cruisinon2

Sort of...there's sales tax (in most states, but not all) if you're actually walking into a store and buying an item, or having it shipped from a retailer located in your state. However, purchasing online from an out-of-state company incurs no sales tax...but the powers that be are trying to change that of course. Till then...click and buy!

I'd like to order a 25' cable...color doesn't matter as long as it ain't pink, lol. What would the price be with shipping to NY?

You may have a dead switch then...open up a support ticket with Line 6 and see what they tell you. Good luck...

I got the $30 one from musicians friend...it's better than what comes with the guitar (but then again smoke signals or a carrier pigeon would also be an improvement over that one...), but still not great. Not the same feel as a standard 1/4" cable and it gets twisted too easily. I'm thinking a braided cover would be better, and I recall seeing one on the forum somewhere...not sure which thread tho.

Close Workbench, then try connecting to Line6 Monkey first. If that recognizes the guitar, then reopen Workbench. Failing that, reboot the whole computer and try again. The whole setup gets cranky sometimes and doesn't want to cooperate...I've had to fiddle with it to get it to see the guitar as well. Don't know why it works one day and not others...but most likely it will work eventually if you poke at it long enough.

You need a fully charged battery AND plug a 1/4" cable into the jack to turn the Variax on, otherwise the USB dongle will think that nothing is connected.

Ghost in the machine...it happens.

It sounds like you already tried removing the battery and putting it back in, but if not its probably worth a try. Beyond that, I have no idea. Good luck... What kind of amp are you using? Anything that can connect with VDI?

Well theres always the semi-official Line 6 formula that the JTV's MSRP is based on a $700 guitar with another $700 worth of electronics...

You seem to have ruled out all the other components...maybe try updating/reflashing the latest firmware on the HD. Other than that I'm out of ideas.

Eureka!!!!! Ok...so I finally found a way to get a decent acoustic sound, particularly when using really percussive strumming. I started with a stock patch on the 500X. Its in the BASS/ACO/VOC bank : 7B Solo Acoustic 2. The unaltered preset is useless and sounds like someone stepping on a duck, but with enough tweeking I was finally able to get a pretty convincing scooped tone that I can use with a fairly percussive attack. All it really is, is 5 EQ modules strung together, along with a tube compressor and a little reverb, no amp model. Each EQ module is the same (parametric+preamp), but targets a different center frequency. So its a different approach than than the one in the blog which has been discussed above. A bunch of EQs all strung together seems redundant, but it worked for me. With enough twiddling of knobs, I bet some of you guys who've been having trouble will be able to find a usable tone. I'd post all the specific settings, but everybody's setup is different, I doubt these will work for everybody anyway...that and I did it all listening through a pair of cheap $40 cans, my good AKGs having gone to that big studio in the sky a couple months back. I encourage anybody who has had issues with this to give it a try...I spent more than an hour making really small changes, and playing the same part repeatedly, so dont get frustrated if it takes a while.

I'm completely addicted to the total lack of hum with the JTV...picking up any of my other guitars is almost a nuisance now. Sad in a way...

I don't know about you guys, but half the reason I like Line6's stuff so much is that I don't have to carry around a duffle bag full of 9v batteries to feed a dozen different pedals. A wireless unit + the JTV battery is already 2 more batteries than I like to be dependent on in live situations...

Interesting, but I don't really see a company like Fender ever developing and kind of tech that gives you access to anything but other "Fender sounds"...and while it would be nice, they almost certainly wouldn't allow anybody else's electronics to be the "brain" of one of their guitars. To many, that wouldn't be a Fender anymore, and would be considered sacrilege. Personally I think that's ridiculous, but that's a whole other discussion. Companies that have been around forever all seem to suffer from the same creativity stifling disease...IMHO, the Fenders and Gibsons of the world are always way too attached to "tradition", and their "classic" status to ever develop anything truly innovative. "New" ain't in their vocabluary. They're always terrified of offending the traditionalists and being labled sell-outs. I really don't think they want to build anything that doesn't "sound like a Fender"... Besides..."retro" is IN! That's why you can walk into any big-chain music retailer and see a whole wall of "vintage" instruments, many of which appear to have been dragged behind a pickup for 6 miles, with $3K pricetags. Why would you want new, when old is so "cool maaaaaaaan"...lol

Every guitar player I've ever met (inlcuding myself) is a crybaby about the action...we like what we like and that's it. The 11s is a good idea too...then again, I think that's a good idea for all the world's guitars, but that's just me...

I can't say the same for mine...I find the neck and middle pickups to sound a little thin and "tinny"...even for single coils. I do like the sound of the humbucker though.

Don't get me wrong...I love technology. I love what Line6 has been able to produce. However, there's more than one kind of progress. And to the CEOs and bean counters of the world, the only kind of progress that matters is the kind that makes them more money. This is easily achieved by convincing (and it doesn't take much) our "keeping up with the Jone's" culture that only the latest and greatest will suffice. Like it or not, this is what keep our economy going. I'm not saying it's good, bad, or indifferent. It just is. If you don't think that Apple already has a 5 year plan including the next iThingy and iThingy 2 that we'll all be told we "need" to have, then I don't know what to tell ya...agree to disagree I guess.

I've found that setting the 500X's outputs the "correct" way based on my amp/cab setup sounded like boiled a$$. I run studio/direct outs straight into a power amp. It may not be the "right" way to do it, but it's what sounds good to me...bottom line is there's no right or wrong here. Whatever sounds good to you is the way to go. The tweeking will go on forever anyway. What sounds good today might horrify you tomorrow :wacko:

Planned obselescence is the name of the game in everything electronic since the transistor. Good or bad, it keeps the merry-go-round running.

C Crackling and/or hissing sounds usually mean one or more bad piezos, according to conversations I've had with Line 6 tech guys. Intermittent problems are unfortunately difficult to diagnose, be it a guitar or a yacht. If you send it back to Line6 now, invariably it'll work fine when they get it on the bench and they'll send it back, having proclaimed it is "functioning normally". Good luck.

Yep...there will always be a corner cut somewhere. They could make the knobs bullet-proof, but then we'd be paying $650 for he thing, and we'd all be bitching about that instead, lol

As far as I known those strat issues can happen if you overwrite the individual Spank model and save it to position 2. Adjusting the global string settings shouldnt do that since you're not changing the models themselves. Didnt affect mine any, and I've played with various volume levels and havent noticed anything funny about the strat sounds.

I've got the HD500X, and personally, I hate the way it sounds running into the front of a head, or to a dedicated tube power amp (I've tried both) when using the "correct" output settings on the 500X. However, if I leave the POD output set to studio/direct, I have no problem dialing in tones I like. I realize that this is not the way it is "supposed" to be done, as I'm running cab and mic emulations through an amp and cabinet, but for me and my ears, it works (perhaps I'm going deaf...I've been at this a while, lol). The band has yet to complain about anything sounding funny though, so it might be worth a try before you decide to toss the POD...but as always, your mileage may vary.

It may be worth messing around with the string volumes in Workbench before you return it. I adjusted the global string volume to lessen the piezo "quack" in certain models. Lots of others have done the same and seen improvements. I think that the piezos are just too hot on full blast, particularly if you're used to picking hard.