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jerseyboy

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Everything posted by jerseyboy

  1. Sounds like interesting piece. Hard to beat Golden Gate F3303 extension nut for a temporary situation. It sits on top of the current nut. For my 500 slide setup I simply made a tall bone nut and in addition to raising the bridge piezos as far as looked reasonable, I removed all compensation and simply angled the bridge pieces as if it were solid bridge centered on 25.5” scale length. Basically a long scale lap steel slide guitar. But the tunings and pickup models - too much fun. Kinda shame Line6 didn’t try a lap steel version of Variax? With only 6 strings, alternate “tunings” can make a formidable slide guitar. I’ve gone so far as to load up tunings and jump major/minor at the flick of a switch. Helluva good cheat….
  2. I use both Standard 500 & JTV59. Standard has particular strengths and weaknesses just like the JTV59. 59 uses good sounding magnetic pickups so in practice modeling takes more of a back seat to "normal" electric guitar output. JTV Strat model can be tweaked much better than the standard, IMO. But the JTV Special Bridge lost something compared to the standard, go figure? But for certain tunings, textures and acoustic sounds the JTV is certainly convincing and just a better built guitar than either of my 500's. Oh, I've never met a chunky neck yet that couldn't be made less chunky, LOL... Yeah drastic, but sub-$1000 guitars, who cares? If it's not an heirloom, I make it to my liking. I never enjoy thick gloss finish on guitar necks anyway.... Definitely add better quality tuners either flavor you go! Locking tuners JTV59 can make string changes much simpler. I have friends/coworkers who play 69's and we joke how the Strat modeling sounds better than the stock magnetic single coils. Not so when comparing 59 Alnico Magnetic humbuckers to the JTV Lester models.
  3. I keep a 500 with raised nut and bridge height setup to help figure out lap steel tunings. I play in lap position using a fat bar. The Paul/Special bridge delivers a pretty fat tone and the Tele isn't bad for poor man's "Fender Steel Six". Now, this is okay for live gigs and even a scratch demo track but when it comes to something very important and exposed, I generally tune a genuine magnetic pickup lap steel to whatever tuning found using the 500 and Workbench. But the Variax is truly a marvel for playing with tuning combinations. I've been pondering transplanting electronics into a lap steel guitar body. Tuning combos practically unlimited since you can change any string over 2 octave range. Of course bump up string gauge to whatever tension you're looking for. You do not need to use a standard E-E guitar tuning either. I often start with D, E, G, resonator/Dobro tunings. Merely keep track of what strings are tuned to what when digging around tuning editor. Main caveat about physical setup is to always treat the bridge pieces/pickups/piezos gently whenever adjusting height and/or intonation. Even normal string change it doesn't hurt to slap a piece of masking tape over the bridge to better secure it to the body as the string tension is released. You do not want to wiggle those small wires which run into each bridge pole pickup.
  4. I've used VDI between JTV59 - XT Live. It changed presets and passed signal but that's it. Of all the things Helix is clearly better at, volume pedal sweep curve with XT line products still wins hands down. Well, the XT tuner is arguably better too.
  5. Wise to be gentle and wary of the I/O connections on these things. It's rugged but still plastic - I've adopted classical guitar seating whenever I play Variax sitting. Which is 98% of my work/playing.
  6. Being EV and battery tech junkie I’ve gone to powering majority of my DC pedalboards using large custom lithium battery packs. No more 60/50Hz ground loops or bothering with extension cords. Very helpful for “festival” gigs when setup time is limited between acts - drop the pedalboard, run to amp and/or sound system, start picking. Gotta enough battery capacity to run large pedalboard for days on end if desired. Unfortunately, XPS, POD XT Live and probably other products from that era use 9VAC transformer isolation. My guess is somewhere inside they need to see 50/60 HZ for some sort of timing reference? Could be wrong about that.... So, I tend to avoid the Line6 stuff because of this VAC power requirement. I’ve gotta few other tube based pedals which need AC too. Maybe I’ll look into and add a quality DC-AC inverter someday? But for now I’m happy with the usual DC box pedals and Zoom products for modulation and other digital effects. All powered by bottomless battery pack….
  7. I’ve said in the past it could be helpful to have audio output directly from the 6 piezo pickups. Not only helpful tracking down "plink Gremlins” and output differences, but since the 1980’s piezo-acoustic guitar pickups have become an industry standard sound of their own. There’s times I could use that trick in my bag. Maybe hardware simply wouldn’t allow for it without major re-design but if there’s any sort of casual “wish-list” floating around Line 6, please consider raw piezo bridge pickup audio output…
  8. Let’s call it a 10-45 where low-high = 45=E, 35=A, 26=D, 17=G, 13=B, 10=E. This will be very close to the same tension as a wound 10-46 set of strings which most Variax ship so that you don’t need to change much if anything about the guitar playing setup. Assuming it was setup for 10-46 string gauge. Re-reading your post I realized you may think I'm using a set of 10's in addition to the set of 13-56. No, the 10 is a plain single and costs about $1. Many guitarists keep single .010's on hand since they often break before the others. I simply discard the 56 and move everything down one position, adding the 10 on top E. I happen to use Elixir brand on my JTV59 and frequently change the plain strings (10, 13, 17) but leave the wound strings alone for as long as possible.
  9. Metal compositions do affect tones but wound 3rd probably fuels biggest acoustic model improvement.
  10. For years I’ve enjoyed my 500 setup with D'Addario ECG26 Chromes Flat Wound Electric Guitar Strings. The trick is to buy Medium 13-56 set, throw out the 56 and add a 10 - now you’ve basically got 10-46 set with plain (17) 3rd/G string. Barely changes a thing about the guitar setup (if already using 10-46) and the flat wound exhibit some cool unique qualities with the modeling. I also like how it helps reduce “squeaks” and other piezo artifacts under higher gain amplification. The acoustic models are particularly interesting with an almost “Norman Blake” dead string Martin sound going on….
  11. Tell me about it. I work in situations with lotsa video monitors and single coil magnetic pickups do not play well in such environments. Variax modeling is not affected but such EMI.
  12. One way to test your battery pack would be to rig a simple DVM (volt meter) connection in order to view/measure voltage sag when the battery pack is powering the Variax. I suspect very high IR (internal resistance) of the lithium battery pack so that when even a small/light load is applied the voltage drops below required circuit specifications. Search youtube for lithium battery IR testing/measurement - although normally associated with RC models the technique can be applied to practically any battery chemistry and configuration. Any battery much above 100 mOhm (that's mili Ohm, btw) will sag significantly under even mild load.
  13. There’s 2 schools of thought regarding if JTV Magnetic pickup signal runs analog or digitized over the VDI cable. I suspect VDI carries analog magnetic pickup signal much like a regular guitar cable. From a practical matter, all else being equal, I notice a slight change in volume/tone of the magnetic pickups when using VDI as opposed to the 1/4” phono audio output. Audio output that works with no power to the Variax circuitry. Some folks believe magnetic pickup signal is digitized and sent along the VDI as data and unpacked at the POD/HELIX end. I’m not convinced about that and of course the good folks who do know aren’t saying. Maybe someone can O-Scope VDI to settle the matter once and for all? Perhaps simpler, I suppose a 50-100’ cable would certainly demonstrate if it’s Hi-Z audio or not by noticeably weakening the magnetic audio output of a long VDI cable run? Even still, DC power will have it’s wire length limits and these Variax circuits pull some current (mA). Depending on the wire gauge, 50’ might be too much DC voltage drop for Variax? There again, probably wouldn’t hurt anything to try it and see how the DC behaves and/or if the magnetic pickup audio level/tone noticeably degrades over a longer CAT 5 wire run?
  14. I’ve got countless professional hours on both 500’s and JTV59’s. Each generation have pros/cons. I love my 500’s and some of the models simply sound more to my liking than supposedly same/similar models on the JTV/HD. Maybe it’s because I’m more used to em over 10 years with my 500’s? But some of the HD models sound better than similar 500 models. It’s crazy and all over the map but I find myself more often using JTV59 simply because the magnetic pickups sound really good for LP type axe. Obviously, the 500 is all models all the time. It’s a great and versatile Axe but the JTV59 pups help bring a sense of “comparison” to Variax modeling. I’d estimate 80-90% of my playing relies on magnetic pups and I merely use the models for a few tuning, modeling needs here and there. Many 500’s suffer from dreadful fretwork. Get that sorted out if it’s a problem and with a proper setup nothing wrong with a good old 500. It’s my preference out of all of the 1st generations because of the fixed bridge. I don’t like to use whammy/vibrato bridges very often.
  15. And to be a real nit-picking-A-hole, it’s a Vibrato mechanism. Vibrato is a periodic variation in the pitch (frequency) of a musical note. String tension up, string tension down like a floating guitar bridge/tailpiece = vibrato. In a sane and orderly electric guitar world, Tremolo describes a periodic variation in volume. Play something that rings/sustains and roll your volume control up/down while it decays. That's Tremolo in the guitar sense. It’s very common and widespread to mix up using these terms. I would place most of the blame on early guitar amp makers using the term Vibrato to describe some of their amp models, built-in effects. Analog, vacuum tube circuits find it very very difficult to create true Vibrato (pitch) effect. I believe only one tube Amp maker ever employed a true vibrato effect? Magnatone, IIRC?
  16. Start here brother - http://line6.com/support/page/kb/_/guitars/variax-guitars-bass-workbench/ You'll need some sort of USB interface to connect to the guitar VDI port. There's an older USB standalone device can be found or some people use POD's to connect. I don't know for certain about Win 10 but I connect old "legacy" Variax's running Mac Yosemite. I bet Win 10 can work with the right configurations?
  17. Of course, any little thing will make some difference. But obviously magnetic properties of metals shouldn’t impact piezo sensors as they do magnetic coil pickups. For Variax piezo’s I believe the acoustic properties of strings have the most influence. ‘Never used those types mentioned but I went through a phase on Vax 500 with flat wound D’Addario Chromes. Plain 3rd. It greatly impacted the modeling tones compared to round wound strings. Mostly a “cool thingâ€, definitely more like you’d expect flat wounds to sound compared to the “piano like†boing of round wound strings. Brought out some interesting timbres with acoustic models as I recall? Sorta Norman Blake dead’ish string Martin Dreadnaught tones? The jazz models really woke up with flats too.
  18. You may have a failed or damaged E1 piezo? I would try gently tapping on the suspect saddle using something fairly hard (screwdriver tip, allen wrench, etc) with volume cranked up and compare output to the other saddles? Percussive tap can sometimes better help reveal if the pickup is almost completely dead? Doesn't hurt anything to try software adjustments but if that's really out-of-whack probably best to open a support ticket and let the good pros help you track it down? Especially under 2 months new, warranty and all of that...
  19. I think I've used copy/paste under EDIT menu in order to move models around to different preset locations?
  20. Early generations Variax (acoustic/electric) from Korea were not known for very good fretwork. A good D&P (dress & polish) should fix it up though. Enjoy the technology, many of us do!
  21. I find a lot of value in the older Variax models. If setup playability can be made right and the electronics work to spec, acoustic 700 is a helluva value, IMO. If you’re getting back into playing out live remember that Variax acoustic models across all versions need Full Range amplification to sound right. Basically, DI the mixer/house, acoustic amp, keyboard amp, etc. I think people use the term FRFR (full range full response)? The old days of using a Barcus Berry type piezo or sound hole acoustic guitar pickup into an electric guitar amp doesn’t really cut it with Variax acoustic model sounds. Acoustic models seems to be created/captured/sampled as microphone recordings so I treat the sound much like a post-preamp microphone signal. Only thing is, you don’t risk feedback or excessive microphonic’s on live gigs. Obviously, recording is another great application. I frequently cut acoustic guitar tracks and very talented pros don’t notice they originate from Variax digital source. In fact, majority say something glowing about my acoustic guitar tracks. I’m lucky to have many wonderful acoustic guitars but I can’t get close to the mic sound of Variax acoustic models at my recording locations. One minor con about acoustic Variax IMO is that they have more acoustic volume than the electric body guitars. When using digital tunings “acoustic†ambient sound bleeding into your ears can make for some funny sounds in your head. Closed can headphones or IEM buds can isolate that pretty well but it’s something to note. The Acoustic 700 behaves slightly better with the wrapped 3rd (G) string than compared to the electric body acoustic models that usually use plain 3rd string. But the bottom line here is that you’re not likely to lose much, if any, money buying a good working used Variax. Just don’t get carried away with price. Check completed eBay listings for similar guitars and keep purchase price around those numbers and somebody will always want that guitar if you ultimately don’t care for it? I think people owe it to themselves to find out if Variax is right for them? Any good working Variax is a good Variax, IMO.... Here's ruff clips of "Stop Dragging My Heart Around" using "obsolete" Variax for both acoustic tracks: DraggingAcoustic16s.mp3 DraggingAcoustic5s.mp3
  22. Link sends to search page and this message: One or all of your search keywords were below 3 characters or you searched for words which are not allowed, such as 'html', 'img', etc, please increase the length of these search keywords or choose different keywords.
  23. Time to make up a 1/4" plug/cable with alligator clips on one end - attach to the bridge pickup wires where they connect to PCB and/or selector switch directly and feed that to an amplifier. I once discovered a bad pickup selector on a Strat guitar with the trusty alligator clips to 1/4" phono. Take the battery out of the JTV59 to avoid possibly shorting any other circuitry.
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