bigmac11

UPDATE!! I have gotten a ton of gigs in and alot of playing time on my new 59 and wanted to update my critic of this beast. Since my first gig I have added the HD500 pedal to the mix and mainly run directly through our presonus board but on larger gigs I pulled out my Tech 21 60 watt amp to take the load off my monitor mix. I get more impressed every show of what this thing does for the performance. I have become adept at setting up different guitars, pickups, and electronics via the software which I have to admit is pretty impressive. To even be able to change out your pots and caps is very impressive for this old electronics tech and really fun to mix and match pick up styles. Over all I do not regret getting one of these at all. The one thing that line6 leaves out is for any utility player like myself is the ability to never let your show loose momentum due to switching guitars or messing around with stomp boxes. Our performances seem to be a more bit intense and never lags at all. It's still not my favorite feeling guitar to play but I dont mind strapping it on for 4 hours and the ease of use and the one click switching between songs makes a night flow seamlessly. Our other guitarist uses a Tom Anderson and its a really good example of an American made classic and the variax with some tweaking can sound almost as good. The neatest thing I have come across is after a show or between sets more people "guitarists" come up with a confused look on their faces espeically after I do a set that starts with a les paul sound, to a fender sound, to a hollow body, to an acoustic, to a banjo sound and they are confused on how its done. Have even been accused of tracking in a stringed part one night while using the banjo sound. Overall, a good investment and glad I got one. Had a tuning issue that the guitar was going out of tune quickly and found the problem to be the nuts on the tuning pegs were not tightened at the factory and didnt realize this till I put on a set of 11 gauge slinky's which really made the acoustic sounds much warmer and closer to a real acoustic. I might end up with 12's before the year is out. If you are on the fence about buying one of these just remember that you do gain a ton of versatility in the sounds, reduced physical equipment to load in and out, and if you work with the software and interfaces you can create some pretty close sounds that can cover tons of music styles. you dont have to have the hd500's because I originally used the HD pod pedal on the first shows and it worked great but the 500 series does give you some features that the others dont. Maybe one day I will get the amp that goes with this but the extremely neutral tech 21 amp works great with any type of modeling pedals and guitars on the market.

I have a 12 string Alvarez that has tremendous acoustic volume levels. When I put all 12 strings on it the low E and A strings were dominating the higher pitched strings. So I take off the Low E and A higher pitched companion strings and pretty much make this guitar a 10 string. The balance was beautiful. Can you do this with Workbench? I posted in the suggestion forums about custom trimming strings off the 12 string models and if this was possible.

Actually I like this idea. I wouldn't use it much but I never used the parlor guitar sound. Just replace it with the nylon strings. I would even like to see a string gauge selection patched in. would be nice to be able to play with 13 gauge strings sound using 10's.

yes, you are correct. Thanks for the clarifacation. I am looking for a 500 series pedal currently and I already have the newer floor board pedal that would control one.

Are there any difference between these two except for the designs?

try adjusting the saddle towards the bridge to increase the downward tension on it. I lowered my bridge and had the same problem with my low E string. I set it back a bit and now works fine.

I lowered my action by dropping the bridge a bit and this happened to me because the downward tension on the peizio had lessened. Use the allen wrench with the ball end to adjust it back toward the tail piece to put the tension back on the pickups saddle. Do this while its plugged up to an amp so you can actually hear the difference. The volume will increase as you adjust it and the tone will return. You can definately test if its an electronics problem or a manual problem by switching between the piezio pickup and the magnetic pick ups. The mag pickups should be consistant on tone and volume while the piezio will change while adjusting it.

Yeah, I just got the 59 version. Thats what I was basing the review off of. The last show I used it and didnt bother bringing a back up guitar. Just plugged into a line6 xt live pedal straight to our presonus board. Out of the box was good except for a few action issues. I have readjusted the saddle a bit to speed up the action and had to readjust the low E string piezio pickup to make it louder. I still think that line6 should be pushing more to the utility players and start picking up that business. I have to switch between 2 tuned strats, an acoustic, and a banjo and it was nice just turning a knob to change that instead of worrying about crossing signal cables up. overall I like the guitar and getting aclimated to the new neck took about a set to settle in. As far as comparing them to the real things I have the 25th anniversary strat and two 1970 fender super reverbs set up in my house. Thats a sound thats going to be hard to emmulate. I also have a parker nite fly which is an amazing guitar itself. Talk about fast.

thanks for the help, worked like a charm when I used both cables.

you can get the rebate from other places also. just have a copy of your original receipt, the upc code off your box, and has to be a line6 dealer. you can download the rebate ticket from line6.

I think this nailed my problem. I couldnt get it to light up on the knobs and I think this will fix it.

I am rarely impressed with most guitars on the market. As a matter of fact the 25th anniversary was the last fender I felt deserved the name short of the Robert Cray version. I really think line6 is missing the marketing mark with modeling guitars of this quality. They need to stop demos that only have guys shredding and doing leads and start marketing the rhythem and utility players more. Thats where the strength of this type of guitar lies. I am under no illusion that a modeling guitar will ever match a real les paul, strat, or tele plugged to a tube amp using analog pedals. No matter how good they get with the software. This though is probably the best answer for all of us who have to cover a lot of ground on stage with tons of equipment.

1/4 inch you say? I was using the variax cable.

You also have to have a copy of the original sales ticket, and an original UPC code on the bottom of the box also. They will not accept a copy of the UPC code.

when you say switch on, what do you mean?

I broke my own cardinal sin about using new equipment on a gig without trying it out first but I wanted to get my JT into action as soon as possible. First some back story. I play rhythem guitar in a 5 piece bar band and play a lot of utility playing between banjos, acoustics and electric fenders so you can guess why I bought this thing. I got the guitar this past friday at 2:30 PM and the show started at 9 pm that night. Now I ususaly play a 25th anniversary strat through a rack mount pod xt pro and back through a Tech 21 60 amp, the banjo direct boxed, and my tachamenie acoustic through my ART SGX 2000 rack processor. The whole goal was to shrink what I brought to a show. I ended up playing my variax through my xt pro live pedal and pumping it back through my 15 inch monitor and not use an amp. I brought just a pedal, and a laptop to monitor which guitar modeling I was using because I was not familiar to any of the selection process and had no clue which guitar I was using unless I looked at the laptop screen to show me which one. That was kind of nice and my band mates thought I was nuts. They were asking if my other guitars were broke or stolen. Now to the first impressions. Even though I had about a sound check to pick which sounds to use...which were the special special on bridge pick up, the j200, and one of the 12 string sounds. the pod xt live has banks 17 through 20 that are for variax guitars and I uses a couple of presets already in the pedal. As far as sounds I was pleasantly suprised how out of the box it sounded. It did give me a heavier sound than my strats but not too much growl after a quick tweak on the stomp box selections. What did blow me and my band mates away were the acoustic sounds. They were sweet, espeically the j200 settings. The 12 string sounded a little thin but you have to remember I did no setups on sounds due to the lack of time. The guitar neck was a bit wider than I am used to but played very well. I have to do some setup work to tweak it out but overall was very nice to play. They need to change the string selection from the factory because the strings that come with it are a bit stiff. A set of Ernie Ball Slinky's feel so much better on the neck. The only complaint I would have to say was this guitar is not set up for fast rhythem work. There are a few songs where I have to cover chords fast and have to slide a bunch of chords fast and either I wasnt use to the neck width or its just not a neck for fast rhythems. I will update later if I get it worked out. Overall impressions...I liked it, band mates where blown away after they heard the versatility of this thing, and at the load out I was done in about 7 minutes with 4 of them were winding cables. I will end up with a 500 or 500x eventually to expand the quick switching between settings and guitars. The sounds were about an 8 out of 10 out of the box, the setup about a 7 out of 10, the playability for rhythem 6 out of 10 but of course I am comparing this to a 1979 25th anniversary stratocaster which is the fastest rhythem guitar in the world I think, and ease of use a 9 out of 10 once you get past the learning curve. I am doing the next 5 gigs with this guitar only and will up date my numbers ( or down grade) of the overall personal feel of this guitar.

Using the hd version of the software with my line 6 xt live pedal. I have tried to go direct with the hardware that came with the guitar but cant get the green light on the guitar side of the connector. Thanks for the clarification of using the xt live to connect. Will the 500x connect to the computer and the guitar?

I just got the 59 and upgraded and downloaded all software. Everytime I try to use the workbench is crashes back to desktop. I am using the jtv59 and the pod xt live pedal.