specracer986

I see on Ebay, there are a couple dozen of the black JTV69S with maple necks, that are listed as used and discounted. Are these all returns? It seems strange that this is the only model that has that many used, listed.

The only reason I'm considering a Variax is because of my Helix, and I'm in a cover band, so it might come in handy. Other than that, I'm good on guitars.

"specracer986, did you get your stands yet? What speakers are you using them with?" ​I did, and it works fine. I haven't tried to extend it up. I have a Yamaha DXR12, and with the stand at the lowest setting, the top of the DXR is at my shoulders. Which is a nice height, not too tall, not too short. I folded it up and took it to rehearsal with me, without a bag. I just bungee'd it to my dolly. So I'm happy. It was a cheap solution that works for me. I guess I should try extending them and using the clamps to see how well they work. But, as I get older I tend to leave well enough alone. ​Besides liking the sound of my DXR up on the stand, it's a lot easier messing with the rear controls now that it's off the floor.

I'll add a free opinion. I recently went wireless with a G10 unit. I love the freedom it gives me, I can't believe I didn't do this sooner. I'm thinking of getting a Variax JTV69. Not being able to go wireless is causing me to hold off buying. Going back to a cable that I read is kind of stiff, sounds like such a bummer. As far as the price, when I want something that's expensive, I usually just squint as I type in my credit card number. That seems to work.

Generally speaking, I've had good luck with Carvin. They give you a little more for the same price, and their equipment is good quality. Plus, they are good to deal with.

I guess I'll jump on. I watched the Glenn DeLaunne video and read and reread the instructions. Then I printed the instructions and read them again. I backed up all of my presets, did the update and had no problems. Snapshots is where it's at, don't wait or waste time building patches without them. There is one thing that Line 6 should fix, if they haven't already. As I was doing the update, one of the instructions that came up on the screen, said to rebuild my factory patches by rebooting Helix and holding switches 7 & 8 as it restarted. Everyone else had said hold switches 9 & 10, which is what I did and it worked fine. They should correct that screen shot so it doesn't confuse people.

Thanks for converting those.

I have a bunch of your patches also Glenn, and I really like them. I'll usually go through yours to see if any will work for a particular song, before I go through the factory ones, or start building one myself. Keep up the good work!

With my JP15, I have a piezo, so I can do an acoustic intro, then switch to magnetic pups with a toggle switch. I'm assuming with a Variax going into a Helix, I'll need to rotate the small knob to make the same change. Or with the Helix, is it possible to relegate that to a foot switch?

If you buy 6 packs, you get a 20% discount on just the cabs you're interested in. That's better to me than buying a bunch of IR's that I don't use.

I bought the Yorkville Mini Stands for $19 plus shipping from AVAlive.com Thanks for the lead.

Thanks, that's my starting point for a lot of my patches. Another member kindly past your patches on to me. I'll check them out later. Thanks for sharing.

I'm just starting to work on Jailbreak for my band. But I don't FB, so I guess I'll wring it out myself. What amp did you start with?

Thanks, I guess I better sort all of the options out before I get too serious.

So is the standard different from a 69? I see them with four knobs and they look like a 69, so maybe (more than likely) I'm confused.

Why do some 69's have three knobs in a row and some have four knobs, two and two? Is the three knob an older model?

Thanks for starting this thread. I had my first gig with the Helix and FRFR, today, and I needed to talk about it. :) It was a long narrow room. I was set up on the right side with my FRFR behind me,laying on it's side, but on a small stand that angles it back a little. I didn't connect to FOH. My wife was sitting half way back on the opposite wall from me, with a Tascam recorder running on the table. We played well and got good crowd reaction. I thought I sounded pretty good. Afterwards, my wife asked if everything was working okay. She said it didn't sound right. I get home and listen to the recording from her spot and you can barely hear me. I know if I had turned up much more I would have been overwhelming the band. So I learned a lesson. Either I need a speaker on each side of the stage, or I need to connect to FOH. It will probably be FOH because I'm already hauling in more than I want. I'm just really surprised that my FRFR dispersion was so narrow. Gig and learn.

It looks like the 89 has jumbo frets. I gave up on jumbo's. I'll be watching for a 69 with the HB in the bridge, and possibly swapping in a Warmouth neck, since I'm partial to maple and SS frets.

Is the 89 the one with the thin neck? I started out playing chunky necks and like them till I got my JP15. It has a very thin neck and I'm finding I like it a lot.

That is a folding aluminum amp stand that I bought from GC a few years ago. It actually works better with the DXR12 than the combo amp that I bought it for.

Here's mine with my Carvin ST300, which just got Fishman Flueance Classic Humbuckers.

Sweetwater had them in stock a few days ago.

I ran my Helix into the FX return of my Victory V30 tube amp, then into a guitar cabinet, for about a month. I got acceptable results, but I was just using pre amp models in the Helix and no cab models or IR's. I didn't feel I was getting the full potential of the Helix, so I broke down and bought an active 12" FRFR. Now I'm using full amp models and third party IR's and my sound is kick azz. I'm carrying the same amount of gear in and out of gigs. It used to be an amp/cab and large pedal board, now it's the active monitor and Helix. I had good tone before, but my tone potential is so much broader now.

Thanks for all of the responses. I feel like I have a good base line to work off of. I'll probably stick to the 12 o'clock position on my monitor and adjust the Helix as needed.

Ok, thanks. I'll keep the monitor at 50%, it's a Yamaha DXR12, with 1100 watts, so it doesn't need to be cranked too much, I guess. I have a db gauge. I should bring it to my rehearsal space and check what I'm practicing at, both alone and with the band. The other night at rehearsal, I had a patch that sounded bad at the beginning of the evening. Later on, the same patch sounded better, so I wasn't sure which change had made the difference. I usually try to do changes one step at a time, but when there's other people around it's sometimes hard to keep track of things. I may have had my monitor too loud and not enough coming out of the Helix. Time will tell. I'll keep better track of all settings at next weeks rehearsal.