phil_m

I don't think it has anything to do with caring. It has everything thing to do with whether or not it's worth their investment of time and money in something. If they could do it and make money, they'd be foolish not to do it. It seems pretty obvious, though, that they think it would be a money-losing endeavor.

I have come to the conclusion that in general I'm much less picky about particular neck profiles than many players. It's rare that I pick up a guitar that has a neck that I just can't stand, and in all the guitars that I own, there's a bunch of different profiles represented. I do find the neck on my 69US to be quite comfortable, though. I like the feels of the satin finish, and overall it seems like it plays a bit faster than any other guitar I have. The funny thing is that when I had my Variax 300, I actually loved the neck on that, too. It was a bit wider and flatter than a typical Strat, so I always felt it was a little easier to play up at the higher frets. Just me pontificating, but I think a lot of it comes down to how players position their thumb on their fretting hand. I think if you're a player tends to wrap his thumb around, that probably is more limiting as to what is comfortable. I've never really done that, and it seems to me that's probably why I don't necessarily feel drawn to one particular type.

Yep, you can set delays with the delay time set to different note values and just tap in quarter notes. It works great. It's one of the best features on the M13, imo.

Here's a picture of the neck on my JTV69US. Hard to tell exactly, but it looks like there's a little more space between the edge of the fretboard and the low E-string on mine than on the pictures in the first post. I've never had any issues with the low E-string falling off on mine. I very rarely will have the high E-string slip, but that is more from user error when I'm sloppy on the upper frets.

The XTL won't work as an interface for Workbench HD, and the Variax Standard will only run the HD firmware. So if you want use Workbench, you'd have to use the little USB interface that comes with the guitar. You also lose some abilities that the POD HD has the the XTL doesn't. On the HD, for instance, you can save a specific tuning with the patch on the HD. With the XTL, you'd be limited to saving the tuning either with the model on the Variax or manually using the alternate tuning knob on the Variax. Basically, though, if you've never had those features, you wouldn't necessarily miss them. Nothing wrong with keeping the XTL for now.

To get the full 48 seconds, you need to hit the switch for half speed before recording your loop. That will double the available recording time. Without doing that, it's limited to 24 seconds.

Well, the thing about the DT25 is it is a completely analog, tube power section, so from a feel perspective, I feel it feels and reacts much like a real tube amp (because it is!). I have all my amps in the same room, and I've done plenty of side by side comparison, too, and I don't really feel the DT25 is compromising very much compared to my other amps. There are so many variables, though. If the speakers of the real amps were broken in they're going to react completely differently than a DT25 with a new speaker, for one thing. It's hard to say exactly what causes someone to prefer one amp over another one. Like you said, though, I don't see much point in arguing over personal preference.

Some Strat cases will fit, and some won't. The SKB TSA cases fit, and they're a darn nice case. They are actually some of the nicest ones I've seen. http://www.musiciansfriend.com/accessories/fender-abs-strat-tele-electric-guitar-case

Who asks for it? To use 500X Edit, you shouldn't need anything else.

Congratulations on your new career! Oh, wait... :)

After further review, it does appear that they have started shipping the interface with just a regular ethernet cable now (well, perhaps an ethernet with larger clips). All the warnings you mentioned reading above are correct. You have to be very careful with the connection into the guitar with a non-ethercon end. If you own a POD with a VDI port, it kind of becomes a moot point because you could just use the actual VDI cable with the POD and not worry about the interface.

You know, now that I think of it, I do think that the old VDI interface from the first generation Variax did just come with a standard ethernet cable. I imagine the fact that so many people had issues with the jack on the guitar breaking was what prompted to update the cable.

This is what the cable that comes with the Variax should look like: Line 6 has gone to a different interface than what's in this picture, but the cable should be the same as far as I know.

If you're using the VDI interface, you should just use the cable that came with the guitar. One thing is that Line 6 actually explicitly says not to use the longer VDI cable when doing updates. It would probably be OK for use with Workbench, but as you've noted, the VDI interface doesn't support the erthercon end of the standard VDI cable. I'm a bit confused why you think a VDI cable with the ethercon plug removed would be any more robust than the cord that came with the guitar.

As already been stated, there's no piece of electronic gear on the planet that's 100% reliable. I think, though, that the chances of having an issue with flashing the firmware is still relatively low despite the occasional issues you read of here. If you're worried about power issues, use a laptop. You have a built in battery back-up that way.

Yeah, you could do that pretty easily using a dual tone and the mixer block.

This is generally what I've found, too. 50% isn't usually equal wet/dry. The other thing to remember is that if you're using a delay that has treble and bass parameters, those are actually passive controls. That means they can only cut the signal, not boost. So having them up at 100% means that the repeats are at a flat EQ setting. If you have them at something less than 100%, the wet signal will be reduced in volume, so you'd have to turn up the mix to make up for that.

There is no FBV port on the M13. As far as the M13's scenes, they are really equivalent to a preset on the POD. The way the Axe-FX uses scenes is something like a preset within a preset. None of the Line 6 guitar processors have anything that's really equivalent.

The only way it's feasible, really, is if you're playing with a click track and have all the cues for the entire band in sync. Otherwise, it is probably easier to use the footswitches to just change things manually on your own on the fly.

There aren't scenes in the 500X or HD Pro, but you could do the sort of automation you're speaking of. It's actually not all that difficult with a DAW. If you create a MIDI track in a DAW and have a MIDI-USB adapter attached to the HD's MIDI out, you could go through and manually record the MIDI commands by turning the effects on and off where you want them while track plays, and then you'd be set. The HD sends the associated MIDI command for whatever button you hit, so you wouldn't even really need to know the MIDI map to do it.

This is a copy and paste of a response I gave to this question elsewhere: There are "wild card" three effects blocks in each tone that can be changed to whatever type of effect you want in the Drive and Dynamics, Mods, Delays, and Filters, Synths, and Pitch categories. When you click on an effect block, you click on the little icon to the left of the effect name, and that takes back to a menu that lets you change the effect. Above that menu, you'll see the word "Type". If you click on that, it brings up the four different categories. So you can put whatever type of effect you want any of the three slots.

There isn't a way to loop a portion of a song within the app as far as I know. The circular arrow button you mention repeats the entire song. Sounds like it would be a nice feature to have, though. You should put it up here: http://line6.ideascale.com/

Yes, they are. And actually with the remote app you can have an unlimited number of presets saved under the "my tones" section of the app.

There are 100 presets that can be stored on the amp or TT unit itself. With the FBV MKii Express you can access just four of them. With the FBV Shortboard MKii, you can access all of them. The additional presets were added in a firmware update.