Charlie_Watt

My 63 year old legs won't do that anymore. :( I have my laptop on a desk in front of me when I play and the Pod under the desk on the floor.

I recommend that you use the Batteries and a standard guitar cable. I use six AA size NIMH rechargeable batteries in mine and I keep two sets. The power supply is expensive to buy and you also need a TRS cable to use with it. Batteries are dead quiet and they work fine for me. If you get one of the pods that supports the variax digital cable, you don't need batteries with that. ( I have the HD500x) I would put your $$ toward a pod rather than that XPS kit.

Seems like there must be a way to buy just one replacement tuner somewhere.

I agree with cruisinon2. If the pot is scratchy I would not send the guitar for repair. Ask for a replacement pot and do it yourself if you can. Much less risk than shipping it. (Or try contact cleaner but make sure you use the right stuff)

The close coupled mag pickups could have been causing crosstalk between strings. I would wait to hear what he has to say when he gets the guitar back though.

Every combo amp I have owned has had some sort of resonance or buzz. If it's not too bad, live with it. Any time you pack stuff in a box with a bunch of speakers it's likely to have a few resonance buzzes. It's very hard to prevent. Guitars do it too.

I use my Laptop with my HD500x all the time because it's much easier to change patches and select things with the EDIT program. Much easier to see what is going on on the Laptop rather than on the display that is on the HD500x. My eyes don't see down on the floor with a sh$t.

I agree that it was not a very good answer to his question.

You only use the Monkey to update the FW and SW. To create, save, load patches you use HD500x Edit.

You can only use the 1/4 inch standard guitar cable with this unit! Do NOT plug your Variax into the RJ45 plug marked for Pedal board.

You have to have the global input settings turned off or the settings will not be different between patches. Read the manual on this.

You can use PC speakers if they are powered. Or use Studio Monitors. Or use any guitar amp. Cable options can vary depending on what you are hooking up.

Pod cannot drive passive speakers. You need powered speakers that have either guitar or line level inputs.

From what I read in forums, you have to ask them not to pre drill it. Then you could carefully drill holes to match the body.

More like a Hardware Issue.

The only issue I have heard of with the Warmoth neck is that the holes do not line up. That's easy to deal with.

Not a big deal. Hit the switch.

If it is fine on battery it must be the XPS box or the cable.

Unfortunately, with alternate tunings, you are going to get some of the wrong tuning in the crosstalk. I suspect this is the cause of "ghost notes" that some complain about with alternate tunings.

Yes you can do this. The chains are stereo but you can set it up to one channel gets one path and the other gets the other path.

That often happens when one accidentally tries to plug the 1/4 inch into the RJ45. Easy to do and it damages the pins as you found out. The JTV has a hinged cover over it. The old Variax came with a rubber plug which usually gets misplaced if you use the RJ45 much. Glad you fixed it!

I would just go with the Graphtcech saddles and stick with the JTV bridge if I were to upgrade my piezos. I have not complaints about this bridge or the method of attaching the strings to it. Retrofitting just the saddles looks like it would not be any more difficult than the work I did on my 500.

There is also some crosstalk from one saddle piezo to the others. They are not completely mechanically isolated. This will produce some unwanted overtones especially when using alternate tunings. Alternate tunings are never going to be perfect for this and other reasons.

The old 500 bridge is fixed and just screwed to the body and the strings went all the way through the body. Maybe you could attach a 2 point Strat bridge but you need to be able to route the piezo wires through it and attach it to the trem block. The 69 bridge also supports the ends of the strings where most Strats have the strings going all the way through the trem block. I don't know what is available that would work. It was a true statement by me since I did not say there was no bridge just that I know of no bridge for the 69. I am not crazy about the saddles that mount from the side. From what I have seen of the Graphtech saddles, it would not be hard to drill and tap the opposite side of the ones that are mounted on the wrong side rather than buy two sets. If I start having any trouble at all with my piezo's on my 69 I will consider trying the Graphtech saddles.

I know of no bridge that you can swap into a JTV69. It is fairly custom and part of the Trem design. I have not noticed any noise problems with my JTV69S bridge. The piezos do now slop around. Maybe it's my playing style but it seems fine to me. I agree that the Graphtech piezos are probably better since they each have an actual ground wire.