime in.