Charlie_Watt

Yes that is normal. My 500 does it also.

It's just a connector. You may be able to either repair it or get a JTV one and modify it to fit.

And you can't use the new Workbench with that old FW either.

Often with the early Variax's folks damaged the VDI connector by accidentally trying to plug the 1/4 inch cable in there. It was easy to do if you tried to plug in when you had the guitar in playing position. The JTV smartly added the spring loaded door over the connector to help prevent that. There was nothing to prevent that on the older Variax except for a silly rubber cap that you would immediately lose. :-) I read about this all the time in this forum.

You may want to upgrade to the latest FW.

I have both kinds of necks (maple on Strat and G&L, Rosewood on most others) like both. I do not have a strong preference either way.

There is a very good chance your hard drive is still ok. It is not connected directly to anything that would have been affected by your usb connection. An external USB interface is a handy thing to have anyway for backups or cloning hard drives. I use one all the time. (I work for a hard drive company)

Sounds like you have some sort of serious wiring power problem there! Could be dangerous too. Get it checked out.

There are many good VDI cables available. The Line6 one sucks big time but there are some that are just as good as a regular guitar cable for playing live. You also may be able to improve your flaky VDI connector if you can straighten any bent pins.

Not sure why your batteries don't work for you. Mine are 2 years old and they hold a charge just fine. I have never had trouble with this kind of battery. I play with the battery sometimes. Battery is the most noiseless way to play.

A neater solution might be a small piece of heat shrink.

I had ground loop noise using the 1/4 outs when connected to my laptop (laptop power supply plugged in). I switched to using the XLR and the noise was gone completely. I am connected to a powered PA speaker that has either 1/4 in or XLR in. I have never tried that setup with both the 1/4 and VDI connected though. No reason for me to do that. I use VDI for Variax and 1/4 in for my other guitars.

One thing I learned is that it is always best to download the code before flashing so it's not depending on your internet connection during the flash process. I have never had it fail that way.

There is no Trem on a JTV 59! The bridge posts are held in position by the string tension just fine. I wouldn't worry about them at all being a little loose with the strings off.

I would try to put a piece behind the Piezo (away from the fretboard) to damp the short length of string there.

I would save the original pickups in case you need warranty work. You can put the original back in if you are worried about that. I don' t think they would void the warranty unless your swap led to the failure.

I would recreate your track pitch shifted to standard tuning instead of going the other way with the guitar.

Running the Pod into your Home Stereo AMP not speakers is ok as long as you don't over drive them. I have done it and it sounds great at reasonable levels. I use studio direct mode because my stereo system is a nice full range (like a PA) output. The acoustic stuff sounds great this way.

The very nice thing about the Ghost saddles is that they do not rely on making the ground connection through contact with the bridge or strings. They each have their own ground lead.

IMO the 12 strings are still not that real sounding on the 700.

I don't know but I would bet they are metric for sure.

Yes I have. Not often but I have an old Variax acoustic and I have played it through my HD500X. Sounds great. The acoustic models are very good - far better than on my JTV69S. Probably because it is more like an acoustic guitar in the first place.

The alternate tunings only work in half step increments. You have to retune the strings. (Or retune your backing track.) I retune tracks I practice with all the time with my Transcribe software. Almost any track from the old analog days is actually slightly out of standard tuning and you find that out quickly when you try to play along with it.

You can use both the XLR's and the 1/4 outs at the same time if you want to.

Factory strings are 010's! If yours had 009's they were not the factory strings.