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Dead G String...


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Hello all!  Of course we never visit until we have a problem, eh?  I'll start by saying that I have a JTV59 which I love and is my main gigging instrument.  It replaced my Variax 500 which I used for over ten years...  So..  I've been using this guitar for about a year and a half and tonight...  I lost all dsp signal from the G string.  I'm severely bummed!  I literally cannot perform without this guitar!  My whole show revolves around it...

 

What the heck am I going to do?

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It's most likely a dead piezo on the G string. It's the pill looking metal things on the bridge. They are what's used for the modeling.

 

You will need to have it either cleaned or replaced. If you have the guitar under warranty, send it in to get repaired.

 

If it's out of warranty, you probably want to first try cleaning the piezo. If you lift it out of the saddle and clean it and the pocket with either electronic contact cleaner or rubbing alcohol, it can help fix grounding problems.

 

If that does nothing, it needs replaced. You can order a piezo element from Fullcompass. You will have to know how to solder to replace it. Just a simple swap, nothing too hard. It's more frustrating taking apart the bridge than it is to solder the piece in, honestly.

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I had the same thing happen with my 59 the first summer (2011) I had it -- they had a problem with their first subcontractor casting & plating the 59 bridge. My bridge started corroding, and that affected the case ground contact between the low E piezo on mine, where you lay your sweaty hand. I had several conversations with Rich Renken at the time. He ended up sending me a new bridge. I could tell they changed their parts vendor, as the casting marks were different. It has remained as bright and non-corroded since then -- 4 years out now. I've never had any piezo issues with my 69S I purchased in Oct 2012.

 

One design problem I see with using the case of the piezo for the ground path is the contact issues with the bridge. The printed circuit board (PCB) on the Variax guitars all have 2 contact pads - hot & ground, but the piezos they use have a hot lead and case ground. My 300 has the B string lose contact in humid environs and fade away. It comes back when I have it back in my air-conditioned house.

 

One forum member soldered wire leads to the piezo cases and soldered those to the pcb ground pads. I would be cautious as you could fry a piezo if you us too hot a soldering iron -- it takes some skill to keep the temps down and still get solder to bond properly. Other piezo mfr's units have 2 leads rather than a single and relying on the case ground. L6 would pretty much nip this problem in the bud if they would spec their piezos with 2 leads and make an explicit soldered ground path...

 

This problem could show up again for you, but at least you know the deal now, and how to rejuvenate the dead string, which is a good thing. There are other threads here on the forums on this. You may want to read up on others' experiences.

 

Dave

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I'm glad you resolved the problem! It's possible that it can happen again, but cleaning technically should get any grime that could cause the piezo case to not touch the saddle to ground it.

 

If it ever gets really bad, you can always buy a new piezo. If you have a 69, the link you had was the right piezo. I think a 59 uses the same one too, but the 89 uses a graphtech piezo.

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I had some flaky behavior on my 500 due to bad grounding.  I finally replaced with Graphtech piezos and it is way better than stock now. (and it's 10 years old)

 

The problem is that there's not really a graphtech set that can adapt to a JTV guitar. The old Variaxes were fine, but you'll have alignment issues if you try to put them on a JTV, as demonstrated by someone who did just that to his JTV 69.

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