specracer986

Thanks for doing that. I'm going to spend some time with this next weekend.

I've never had this happen. But, I pre program all model choices into my snapshots. Each of my patches is for an individual song. So I never change the model on the guitar itself. I guess if I was just jamming on one patch, I might change the model using the 5 way, but I haven't done that yet. We always seem to have something to work on, so we rarely jam.

Yep, it happened to me last week. I rebooted and it started fine. Hasn't done it since. FWIW, I'm on 2.11.

I can't say that my 69 goes out of tune any faster than my other guitars, because I do a lot of bending and I need to tune pretty often no matter what guitar I'm playing. But I find that on the upper frets, trying to find and hold pitch with a big bend is like shooting at a moving target. I also have a nice Warmouth neck with SS frets that I love. I plan on putting a Goldo Backbox on it to see if it will help. I have a gig next weekend, so I'm going to wait till after that to take it in and get done. I'll post back when I get it installed.

Maybe he's Joe B.?

I felt this irony this morning. I left my Variax off to get some work done. I told him that I needed it for a gig next Friday and didn't want to have to go back to using a regular guitar because I had all of my volume, tone, models and tuning, programmed into my Helix. As I left, I thought, that must sound odd coming from a 66 year old guy.

These days, you can't really be sure.

I actually don't know much about the wiring of these guitars, so I'm just trying to understand your answer. I thought the piezo's were at the saddles. The height of the magnetic pups will affect how the piezo sounds?

Well I'm glad I asked. I would have tried putting the acoustic model through an amp and cab and then complain about how bad it sounds.

On that video he had a pre amp block, but no amp or cab or IR. So if I want to play acoustic on a verse then change to electric for chorus, I should have a snapshot for the verse / acoustic, with just a pre amp and no amp or cab of IR?

Interesting. Well, this is why I asked. Thanks.

I know some acoustic IR's are intended for an actual acoustic and some are intended for an electric to sound like an acoustic. Is there a special type of IR I should be looking for to use with my Variax into my Helix?

I had a couple of odd behavior incidents happen yesterday, that helped remind me that computers tend to be glitchy no matter what anyone does. (Is glitchy a word?) Anyway, I started my Helix and sat down at my computer and waited a few minutes before starting editor. When I did, editor said there was no Helix connected. I checked the Helix and saw it was still on the start up screen and hadn't fully loaded. This was probably three or four minutes after turning it on, so it had plenty of time to load. I shut it off, restarted and it loaded in the normal amount of time, and editor recognized it. I then loaded one of my song patches and started playing, and realized it sounded like cr*p. I looked at the patch settings and saw that all of the Litigator amp parameters were set to 5, straight down the entire list. I switched to a different patch that uses the Litigator amp and it was fine. I went back to the original patch and now all of my amp settings were back to where I had originally saved them. So, no moral to this story except that I'm becoming much more aware that some odd behavior is going to happen once in a while and it may mean a reboot to clear it out. Onstage that would be a slight problem, but not the end of the world. I'm still on 2.11 firmware. I didn't want to do an interim upgrade and decided to wait for the next one. I use the Helix everyday, and this odd behavior doesn't happen very often. But I've had enough small episodes to where I'm realizing it's always a possibility.

Back to the OP, I have a JTV69. The mag pickups are quite good. If you feel you would play using the mag pups a lot, then that will guide your preference. But I find that I don't use the mags very much and mostly just program the models into my Helix patches. I nearly bought a JTV69S last week but got outbid at the last minute. I ended up ordering a JTV89F, which is on it's way to me. The electronics are identical in all of the JTV's except that the 89 has different choices for alt tunings. Also, the 89 has a thinner neck profile. The 69 is the one model that gives you the option to change the neck to a Warmouth replacement neck. That's what I did with my 69 and I'm real happy with it.

The cost of this cable is $19.75 per foot? Am I reading that right?

Why not use the output block to raise of lower volume of each snapshot?

I just ordered my black 89F. Psarkissian should go into sales! :)

Good point. I didn't think of that.

My 69 came with locking tuners. Are you sure the 89f doesn't?

I'll be going with black!

psarkissian; thank you very much for measuring that spare neck and posting the clarification. You've eased my mind considerably and I can see a "Buy It Now" moment in my near future. So the new measurements translate to: 1st fret - .795" 12th fret - .793" That coincides with an owner that said he didn't have a measurement but the 1st fret felt a little bigger than the 12th. Well he must have some pretty good feelings in his hands to notice that difference. Since these measurements are only a little smaller than my Warmouth Standard Thin, which I really like, I think I'll get along with it just fine.

I can tell you this. I bought my 69 just out of curiosity, to see how it would integrate with my Helix. After getting it, I liked the possibilities I saw and ordered the Warmouth neck. After getting the Warmouth neck, it took about two weeks for this odd looking 69 to become my #1 and displace a bunch of nice guitars. I now program into each patch, my guitar volume, tone, model and even tuning. Some patches have screenshots for different parts of the song, and the parameters change several times in each song with just a click of a foot switch. So I might play a Strat, LP, and Ric in the same song with no changing of knobs on my guitar. Unbelievable! If you get it, please post info on the neck. I'm still a bit dubious about these specs that were posted. A lot of heavy metal guys like the Ibenez thin necks, and it was my understanding this is what they were shooting for with the 89.

I appreciate the info psarkissian, even though it has left me a bit perplexed. I've seen several times where the 89 was described as having a slim neck. I know there will be variations with the actual necks, but normally the measurements are a good baseline to work off of. I'm really surprised that they are this beefy.

I'm having a hard time believing there isn't a mistake with those measurements. That would be baseball bat size, not "fast and flat".

Wow. If that's correct then the neck isn't thin at all. That would translate to" 1st fret: .961" 12th fret" .980" Which would be quite a bit beefier than the stock neck on my JTV69. You're not including the fret wire are you?