wankieguitar

I wrote about the ridiculous resonance on the F# at the 4th fret on the D string several years ago It only occurs on the Gibson J200 Model It has nothing to do with guitar setup. I do setups every day for the last 30 years How could the problem on the other user's guitar be a flawed setup on F# on two different strings and different frets? Either we have the same flaw (I have a JTV59) or there is a flaw in the sample or whatever they call the digital representation of that pitch. I had hoped it would be addressed in a firmware update. not so in firmware 2.21 evidently

I have a 300 and a 700 and the 'warble' described is intolerable when using lower tunings above the 12th fret. It's especially noticeable with distortion. It happens all the time with pull-offs in lowered (artificial) tunings. e.G. tuning a preset one semi, 2 semis down etc. You rarely even get the pitch you're pulling off to, You often get a semi lower than fretted. To call it a warble is being kind. I don't know how the 'experts' can't recreate this. And as described if you re-pick the lower note of the pull-off you get the proper pitch so it's not a fret rattle or buzz, somehow it's a flaw in the calculation of the pulled off note. These guitar don't have magnetic pickups so why are we belabouring the position of the magnetic pickups? This flaw is much improved on the Tyler Variax. For this reason the new Variax are much better. I'm still not liking the new Strat sounds or the ringing on the f# on the 4th fret of the 'D' string in the Jumbo acoustic. Also the volume of the Variax sounds can't equal the magnetic pickups no matter how much they are boosted in software. Very disappointing.

I find the resonance on the equivalent frequency of the 'D' string 4th fret F# on the J200 model so bad as to almost render the model useless. However the resonance occurs on the F# at the 9th fret on the 'A' string and on the 'E' at the 14th so it has to be a flaw in the J200 patch. Is there a 'pitch map' or something like that in its programming? This occurs only on the J200 patch. I play the acoustic direct into a mixer, but the problem is still evident when I send the J200 thru any preset on my HD400 The adjacent frets are OK. I have a Variax700 and a 300 and the same patch is O.K. It would be nice if this could be improved.

Today I rolled the JTV59 firmware back to 1.9 and instantly the strat sounds were great. I now have to use the older edit software which isn't pretty but it works. (The new HD edit only works with the v2.0 firmware). I didn't notice a huge change in the acoustics. I've taken screen shots of the strat, ric 12's and acoustic 12's with firmware 1.9 to use in the event that I retry firmware 2.0 with a better result. Then I can affirm to myself that there are no variables involved other that the firmware itself. As I can't leave well enough alone, I will probably retry firmware 2.0 later in the week. If the strats work out then I'll be happy, and if not I'll roll back to 1.9 again and be almost as happy. Also I have (so far at least) got an effective treatment for the problem of the model selector malfunction. The method of stuffing something into the knob to prevent depressing the knob doesn't address the real problem which is that the frame of the model selector pot is mounted on the underside of the guitar's top using splined hardware pressed up into the wood of the top. This hardware looks just like a very minature version of the inserts that are pressed into the top face of a Les Paul to allow raising or lowering the bridge. With repeated depression of the selector knob, these small splined fittngs gradually get pushed out of the wood and into the body cavity. I reset the fittings in the cavity and then used a liberal amount of epoxy to hold the whole thing in place. The design seems poorly thought out or insufficiently tested. I know if I ever have to replace the control, I'm going to have extra trouble getting the epoxy off but for now the repair is flawless.

Regarding the JTV strat and ric disappointments: I have encountered the strat pickup switching trouble and have corrected it HOWEVER I have a variax 300 and a variax 700. Both sound far, far better in the strat and ric tones. Disgustingly better. I can't fathom how Line6 calls this an upgrade over the old sounds. My JTV Strats have practically no 'quack' at all. And yes, I have spent lots of time on all three guitars customizing the tone. I also don't find the acoustics quite as strident as on the old variax guitars. I play the acoustics thru their own clean channel on a mixing board. Has anyone else noticed the sad difference I've encountered? This is my first ever post to any board so I apologize if I've gone astray here.