spmartin

I have begun exploring alternate tunings pretty recently. I remember what a big Aha it was when I realized that a bunch of the Stones songs were done in Open G. Why I did not know that years ago is a mystery. Do yourself a favor and play with DADGAD a bit. There are some great intro videos on youtube. It's a magical sound. The other one I like is "Nashville Tuning". I have a separate guitar set up for that tuning - because it requires special strings. On the Variax, I just turn a knob. Sweet.

Thanks BigChas52. I have re-installed the firmware. Did not seem to make a difference. I would think that it is a piezo pickup, but it works fine in standard tuning. Just gets whacky in alt tunings. Also, the strings that have the ghost notes vary from DADGAD to Blues G etc. Strange. I opened a support ticket with Line 6, and sent them a link to the audio file. We'll see what they say. You have none of these issues?

Thanks for your feedback. Magnetics Blend is off. I just uploaded the new recording. Check it out.

Here is a new recording. https://soundcloud.com/smartin1008/ghost-notes This has 3 samples all recorded directly into Garageband using Apogee Jam interface. 1)All 6 strings, in standard tuning, using magnetic pickups. 2) All six strings, in standard tuning, using piezo on T-Model setting. 3)All six strings using Piezo pickup on DADGAD tuning. Other alternative tunings have other strings with pronounced ghost notes also.

I plan to contact Line6 today to see what they can tell me. (wish me luck with them). Also, maybe the techs at Sweetwater will have some ideas. According to my sales rep, they have sold about 2,500 of these Variaxes. They must have heard about this issue. I even tried recreating the DADGAD tuning using the virtual capo function. I believe it helped clear up the high B string a bit. It's still way off.

Thanks Clay-man. Link should be fixed now. Here is an updated URL. http://snd.sc/15S79pw BTW, I do have dampening material under my strings in back of the nut (thanks to a post on this forum). Did not seem to make any difference. Thanks for pointing it out though! Now I gotta hit the sack..1:15am on the east coast!

O.K. for anyone interested in hearing these strange notes, I recorded a sample. Again, thanks in advance for any ideas. This was recorded clean using a Yamaha THR10 and an Apogee MiC. http://goo.gl/2oaVhr

I have not seen this posted on the forum, so I thought I would post it. I wondered how long it would take to charge a battery from dead to when the red light flashes. I just timed it at 3.5 hours. (give or take a few minutes!) For any of our international members, this was on a 110 volt ac outlet.

Tomorrow I will make a recording and post it to SoundCloud. Then, I'll put a link here.

Mr_Arkadin - the sound is present in headphones. Thanks for the suggestion Toneman2121 - I don't happen to have a new battery, but the one I have is fully charged, and seems to work well.

Thanks for your help. If I don't get a response, I will just call Sweetwater, or Line 6.

O.K. I have a weird problem. If this is the wrong thread, please redirect me to anyone who would be able to help. When using the piezo pickups, on standard tuning, everything sounds fine on all models. However, when I move into, say, DADGAD, then my high B and E strings both sound like they've got ghost notes. I've tried to modify it in Workbench with no luck. These ghost notes appear in many of the alt tunings. I have also put a damper behind the nut to see if that would help. Any insights from anyone? I am a novice at this Variax thing. I've had it about a week. The "stellar" line 6 documentation does not seem to give me any clues. Any help will be greatly appreciated!! Thanks. Steve

Larry, I just got my JTV-69s a few days ago. I too had the problem with the tremolo unit "popping out" when I changed the strings. Very weierd - and difficult for one person to re-assemble. But, I did and it works fine. My question for you is related to ghost notes. I seem to get ghost notes most often on the high E string on alternate tunings like DADGAD. It does not appear on Standard tuning. So, in your post you mentioned that you used heat shrink material under your strings. I'd love to know how you placed it there. On the JTV-59, I can see that it would be easy, but not so on the JTV-69. If you have a small photo you could post, that would be great. Did you eliminate the ghost notes with this? Thanks in advance. Steve

In the past I have considered buying a used James Tyler Variax, but what stopped me was the thought of an internal computer board going bad, and it not being covered by a warranty. Maybe this does not happen very often. But, does anyone know the retail cost of replacing the internal parts? I ended up buying a new one from Sweetwater - with their wonderful 2 year warranty.

Must be Crossroads Guitar Shop. I've been wanting to get two of my guitars Plekked there. Just have not sprung for the time and money to have it done. I'm in Lexington, VA. As far as your nut that's cut too deeply. I know on a bone nut, you can take some bone dust and mix it with a little water-like super glue and fill it in a bit. Then when it is dry, re -file it. With a Tusq nut, I imagine you could do the same thing. Any luthier shop would probably have a scrap piece they would give you.

As always, I am astounded by the poor level of quality control for a guitar that costs $1,400. You never hear of this with PRS SEs or even Fender Squiers, and they are much less expensive. Is there anything more disheartening than getting a NEW guitar home and having a problem with it??

This is a truly beautiful guitar. One question - is it the Korean or USA model? Thanks!