I figured out how to get rid of the "tang, quack, ping"!

[stumblinman]

I've been beating my head against a wall trying to figure out how to get rid of the last bit of piezo high frequency noise that has been such a thorn in my side with these JTV's. And it's super simple:

 

 

Turn the tone knob down to 7 or 8

 

Makes the mags cleaner as well. Cuts that shrill top end that seems to come out in the models. I am assuming part of it is my setup, but even a clean patch with simply an amp loaded had the issue. So now there's a slight top end cut, which filters those frequencies out, and I can just leave it alone for the mags too.

I can add some clarity with a little more treble on the amp and not hurt the guitar tone at all. I'm so stoked!

[Brazzy]

I've been beating my head against a wall trying to figure out how to get rid of the last bit of piezo high frequency noise that has been such a thorn in my side with these JTV's. And it's super simple:

 

Great discovery, I may not have figured that out right away either. I don't have a Variax or JTV......yet, but i do have an Ibanez exotic wood acoustic with the piezo and I know what your talking about. These pick ups are very sensitive for sure. It takes all I got to knobulate the piezo plunk out, lol.

[stumblinman]

Ya, I've tried all sorts of guitar dampers and workbench changes, but it's still there. I can't believe how simple it was to fix. Live and learn lol.

 

 

Great discovery, I may not have figured that out right away either. I don't have a Variax or JTV......yet, but i do have an Ibanez exotic wood acoustic with the piezo and I know what your talking about. These pick ups are very sensitive for sure. It takes all I got to knobulate the piezo plunk out, lol.

[stumblinman]

Update: I've started editing my models in workbench HD to simply back the tone knob off to between 7.5 and 9 depending on the pickups and locking them there and this guitar sounds so much better. It almost seems like the tone controls are just too trebly in general. Started using lighter picks, which was an adjustment as well, but now I'm pretty happy. Had practice last week and ran straight to PA for the first time, and everything sounded great.

[clay-man]

Turning down tone does help, but it makes the rest of the tone muddy. The initial attack on the E is the problem. It shouldn't be something we have to "tweak" out to get it to go away.

[stumblinman]

I'm pretty happy with the tone even when slightly backed off. But I wholeheartedly agree we shouldn't have to work around their shortcomings. It doesn't take much to remove it with the tone knob like this, so why can't they come up with some sort of low pass filter or something? If they can improve the palm muting portion, this should be in the same realm.

[clay-man]

I'm pretty happy with the tone even when slightly backed off. But I wholeheartedly agree we shouldn't have to work around their shortcomings. It doesn't take much to remove it with the tone knob like this, so why can't they come up with some sort of low pass filter or something? If they can improve the palm muting portion, this should be in the same realm.

 

Does EVERYONE have the E string plunking attack noise to SOME degree? If so, then yes, they need to fix the modeling to get rid of that noise. 

 

Otherwise, they need to know how to physically fix the problem. I still blame the piezo pickups having inconsistent quality.

[cruisinon2]

Does EVERYONE have the E string plunking attack noise to SOME degree? If so, then yes, they need to fix the modeling to get rid of that noise.

 

Otherwise, they need to know how to physically fix the problem. I still blame the piezo pickups having inconsistent quality.

No, everyone does not have the problem. I have no plunking, and I never did. I use a lot of fairly high gain tones, and I play 11's. So if heavier strings with higher tension were the culprit, plus lots of gain, this thing should be "plunking" me right out of me chair. But it's not.

 

I suspect that there is more than one cause, perhaps sometimes a combination of things that contribute to it, and that's why we see it in some guitars and not others.

 

I seriously doubt that there's ever gonna be any epiphanies, or "ah ha!" moments until the technology gets a little more consistent.

 

Seems that either you get lucky or you don't. Not a terribly satisfying realization, but it's no less likely than any of the other guesses that get thrown around.

[clay-man]

No, everyone does not have the problem. I have no plunking, and I never did. I use a lot of fairly high gain tones, and I play 11's. So if heavier strings with higher tension were the culprit, plus lots of gain, this thing should be "plunking" me right out of me chair. But it's not.

 

I suspect that there is more than one cause, perhaps sometimes a combination of things that contribute to it, and that's why we see it in some guitars and not others.

 

I seriously doubt that there's ever gonna be any epiphanies, or "ah ha!" moments until the technology gets a little more consistent.

 

Seems that either you get lucky or you don't. Not a terribly satisfying realization, but it's no less likely than any of the other guesses that get thrown around.

 

Line 6 needs to reverse engineer a problemed guitar until it resolves. Remove and replace hardware until it's diagnosed. 

This is a serious problem that can seriously break or make a Variax. 

 

I almost never use the Lester model in E standard because of this. 

 

Also, in high gain models, do you use a tube screamer in front? Tube screamer will cause it to show up really really well. 

Tube screamer -> High gain is a huge essential to a tight metal tone.

 

For me, all strings sound fine except for the E, that pingy attack. The sound shows up as well if you scrape where you're picking with your pick. It's some kind of frequency overtone.

 

 

There is a slight possibility that it could also have something to do with the nut as the plink sound goes away when fretting 2nd and higher on the E string of my guitar on the lester model.

[snhirsch]

On my JTV-69, it's the high E that has clinky, pingy issues.  The best way to describe it is that there's no real "body" to it.  I think the characteristics of the LR Baggs transducers vary wildly from unit to unit.  World Instruments (OEM) should select and/or grade them at production time to ensure a tone and gain match across all strings. 

 

I've thought about installing GraphTech pickups, but based on reports from another person on these forums it sounds like some moderately serious machine work would be required.  At a minimum, the bridge plate would need to be milled down and reslotted for the height screws on the GT units.  I don't know what material it's made out of, but this probably implies a need to replate it as well.  Not a trivial undertaking.

[cruisinon2]

Line 6 needs to reverse engineer a problemed guitar until it resolves. Remove and replace hardware until it's diagnosed.

This is a serious problem that can seriously break or make a Variax.

 

I almost never use the Lester model in E standard because of this.

 

Also, in high gain models, do you use a tube screamer in front? Tube screamer will cause it to show up really really well.

Tube screamer -> High gain is a huge essential to a tight metal tone.

 

For me, all strings sound fine except for the E, that pingy attack. The sound shows up as well if you scrape where you're picking with your pick. It's some kind of frequency overtone.

 

 

There is a slight possibility that it could also have something to do with the nut as the plink sound goes away when fretting 2nd and higher on the E string of my guitar on the lester model.

Tube screamer is not my favorite...Plus I'm really not looking to create a problem when there is none,lol. If ya try hard enough, you can make the best rig in the world sound like boiled arse...but why would you?

 

Pulling apart a problem guitar until it works as advertised is all well and good, but unless there really is one single, as yet undiscovered cause...and I really don't think that's likely...all they will have accomplished is fixing one axe. Won't help anybody else if there's a combination of things that might go wrong. That being the case, they're just gonna continue to do what they're doing...evaluating problem instruments as they appear.

 

Sometimes there's only one solution...and sometimes that solution sucks.

[slockrem]

On my JTV-69, it's the high E that has clinky, pingy issues.  The best way to describe it is that there's no real "body" to it.  I think the characteristics of the LR Baggs transducers vary wildly from unit to unit.  World Instruments (OEM) should select and/or grade them at production time to ensure a tone and gain match across all strings. 

 

I've thought about installing GraphTech pickups, but based on reports from another person on these forums it sounds like some moderately serious machine work would be required.  At a minimum, the bridge plate would need to be milled down and reslotted for the height screws on the GT units.  I don't know what material it's made out of, but this probably implies a need to replate it as well.  Not a trivial undertaking.

There were definitely some mods required to go graph tech on my 59, however on the 69 you may want to investigate.  They state on their site:

 

  Can I replace the saddles on my Line6 Variax with ghost saddles?

You can replace the LR Baggs saddles on your Strat-style Variax bridge with Graph Tech ghost saddles (PN-8000-00). These are made of String Saver composite material, and house pickups similar to the ones that came with your Variax. Unfortunately, at the present time we do not offer saddles that are compatible with the wraparound design.

 

Even though the don't say JTV, I think that is what they are referring to since they mention the wrap around bridge also.  Just a thought.  If that is indeed the case, a very easy solder job would have you up and running.  Email their tech support.....they were very helpful

[clay-man]

There were definitely some mods required to go graph tech on my 59, however on the 69 you may want to investigate.  They state on their site:

 

  Can I replace the saddles on my Line6 Variax with ghost saddles?

You can replace the LR Baggs saddles on your Strat-style Variax bridge with Graph Tech ghost saddles (PN-8000-00). These are made of String Saver composite material, and house pickups similar to the ones that came with your Variax. Unfortunately, at the present time we do not offer saddles that are compatible with the wraparound design.

 

Even though the don't say JTV, I think that is what they are referring to since they mention the wrap around bridge also.  Just a thought.  If that is indeed the case, a very easy solder job would have you up and running.  Email their tech support.....they were very helpful

 

This is referring to the old Variaxes. Do not use this information on a JTV.

[clay-man]

Tube screamer is not my favorite...Plus I'm really not looking to create a problem when there is none,lol. If ya try hard enough, you can make the best rig in the world sound like boiled arse...but why would you?

 

Pulling apart a problem guitar until it works as advertised is all well and good, but unless there really is one single, as yet undiscovered cause...and I really don't think that's likely...all they will have accomplished is fixing one axe. Won't help anybody else if there's a combination of things that might go wrong. That being the case, they're just gonna continue to do what they're doing...evaluating problem instruments as they appear.

 

Sometimes there's only one solution...and sometimes that solution sucks.

 

That's preference, though. You can create a problem if you try, yes, but that's not the point. A Tube Screamer - > High Gain is not a problem, it's a situation that should be usable. A lot of people use a tube screamer as a boost, and it usually tightens up the attack of your picking.

 

If it's normal sounding on magnetics it should be normal sounding on the Variax.

[snhirsch]

If you search on this forum you should be able to find a posting from last year describing the issues encountered on a JTV-69 refit.  The 69 bridge plate has pairs of milled slots to locate the height adjust screws.  The GraphTech bridge pieces have either a different center-to-center spacing for these screws or the screws themselves are too large in diameter to seat properly in the slots (cannot recall the exact details at this point).  If memory serves, there was also an issue with alignment of the intonation screws.  The bridge pieces are longer than the originals and the holes need to be enlarged or redrilled to properly accomodate a steep angle.

 

All this aside, GraphTech does not officially carry a set of pickups that are all offset to the left from the intonation screw.  The original poster had to arrange a special order to get this arrangement. 

[slockrem]

This is referring to the old Variaxes. Do not use this information on a JTV.

Thanks for the clarification, the inclusion of the wraparound is what thew me.  

 

If you search on this forum you should be able to find a posting from last year describing the issues encountered on a JTV-69 refit.  The 69 bridge plate has pairs of milled slots to locate the height adjust screws.  The GraphTech bridge pieces have either a different center-to-center spacing for these screws or the screws themselves are too large in diameter to seat properly in the slots (cannot recall the exact details at this point).  If memory serves, there was also an issue with alignment of the intonation screws.  The bridge pieces are longer than the originals and the holes need to be enlarged or redrilled to properly accomodate a steep angle.

 

All this aside, GraphTech does not officially carry a set of pickups that are all offset to the left from the intonation screw.  The original poster had to arrange a special order to get this arrangement. 

It's a shame that they don't, they really are a great combination