Charlie_Watt

It should work.  It works on my Windows 10 laptop.

Good deal!   It's nice to have that kind of support.

I use VDI when I can but often I am going into an amp and then I use the battery.  Never had a problem doing that.

I would not ever use the supplied wrenches.  They are crap.  Way too soft and they strip easily.

Did you loosen the strings first?  Just a suggestion.  I don't own a 59 but I do own a Les Paul.

Buy an aftermarket one.  I got mine years ago from guitarcable.com.  Never had a problem with it.

Don't think they do.  

If you registered it with Line6 they have the serial number.  They could probably tell if someone else ever tries to register it.

You could get your own Li battery and install it but you would not have the necessary low voltage protection for the battery.  I thought of doing this as I use lots of Lipo batteries for my RC hobby but I never bothered since I use the VDI cable anyway most of the time.  

I have tried others in the past and they were not fast enough.  It's not trivial to make an isolation unit that will work at these speeds.

Flotsam71, which one did you get?  Is it the $79 High speed one?  I tried an isolator a few years ago with my HD500X and it did not work at all.

Swapping pickups should be easy as long as they are standard passive pickups.  I remember seeing wiring diagrams here but you can just connect them the same As the ones you remove.

I believe there is a relay in there somewhere that switches out the mags when you switch in modeling.  maybe it is bad.

There will always be plenty of first adopters out there.  I will wait for them to stumble through the update and report back.  Sometimes there is a big problem.  I don't mind little bugs - they will be there.  I just don't want to be on the first wave.  Sometimes the whole update gets recalled or updated again in a few days if there is a major problem.

Rule number one!  Never do an update the day it comes out!  Wait for feedback here to see how it goes and to see what kind of problems it may cause.  Let others be the leaders - be a fast follower.

Standard lead with battery works just fine.  You can plug into any amp.  The digital lead only works with Line6 devices designed to interface with Variax.

Send it to Line6 for repair.

On acoustic models, the tone knob changes the mic position.

Battery?  Broken wire?  BLown amplifier?

My Variax sounds great with my HD500x and a PA speaker.  I use an acoustic model that has no amp sim.

Direct recording will in general sound pretty good with a Variax Acoustic model.  When using a pod, most of the time there might be effects but no amp model.

Acoustic sounds are good if you have a full range amp.  If you plug into a standard guitar amp, they do not sound good at all.

Thanks for the part number.  I have done this mod on my old Variax 500.  It's much more difficult on that one because of the fixed bridge and no place to solder the ground leads.  Got it done many years ago and it was a big improvement.  I build lots of electronics so I have literally 50 years of soldering experience. (starting with heath kits back in the mid 60's)

I put Graphtech saddles on my Variax 500 many years ago.  Sounded much better!  Maybe I will put a sit in my JTV now.  Which ones did you order?

Not my cup of tee.  I would love to see an improved JTV Strat style Variax.