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Hi. I switched from Variax 600 to JTV-59 TSB and find some problems for which I hope somebody can enlighten me. Using input 1 "Variax Mags" and input 2 "Variax" seems to lift the signal, so I have chosen "Aux" on second input path. Same on all patches which are using the modeling exclusively (bank 2). I use just one centered path, so path B is muted at all. But there are questions appearing... is "Aux" the best choise for a deaktivated signal-path? what happens in case 2 when I play 1/4 and batteries are weak? Is there still a mags-fallback, even if the second input is deactivated? My first bank is optimized for the mags. My 2nd bank is optimized for modeling. Both banks are configurated path-wise as described above... ...but why is the modeling-knob on the JTV enlighted, when I chosse patch C and D in my 1st bank? They seem to be configurated the same way as A and B :wacko: In my 2nd bank it is patch B where the light is off :unsure: :wacko: :blink: I am really confused at the moment :mellow: This behavior can be reproduced with or without USB/HD Edit connection.

This summer i baught a variax guitar (variax standard). I love the accoustic presets and have a lot of fun messing about in my homestudio, but lately ive seen tons of vids on youtube etc.. where people use the workbench to sorta make new guitars, tweaqes etc.. And i would LOVE to try that. Once i got the guitar i installed both the workbench and the linemonkey, but havnt tried any of them until today, and i cant get it to work :( So i was hoping someone could tell me what im doing wrong.. My set up is: The guitar is plugged into my "focusrite solo" with a standard electric guitar cable, the focusrite is plugged into my computer via USB. I have the guitar "on" with the lights glowing on model and tuning and fully charged battery. *I doubleclick the variax workbench symbol on my desktop and get a grey thingy that pops up and says "MIDI port error, the midi port you have selected could not be opened"- I dont think i have selected a midi port, but maybe my settings elsewhere is wrong, in my DAW i use the "Focusrite ASIO" (simply because it works well on my guitars, mics and even my midi-keyboard so maybe that is something? I then click "configure" and up comes a handful of drawings of guitars with an "X" and next to it it says " Microsoft GS wavetable synth" on OUT and "No device detected" next to the ones that doesnt say "variax". I have also downloaded and installed the USB driver called "Variax USB Interface Driver v1.0.7.2 Installer.exe". But things remain the same..Am i missing something? I had hoped it would pop right up after my guitar was plugged in and turned on.. Thanks in advance RobertAllan

Just picked up a helix this weekend and so far I'm loving it! First order of business was to recreate my main patch that I've been using for years on my HD500X. It's based on a Dr. Z model and I've been really happy tone wise. Quite honestly it was the additional features, routing, options, etc that drew me to Helix. I wasn't unhappy with my tone at all. So anyway I built the patch in Helix and thought it would be fun to A/B them. Here's a link to it on Soundcloud. Dr.Z amp and cab, some reverb, delay, and a couple of tube screamers. I'll take a few guesses on which is which before I say what's what, just for fun :) https://soundcloud.com/chuskey/helix-vs-hd500 Technical bits: Used a Variax via the VDI. Captured the dry signal via USB and reamped, so it's the same performance for both tracks.

I know - there were some threads dealing with that. But I would like to talk this up again in a more moderate way :P I am still owner of the 'old' dreamrig: JTV (Variax) --> POD HD (500) --> DT amp. POD HD is connected to computer via USB. This signal chain and workflow is really amazing! I can edit edit every part of the chain via PC and hear the 'final result' at once without regulary interrupting (annoying plugging / unplugging) the signal flow (no USB interface needed for editing Variax models). So, please :wub: (guess what...) :rolleyes: I know, it's on the Helix checking off list (as DI called it). To me, it'll be a wonderful christmas present - so this is on my 'Helix wish list' this year!

I'm a newb....just got my JTV 69 this week, so I hope this is just a stupid mistake on my part; I'm unable to access guitar models on positions 2 and 4 of my 5-way selector switch! I know according to the manual I should be able to access them on all positions. I'm able to assign models to those positions in work bench but on the guitar, when I switch to those positions, I still hear model 1 on 2, and model 3 on 4. Anybody have a clue what this is all about?

So today I discovered that the "Dry-Out" output on my POD HD PRO X doesn't work when I'm connected through Variax input. If I plug-in through the front "Guitar" input it'll work just fine. Am I missing something here? perhaps some configuration in the menus that will allow me to mirror Variax dry input straight to the "dry-out" output on the back of my POD HD PRO X? I'm hoping to use this output aside from both the L-R outputs for a live setting. Thanks in advance for any replies.

Clean piezo signal from JTV Idea Actions JTV guitars have a great option - to play with modelled sound or to use real pickups ("mags"). It would be useful to have the same opportunity for piezo pickups - to play with clean piezo sound without modelling You can vote here: http://line6.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Clean-piezo-signal-from-JTV/515946-23508

Hey stupid question probably but I am away from all of my Variax's and I would like to know if both the VDI and quarter inch outputs can produce output at the same time. I am asking because I use the VDI to control my patches and and use the output to my Helix but would like to send the dry signal (1/4) output to a TC Helicon voice harmonizer. I know I could use the helix to send an out but just curious as to whether the Variax could do it also. Thanks in advance! Lefty

So I finally got sick of my battery always being dead on my JTV59 and purchased the Variax Power Cable Kit, which is AWESOME!...with one semi-major flaw for me...I can't seem to find a good long-length TRS cable to use with it! I didn't realize initially that it needed a TRS until I received the included 15' cable. I have become a HUGE fan of braided cables and can't seem to find a good braided cable to use with the power kit. Anyone else have this problem and have you found a great braided cable to use? I'll post if I track something down for future forum members. -sd

I love my Variax standard and it's only being used for home use, I plug it into my spider amp ,and also use an old r.m.s acoustic amp for the acoustic side of things, my question is has anybody used one of the Yamaha thr amps with good results ? Also could I run my hd500x into the front of an thr ? . Thank you .

Hi all, New member to the forum here. I am the proud owner of a AMPLIFi 75 as well as M5 stompbox modeller (in addition to an obscene number of other guitars, amps and pedals! :-)). I presently have the opportunity to buy a Variax 500 guitar at a reasonable price and am wondering if there is any benefit to using such a guitar over just a regular electric guitar with the AMPLIFi 75? In other words, please give me a good excuse to add the Variax500 to my growing staple of guitars :-) Advance thanks for your thoughts and/or suggestions, Cheers, v281

Hopefully this will help those seeking solution to this same problem, I searched the forum and found nothing.......so hear it is; Two of the slits on the graphite nut had horrible slippage from day 1, UNbeliveable!!!! Mostly the high E string, just from picking the string it would POP right off the frigin nut!! and same for the D string only on bends around 2/3rd fret. Impatiently I started to hack away on it with a utility razor and still, finally I got the strings to stay put BUT now I have bad string buzz and neck and action/springs everything has been adjusted to various positions but....yes, I messed up and cut too deep. I have all the setup the way I like it but the high E buzz persist. Any one have the correct size info. for replacement NUT, so I can just replace it with a better one? I rather buy it my self then have to go through the warranty process and wait. Please HELP, thanx it advance.

Hey everyone, I'm new to the forums and - after much lurking - finally ready to build my dream guitar. Over the years, Line 6 has received quite a bit of my money. ;) So far, I have/had in my house the following products: - Variax 300 Acoustic - Variax 4-string bass - POD 2 with all the X3 updates - Pocket POD (will purchase on Friday) - POD UX 2 (will purchase this weekend) - Varix 300 Electric ... and if I had any more money, I'd probably spend it on some of the newer Line 6 products. :D Instead, like so many of you, I am looking forward to creating my own dream guitar with the electronics that I have in the Variax 300 (Electric). In the last 20+ years, I have used Ibanez guitars exclusively. Because my JS1000 is too thin for a transplant, I have decided to use a painted RG-type "semi"-blank (no Floyd, only humbucker and jack cavities so far) and an old GIO 25 1/2", 22-fret neck (square pocket) to build the guitar that I really want. Since wizard-luthiers Jeff Miller and Roosevelt Walker (midirose) have all but disappeared from the internet (and I don't have facebook :(), I only have you guys/gals to whom I can address my questions. I would appreciate it if some of my final questions could be answered; and that this list - given how comprehensive it - can help other future builders find their answers, too. --- Ok, here goes: Preparing the Body: 1.) Can I switch between magnetic pickups and the Variax 300 piezos by drilling an additional hole for a killswitch (thus not using them at the same time, of course)? 2.) If I can keep both the magnetic pickups and the Variax piezos, is this body thick enough to route the Variax 300 electronics from the back of the guitar? 3.) As you all know, the electronics of the Variax 300 come in a HUGE triangular shaped box (like a tin coffin). Can I pull the electronics from the coffin, so they fit better into the back cavity? 4.) Can I cut through the knob plate in order to facilitate the positioning of the knobs and the routing? 5.) I have seen a few back cavities in transplants that look like the letter "L" sideways. Any ideas where I can buy that type of template online? 6.) What's the best way to cover that type of "L" cavity? A ply of wood, or simply the material luthiers use for customized pickguards? I think the latter is less work... :P 7.) Do I have to drill 6 holes to hold the string ends, as it is the case for the Variax 300, or can I use a hardtail bridge with piezos (e.g. Graphtech Ghost)? 8.) If I can't figure out how to transplant the piezos from the saddle into a hardtail, how do I measure the Variax 300 "neck pocket - saddle - string hole" distance on a RG body? Does the distance matter? Electronics: 9.) If I cut the electronics into more sizeable pieces, do I need to isolate the cavities/parts with copper/conducive foil, to minimize noise and distortion? 10.) Can I connect my magnetic pickups directly to the Variax tone and volume knobs? (total: 1 tone + 1 volume + 1 model selector), or do I need separate knobs (total: 2 tone + 2 volume + 1 model selector)? 11.) Apart from a killswitch, is there another way to switch between the pickups on stage? 12.) One of my family members is a retired technician. He knows a lot about building TVs, radios and telephones. Will he be able to route the wires correctly? 13.) Are there any wiring templates for the "Variax 300 + two humbuckers" online? 14.) If everything above gets a green light, I'd then need to route/drill Back: - one "L" shaped cavity to hold the Variax 300 electronics - one rectangular cavity for the battery pack Side: - one bigger cavity for the dual Variax 300 jack Front: - two holes to hold the saddle with the piezos - six holes to hold the string ends - three holes for the Volume, Tone and Selector knobs, respectively - one hole for the humbucker selector switch (neck, n/b,bridge) - one hole for the piezo/humbucker killswitch - one small hole for the piezo ribbon that leads to the mainboard unit - two small holes for all the humbucker wires Is my math correct? --- Thanks again for all the help you are providing and for keeping their legacy products alive... one way, or the other. :) I'm looking forward to your answers. VX

Hi. When I record my Variax 600 in Cubase 8 AI, it leads to a gap at the beginning (like an enormous latency). I am using the POD HD500x which is USB-connected to an iMac. If I use a regular guitar everything is correct. The recording starts right at the beginning and listening to the live-tone and tempo-click everything sounds okay. But when the recording ends there is a gap of nearly 1 second since the tone starts and it ends with the same (here as an overlap). Any ideas? I will try to reproduce this behavior in Audacity later… EDIT: Don't know how to get rid of latency using Audacity. So, no way to reproduce the problem :(

If I get a nice, braided ethernet cable and connected some Neutrik ethercon ends, it seems like I could have a better VDI cable than is currently available in the market. But how can one activate the locking tab on the RJ-45 connectors with the Neutrik sleeve covering it? I know a few of you have made these already - do you have to break the tab off? Is it locked in the "open" position? Something else? Appreciate any insights y'all can provide. Cheers - Dan

I'm considering assembling a DT25 dream rig. In a nutshell, what are the advantages/disadvantages/differences between using an HD500 and HD500X. I know the "X" comes with more bells and whistles, but are those extras worth it from a dream rig perspective? I completely understand a lot depends on how much flexibility/how many features I may personally want. But like buying a cell phone, I don't want to pay for stuff that sounds impressive that in real world applications, I'll never use. As a point of reference, I primarily work in a touring act that does a tribute to the 60s Brit Invasion and American Classic Rock/Pop. However, I also work with an 80s tribute and sit in on shows that run the gamut from Standards to Metal. I currently have a Flextone III rig with JTVs. At present, I essentially use 6 basic user presets with different effect combinations. Working "globally" like this allows a generalize preset to work across most musical styles. Kind of a one size fits all strategy. Ultimately, I would like to be able to program custom presets for specific songs, and perhaps free up my hands from manual JTV switching between songs. Hoping to get some feedback from others who pondered the choice of HD Pod to get. Thanks!

Hey everyone, I was leading a rehearsal last night and was having some weird problems with my JTV. I use a Helix currently and earlier in the day had tweaked a couple patches and tried a few different guitar models, all with good results. I was however just using a 1/4 cable in my office. At rehearsal I switched over to the VDI to make sure my battery wouldn't die from playing a lot during the day and noticed a few different things: - Tuning - With the VDI cable, I was unable to get the guitar in tune. The tuner on the Helix looked fine, even just listening with my ears and the volume down sounded fine. But with the volume on (models and mags I think) the tuning was all over the place. Couldn't play a chord without sounding strange - EQ/Frequency/Phasing? - With the VDI I was also noticing that none of the sounds I had programmed were anywhere close to what I had worked on. I'm used to this a little bit with going from headphones to a floor wedge (through PA) but I could not believe how awfully different it was last night. It sounded as if I had no lows, extremely bright highs and a thin sound. After about a half an hour, I got fed up and grabbed a 1/4 in. cable (should've done sooner). All the problems were gone! I had my sounds back that I had been happy with. Has anyone had a similar issue? Upon a quick visual inspection, there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with the VDI and it shouldn't be the guitar if it all works well through the 1/4 in jack. Any advice or help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks

I own a Variax 69s that I purchased from Sweetwater in 2013. After I worked out a few bugs with ghost sounds I was pretty happy with what the guitar could do. In those early heady days I spent a good amount of time on this forum. It was exciting to check out everybody's adventures with this line of guitars (and new patches made by forum members). What I have felt for quite some time though is that Line 6 has all but forgotten us as a community of users/customers. The last significant update to the Workbench was the HD update way back in 2013. There have been incremental bumps in 2014 & 2015, but they seem to be more bug fixes or compatibility updates. Have there been new features offered in either the Workbench or through firmware updates to the guitar? Is there still a group of R&D folks at Line 6 that still care about the Variax customers? I thought maybe Yamaha would infuse the company with some new passion and smart engineers to revitalize the Variax's capabilities. They did manage to come out with the "standard", but the only new feature that offered (that I know of) was a lower price. I may be way off here. Am I missing something. If you feel the same way, or conversely, can point out what I am missing - please chime in. I'd love to find out that the company still thinks about us, and our Variax guitars occasionally. The silver lining in this is at least I did not purchase a "Made in the USA" version!!

I just got my VA 2 days ago and every time i put it in the 12 string mode on electric or acoustic, the low E and A string have terrible what sounds like fret buzz. I set the intonation I changed the strings. The neck is fine. None of the other Gtr models on my instrument have this problem. It seems that others are having this problem as well. For the price I paid for this thing the quality Control should be Must be needs to be better. Any suggestion on how to fix this problem.

I was wondering if there is a way to select the preconfigured custom tunings on the Variax that are assigned to the tuning selector dial? I know you can dial up a custom tuning with the Editor using the Custom setting but it seems like it would be a lot more convenient to be able to select for instance the "Open D" tuning from one of the already preconfigured alternate tunings on the Variax than having to dial it in string by string each time you design a Variax oriented Helix preset. Can this be done? I know I could use a template but it would be a lot easier and more flexible if I could just select one of the alternative tunings already set up on the Variax.

Hi, i may be a little late to the Variax party but I was finally convinced by the tuning capabilities to dive in and pick up a well looked after Accoustic 700. I know these are obsolete products now and i've had a bit of a blow off from Line 6 saying that I can send it across the country to be looked at and maybe it could be fixed... Anywho, My acoustic did not work straight out of the packaging and I thought I'd been dudded by the seller. I checked it out through the 1/4 inch battery powered option and I got nada... no LEDs and no sound. I then checked it via the RJ45 port through my xt live... surprise surprise it came to life. i gave it a good work out and it didn't miss a beat. Went back to the battery and nothing... I measured the voltage to the board, changed batteries and thought that that power cct must be knackered... Left for a business trip and returned a week later, thought I'd give it one more crack and it has now come to life! except that it sounds like a dying battery, all crackly on strong plucking. This isn't there through the VDI. I don't run two supplies concurrently after reading about it on here. What I am looking for is any service tips, schematics on this instrument in order to make sure i get a decent life out of this unit. i stumbled on a few threads from the archives which relates to power but hte links are all broken and hard to search. Is there anyone here that still dabbles with my model instrument? I'm capable with schematics and with an iron if necessary.

This info will probably be 101 type stuff for a lot of regulars on this forum in particular, but I had gotten some questions on my other patch videos about dual paths and stereo setups. So I made a video building a patch showing how to do this. If anyone has any questions about setting up dual paths this might be helpful.

Dear all, I've a few quick practical questions. 1- I see that Amplifi can successfully separate core guitar tone and effects, so as far as I understand, if I don't use any stereo effects or reverb etc. it only uses celestion speaker right? Or it also uses other 4 speakers even you have no effects and amp modeling (like bypassing modeling section)? 2- If I connect a multi-effects processor/amp modeler (pod hd500 for example) in "guitar-in" and use Amplifi as a speaker (again by-passing it's modeler section), does it use all five speakers or only celestion? 3- Is there any difference between connecting an amp modeler through guitar in vs. aux in regarding the speaker utilization, frequency range/distribution etc? 4- Elaborating question 3, if I connect variax through guitar in and use one of acoustic models, which speakers does Amplifi use, all speakers or only celestion?

I just got my VA 2 days ago and every time i put it in the 12 string mode on electric or acoustic, the low E and A string have terrible what sounds like fret buzz. I set the intonation I changed the strings. The neck is fine. None of the other Gtr models on my instrument have this problem. It seems that others are having this problem as well. For the price I paid for this thing the quality Control should be Must be needs to be better. Any suggestion on how to fix this problem.

Hello all I play my Helix on a Variax guitar, the JTV89F. I play classic rock covers and have the Helix set up with 2, 3 or 4 presets per song. I'm currently using the built in expression pedal as an output volume control and everything works fine. What I would like to do is free up the expression for other things (I know that the expression pedal is really 2 pedals in one but it is problematic when using the toe switch as it can affect the volume before and after the change). I have experimented with using the volume control on the Variax to control the volume block output but can't find a way to do that in a global way like you can with the built in expression pedal. I currently have the Variax tone and volume controls saved in each preset as I try to keep on stage adjustments to a minimum. The question is, is there a way to control the output volume of the Helix with the Variax volume knob that carries over from patch to patch?