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My JTV 59 has started playing really pronounced ghost notes over the 3rd string, when it's open or when I fret anywhere along it, it does a very similar thing for the 2nd string but not so pronounced, and again for the 1st string but again less pronounced. Each of these strings appear to have made a tiny groove for themselves in the piezo saddles and I am wondering if it's these grooves that are causing the ghost notes ringing out? If I rest my palm in front of the saddles and partially mute the strings when I play then I can significantly reduce the sound of the ghost ringing notes but not completely eliminate them. If I play the guitar without amplifying it then I hardly notice any ghost notes or ringing on these strings, but through an amp or an HD500X or HELIX LT, the ghost note ringing really stand out and ruins the overall sound. Has anyone else had this problem? And if so, has anyone found a way to fix it? It's currently making my JTV 59 unusable for gigs or recordings or playing through any type of amp - it's only bearable using it unplugged. :(

Hi Alll: Trying to fix ghost notes in alt. tuning in my Variax Standard. Re-flashed to latest FW. Trying to restore factory defaults. Fully charged battery. Pickup selector switch in middle position. Hold down model selector knob.Insert 1/4" plug, as per Manual. Then: nothing. No LEDs. Any ideas as to what I should try next? Thanks in advance!

Hi guys, Last night I was fiddling with my Variax after I'd had it set up professionally by my luthier and came across a weird noise artifact when using alternate tunings. This was especially a problem for me as I play mainly in Drop C#. After trawling the forums and trying the following: *Reflashing FW *Adjusting pickup/bridge height to avoid magnetic "pull" *Trying VDI cable and Regular cable *Checking HD500x settings I was at a loss as to why suddenly there was this ghosting of notes amking alt tunings unplayable. I raised a ticket and then happened to message a high profile Variax user who is local to me and on my Facebook. He made mention of ensuring good contact between string/bridge and also a comment about string tension. I replied that I would change the (Already new) strings again just to remove one more possibility. He then said "Try less string on the machinehead" This morning when I went to restring, I noticed that my luthier had wound heaps of string onto the machine heads. I use this method of stringing a guitar (Look at the "Vintage tuners" section a bit down the page), which means you have very few winds (Generally less than 2) on the machinehead. When you pass the string under itself, it "self-locks" and doesn't require a bunch of winds to "grip" the machinehead. Tuned up and viola, no more ghost notes! I rang my luthier and had a chat to him about it, and he said that the reason he winds so much is to ensure the strings pass on vibration through the headstock. In my opinion, this appears to be what the problem is. The guitar is resonating with the true frequency of the strings, and this is why you hear the ghost notes. I'm not here to get into an argument about the best way to string a guitar, but in 24 years I have tried many, many different mays to wind strings, and after I got this guide in my PRS case, I use it for 14 out of 16 of my guitars, and the exceptions are my two classicals. TL;DR: Try less winds around your machineheads.

Long time Vx and JTV Vx user. I have an HD500X Recently I downloaded a lot of patches from another POD user. His patches were all made with the HD500 and had the .h5e file extension. I changed the file extensions manually to .5xe and opened them in my 500X. The sound just fine...except. For those patches ONLY my JTV vx alt tuning bleeds through both the original note and the alternate tuned note. I'm 100% certain I'm not just referring to ambient string sound. I've been using Vx's since 2005 so I'm familiar with the issue. Plus it works just fine on any patches I've created by myself or that originally had the .5xe extention. Is this common? Is there some way to convert these patches? Could this be what's causing the ghost note issue others have described. He had a lot of them and they're very good.