Charlie_Watt

Had my 69S a week now and I love it. Not a flaw on it and I got it as a Scratch & Dent (Demo) from Sweetwater. It too came with 2.0 installed.

If you don't really use the Mag pickups, it may improve the sustain and tone to have them further away from the strings. Mine are about 3/16" from the bottom of the strings.

By the way, those pictures are of the old original bridge wiring design. Mine is much different (latest since I juts purchased it two weeks ago). Mine has a much improved routing of the wires to not interfere with the trem. It would be fairly easy to put some very thin tape around the hole where the wires go from the trem cavity to the electronics cavity to reduce the possibility of a broken string end finding it's way into the elecronics. You could also mount a little magnet there to capture any string ends. I had to pull mine apart last night and take a look. No string ends and I was surprised at how they have changed the trem wiring of the 69. No cable ties or plastic cable clips. I will try to take a good picture and post it since it looks way different than anything I have seen posted. There is no easy to eliminate completely the possibility of a broken string finding it's way out of the trem cavity because the wires have to move freely when you work the trem. The hole between cavities is fairly large to keep the wires from touching the wood.

I guess the lesson here is go find the end if you break a string. The way the trem on the 69 is designed there has to be a nice big opening to the electronics board so that the wires don't rub on anything. The string end can easily make it's way through that opening.

Does the Guitar work? Sounds like the FW update may have failed badly if it won't communicate with the USB interface.

I'm cool - everyone has their own likes / dislikes when it comes to something like a guitar or a car (ect.) I actually still like my Variax 500 body but I never liked the look without pickups. The 69 looks much more like a standard strat like guitar which I like. It's far from the perfect shape or look but so far I am very pleased with the way it plays and sounds. Much better than my 500! I really like the look of the 59 also but I am more comfortable with a strat like guitar.

I like my JTV69! I don't know what is so ugly about it or the tuning wheel. I like the looks of the 59 but the 69 fits me much better.

Nice Review! I agree that acoustics do not sound very good through a normal guitar amp. (Variax or the real thing) They need a much wider band amp with full range speakers to capture the high frequencies.

Only one model is running at a time. IT's not good to have any sound being generated when you switch models. The selector switch is switching models same as the model knob does.

Buzzing and other non artifacts can cause it too.

Other option is to change one string at a time. I realize that you can't easily clean the fretboard this way but you won't have a problem with the trem.

I would love to see (and would be willing to pay for) more model options. I do not have a comparision of the 1.9 vs 2.0 because my JTV came with 2.0 loaded on it and I am just getting used to what kind of sounds it can make. I have many years of Variax experience and this JTV is a major upgrade for me. I do FW development for a living so I know what it takes to produce a compex new FW package. I do not expect any big changes for our JTV's based on history. Any change will be met with criticism as we can see here with 2.0. We wanted 2.0 yesterday and now we want the bugs fixed yesterday. Sounds like my day job! :-)

I played around just now with the 12 string models and standard tuning and I do not notice any latency when playing. Maybe it's me. One thing I did notice is a big improvement in the 12 strings when I added some damping above the nut. Much cleaner sounding to me. One thing to consider - a real 12 string has a little latency on the string pairs when strumming them. Of course this would depend on the direction of the strumming. Overall, I am very pleased with the 12 string sounds - much better than on my old 500 model.

My JTV 69 bridge seems to be just fine. I would prefer more of a Strat design that would accept a Graphtech saddle like the earlier Variax. I replaced the saddles with Graphtech on my 500 and the sound was improved over the original piezo's.

Any way to tell a "working" interface from one that isn't? I just got my JTV-69 from Sweetwater. I had them flash it to 2.0 before checking it out so I have not had to do that. I connected to Monkey with my interface that it came with and verified that I had 2.0. I also have the old workbench USB interface that I use with my old 500. I assume it will also work with the JTV but I have not tried it. The old interface is much different physically than the new one - many times larger but I bet it is the same functionally. I never had any trouble flashing my 500 - had to do it a couple different times.

In my experience, many bugs don't get found until lots of people get to try the new SW. If you were on this forum, you know that many were asking for the new 2.0 release every day. The limitations of this release are very manageable. If we waited until the new WB worked with pods, we would still be waiting. I am sure that Line6 will fix the bugs - they have in the past. It's up to us the users to tweak on the models to get the best tone we can based on what we are looking for. Everyone has an opinion and some love the new models and some don't. Nobody is forcing anyone to take the "Free" FW upgrade and "Free" workbench.

I think matching the levels is much more of an issue with a Variax than with using different guitars since we are switching models all the time. When you switch guitars, you are always dialing the volume to where you want it.

If you like 1.9 then use that! It's not likely that we will have access to both in one download.

Thanks! Very cool!

I personally like the 69 neck. I have very small hands and the neck is just a tad narrower than most of my other guitars. I just received my JTV this past weekend and I am very pleased with it. Action was a bit too low on the Low E and A but a quick tweak of the saddles fixed that and now it's just about right. Most guitars I have purchased had the action way too high when I received them. I am pretty sure you can modify the alternate tunings to suit your liking - for sure by model. Not sure if you can modify the default ones with WB - somebody with more experience can say if that is possible. If you are not sure about the neck, you should find one to demo before you order.

Maybe some of the models needed to be tweaked to prevent clipping. My JTV-69 came with 2.0 so I have no comparison but some of the models are much higher gain than others. (as are the real deals) I do notice that the high string volumes are not quite up to the levels of the others on some models but I have decided to play the guitar a few more days and experiment before I fool with Workbench and tweak things more to my liking. So far, I am very satisfied with the sound of many of the models. It's quite an improvement over my original 500. I like the mag pickups too.

Yes - the pitch shift is achieved by resampling but resampling requires digital filtering too. I was not implying that there would be lots of latency in pitch shifting but there is some - and I doubt that anyone can really detect it. More likely what folks notice is some artifacts if the filtering isn't done properly. Today's processors are plenty fast to be able to do complex digital filtering without adding noticeable latency.

Reflashing with same FW won't change anything. Reflash should either work or not work.

Yes but it still has to have a sample of the pitch it's going to shift so there has to be some digital delay.

With the options in workbench, you should be able to tweak the 2.0 models to your liking. IT's not likely that Line6 will make both 1.9 and 2.0 models available in the same download.