phil_m

I don't think there's enough of a tonal difference between the two to worry about. I know some people will go on and on about maple being brighter, snappy, or whatever, but I think they're "listening with their eyes", so to speak. All other things being equal, the fretboard material probably has very limited effect on what's coming from the pickups. I personally like maple necks just because of the aesthetics and feel, but I don't think they add anything to the sound.

The XT Live will power the JTV, and it will behave pretty much the way it did with the original Variax. You can still recall presets on the guitar from the XTL. The main thing is that if you have presets set up with an older Variax, the JTV will not automatically sync with those presets. You have to re-save the preset on the XTL to recall JTV preset. It's briefly explained here: http://line6.com/support/page/kb/_/guitars/james-tyler-variax-guitars/using-a-james-tyler-variax-with-podxtx3-live-a-r17

Yes, it's totally possible. It's very easy, actually.

I bought a Variax 300 new for $300 back when they were blowing them out 7 or 8 years ago. I actually sold it for that same price if I remember correctly. So, I don't know if $300 is a bad price necessarily. I think I'd be more inclined to put that money towards either a JTV or the new Standard. To me, the 300 seemed a lot more like a novelty guitar in a way. I never considered using as my main guitar. My JTV, however, has become my main guitar.

My point from above that you seem to not even acknowledged is that while the paid model packs may be something new in the HD line, they are not a new strategy for Line 6 altogether. They've been selling model packs for over a decade in various products. I don't think it was someone simply looking for a way to squeeze more money out of people. Even, it is that, no one has to buy them. It's like anything, if they don't sell at the price Line 6 has them at, the price will eventually go down.

The model packs for the XT weren't free. Those same packs still aren't free for POD Farm, either. Actually, whenever Line 6 has released model packs, they've always charged for them. They have done free updates that include amp models as well, of course. But the a la carte model pack thing isn't really new for them.

So I've kind of lost track of all the different iterations you've went through here, but if you used the HD500X with the USB plugged into your laptop (with the laptop plugged in) while listening through headphones, do you still find this exceptionally noisy? Is that more or less noisy than just the HD500X itself with headphones? I've recorded quite a lot with my laptop with the HD500, and I don't really notice any additional noise (using a regular guitar, not my Variax). The way I see it, the noise while using headphones alone (not connected a computer or anything else) may be annoying, but it doesn't really affect anything. You're the only one who would hear it. But if you get noise while recording or hooking up to a PA, that can be a problem. Also, I do think that in a high gain situation, some amount of noise is simply unavoidable. High gain tones inherently raise the noise floor. I actually wonder if the noise floor you experience might be simply because you're running everything at a higher mains voltage. I've never really looked into whether that could make a difference or not.

Actually those blind tests involving violins were not just identifying the sounds, it was people playing the violins. They used players from a range of different skill levels including some of the best players in the world. Even then, the players weren't able to pick out the real Strads versus the newer violins. So it seems that the thing about the old wood and construction techniques is actually a bit overblown, too. Maybe players have the experience of feeling more inspired to play when they play on vintage instruments and gear simply they have strong expectations in that direction. It should be noted, though, that the violins the Strads were put up against weren't just some mass-produced instrument. They were handmade violins constructed by top makers today. So it was comparing multi-million instruments to ones that would still be in the >$10,000 range.

Fender already did that a few years ago. I don't think it went over all that well, as it was discontinued not too long after its introduction. I think the overlap of people who play the game and people who actually play guitar is relatively small. Or perhaps actually trying to nail those riffs for real in the context of the game is too hard. http://www.destructoid.com/review-rock-band-3-fender-squier-guitar-controller-197063.phtml

It's like they say - "write about what you know"... :) I probably have answered this question a dozen times or so over the years. I think, though, it's understandable. If people aren't too familiar with sound systems, phantom power can be a somewhat vague concept. Heck, even it's name is mysterious.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "FX out". Do you mean the FX loop Send? If that's the case, you wouldn't want it there unless you want to have your reverb pedal somewhere in the M13's internal signal chain. If you just want the pedal after the M13, just come out of the M13's main output into your reverb and then from your reverb into your amp (or whatever else is next in your chain).

The only logical culprit left... :)

You wouldn't have to be processing audio through Ableton, just playing a MIDI track. You'd essentially be using Ableton only as a sequencer. You could easily have a redundant system built in where if something did happen, you could manually take over the changes. It's not really that big of a deal. They use computers to run lighting and video for huge touring shows. Using them to send MIDI changes is small potatoes compared to that. It's funny. I think guitarists are way more concerned about this kind of stuff than other musicians. Perhaps we're control freaks. Guys have been using soft synths with laptops integrated into the keyboard rigs for well over a decade now, and in that sort of setup, the laptop is doing actual audio processing.

Phantom power will not hurt the POD. The DC voltage for phantom power is on the 2 and 3 pins in an XLR connections and it's in reference to the ground pin, so as long as there's no connection between those pins and the ground (which there shouldn't be), it will be ignored. So you really don't need to worry about it. Many mixers don't actually allow to turn phantom power off for individual channels - it's either off or on for the entire board. So sometimes asking the sound guy to turn it off isn't feasible.

It does sound like it's probably some noise coming through the power lines. Do you happen to have any lights on dimmers in the room where you have stuff set up? That's a relatively common source of this sort of hum.

The HDMI port on your Mac is an output only. It can't be used as an input. And, actually, I think the purpose of those RCA to HDMI adapters is going the other way - from an HDMI output to an analog video/audio input on another device. In order to record on your Mac, you'd need to get some sort of USB audio interface.

Besides actually getting the electronics into an acoustic, which in and of itself would be a real pain, you also have the issue that pretty much any acoustic bridge that's using a piezo pickup has just one, or possibly two, pickup under the saddle. The Variax needs a separate pickup for every string. I've never seen an acoustic bridge that offers that. Beyond that, I just don't think the results would be all that spectacular or necessary. The Variax acoustics are modeling a miced acoustic, and it's actually very close to what a real miced acoustic sounds like. So blending that in with a real miced acoustic sound might not be all that dramatically different. In fact, it might actually sound bad because of phasing and comb filtering issues. If you're happy with the acoustics you have (and it sounds like you are), you might be better off looking into something like the Fishman Aura. It would allow to do something like your proposing without having to alter your guitar other than installing an under-saddle pickup.

The HD300 doesn't have that feature, and since it's been discontinued for a while now, Line 6 won't be releasing any further firmware updates.

Another potential culprit could be the effects loop block. If it's in the patch and on with nothing connected to the loop, no sound would pass through. I would think that it would be relatively rare for patches from the CustomTone site have the effects loop block active, but it's possible, I suppose.

In a house, or really any modern electrical installation, all the outlets share the same "ground plane" (not really the best terminology). But, they are all tied into the the same grounding system (unless you actually have isolated ground receptacles - even those, though, go back to the same system grounding electrode eventually. You're correct on one hand - having everything plugged into one outlet is a good practice. Although, it doesn't mean you'll never have noise issues. There are other ways noise can pop up in audio equipment. Perhaps a little ironic, but, having everything sharing a common ground is actually the thing that leads to one of the most common noise issues - the ground loop. Ground loops happen when there's a difference in voltage between two or more pieces of equipment and small currents travel between them via the ground wire. This current flows through the shielding of audio cable and generate noise. A ground lift in an audio is a little resistor that is placed somewhere in the grounding circuit that provides enough resistance to stop that current from flowing. It doesn't get rid of the ground altogether, though. In the HD, the ground lift is at the ground pin of the XLR outs (balanced outs are still grounded).

Do I worry about it personally? Not really. I imagine someday something will fail that will need replaced or repaired. It's a guitar, though, not something that my life depends on. If you think about it, though, musicians have been depending on electronics for decades now. Electronic keyboards are everywhere, and sound systems with electronic components are used all the time. Sure this stuff breaks down, but people have decided that the risk and inconvenience of dealing with stuff not working is better than the alternative. The benefits outweigh the risks. The other thing I'd say is that is if there is something in an electronic piece of equipment that's going to fail such as a solder joint or some bad component, the majority of time it shows up very early in the life. It's usually within the first weeks or months. That's why I think the vast majority of extended warranties are a waste of money, but that's another subject. On the Variax the things that are probably most susceptible to breakdown are the moving pieces - the 3 and 5-way switches and the knobs/encoders. Stuff like that always has an expected number of cycles/uses. It's probably pretty high, but eventually it will wear out.

I went and double-checked my HD500 tonight with headphones, and there is a very slight difference in the noise/hum level when I touch the strings versus when I don't. It's very dependent on the amount of gain in the tone and the overall volume of the headphones. Had I not been specifically looking for something, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have noticed anything.

The whole issue of grounding in electrical systems is confusing. I'm a registered engineer who's designed power distribution systems and the concepts are tricky for me sometimes. But I think the main thing I'll say is that having a three prong adapter probably wouldn't solve your problem. The main purpose of grounding electrical systems is safety - clearing faults so people don't get electrocuted. Devices like the HD500X don't need to be grounded in the same way an amplifier does simply there's not enough fault current available to really hurt someone. However, when your connect a bunch of audio equipment together, there should be a common signal ground (not necessarily the same thing as the ground connection in an electrical distribution system). When you are using the HD500 with just headphones, the chassis the ground, or common connection. There is a little ground wire connecting the circuit board to the chassis. It sounds to me like that wire is probably loose in yours. So when you have your guitar connected, you're getting nuisance current showing up in the signal that has no where to drain. When you touch the strings, you become the path of least resistance for it drain to. I don't believe this is a common problem, otherwise I'm sure it would be brought up here a lot more. Using these units with headphones is very common. I've never had an issue with noise when I play through headphones.

I can't say I hear anything that sounds out of the ordinary. The Spank bridge on your second clip sounds darker than I'd expect, but I don't really hear any plinkiness or clang.

Well, again, if there's enough perceived demand, I imagine Line 6 will make one. I just don't know if there will be or not. Those other guitar companies probably sell orders of magnitude more guitars than Line 6. They have extensive product lines with products at a bunch of price points, and even those companies have very limited selections of left-handed guitars. Fender doesn't make left-handed version of every guitar in its catalog. The market for them just isn't there. I also think that because of the electronics in the Variax, it makes making a left-handed version a lot more complicated. They would basically have to produce a mirrored version of the electronics for a left-handed instrument. That's a totally different thing than simply wiring a traditional electric guitar.