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JTV-59 (Brand new 04/2017) Unable to use alternate tunings


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My JTV-59 was delivered about a month ago and the more I used it the more I realized that anything after Drop-D tuning on the selector nob was useless.

I was getting very loud ghost notes from the high E and B strings and none of the positions sounded anywhere as good as the standard and Drop-D tunings in any of the models.

I put a dampener under the strings behind the top nut and that did little to help. I also adjusted the string volumes in Workbench HD.

The problem was getting worse so I called Line-6 and the only thing they had for me was to re-flash which I did several times and it didn't help.

Because I'm on the road my incredible friends at Sweetwater sent me a replacement Overnight to the location I'm at. I received it and after the rehearsal I had

this afternoon I unpacked the new guitar and put my fully charged battery in it and what a surprise I got. It was worse than the original. The ghost notes were louder than the note it should have been playing. I have it plugged directly into my amp with no effects. I cant believe Line-6 is letting something like this get to the shelves. I know the replacement is from the same stocking shipment as the original guitar. I'm wondering if Line-6 in Korea ended up with a batch of bad circuit boards and used them anyway.

I love everything about the original guitar so I'm probably gonna send back the replacement.

Does anybody have any suggestions?

Thanks

Smitty

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it's likely, until proven otherwise, that the ghost notes you are hearing are actually the acoustic notes from the physical strings that remain in standard tuning. The natural string vibrations are heard by your ear as well as the amplified sound of the alternate tuning. It surprises most people that the ear can actually pick up the natural sound when it seems that the amplified sound should be dominant. You actually have to have the amplified sound very loud in order to drown this out.

 

A definitive test is to make a recording of an alternate tuning. Choose the alternate tuning that sounds worst to your ear. The recording will only contain the precessed sound from the guitar - it will not contain the sound of the physical string vibration. If the playback of the recording sounds fine (no ghost notes) then what I've described explains what you're hearing. If the playback of the recording also contains the ghost notes then there is an actual problem with the guitar.

 

Edit: This also explains why Drop-D tuning doesn't sound as bad as the others. Only one string is different so the effect of the single low E ghost note is not so prominent.

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If you're playing a lot of high gain, palm-muted stuff with the drop D alt tuning, you can have them ship you 100 guitars, and they're all gonna suffer from this. The problem is piezo crosstalk. Your hand creates a bridge across the strings when palm - muting, and vibrations from other strings (mostly the A) are being picked up by the low E piezo saddle, and detuned...hearing both the original note and the bleed through to the adjacent saddle with a ton of gain, and the result is an unusable mess. It's a problem with any tuning that is not applying the same correction to all strings, particularly the drop tunings. Those that are altering every string by the same interval generally work quite well, as cross talk is a non-issue. I use half step down all the time with no issues, but the drop tunings are useless.

 

Bottom line is, the alt tunings are a compromise. Some work better than others, and are absolutely impacted by playing technique and gain. It's a limitation of the technology more than "defective" units, per se. Frankly, the tech as it currently exists just isn't ready for prime-time, imho. Good luck.

 

Oh, and what's mentioned above about hearing the strings acoustically is absolutely an issue too... if you're not cranked loud enough to drown out the guitar itself, you're gonna hear both. Equally ugly, and it's a whole lot easier to hear the strings directly than you might think.

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  • 1 year later...

@smty627 any update regarding the ghost notes? How did the story end?

 

I am asking because I bough two JTV-69 from different stores in the last month and both have the same issue (ghost notes, magnetic bleeding). I already returned the first one and I am on my way to return the second one as well :((

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Thanks for the quick reply!

 

It's not the acoustic sound of the guitar. I cannot even hear that. It is really the sound of the magnetic pickups coming through the speakers at the same time as the modelling is on. The problem becomes more obvious when using alternate tunings. 

 

This has been reported already by other clients, for instance, this current post (more recently) or 

 

https://line6.com/support/topic/2382-variax-ghost-notes/

https://uk.line6.com/supportarchivenew/thread/66211/

https://line6.com/support/topic/9837-my-new-jtv-69-has-bad-modeling/

 

Googling by "variax ghost notes" or "variax magnetic bleed" will lead to more results. Unfortunately, no post has given any proper solution to the problem. Some users even told they have contacted Line6 and Line6 being aware of the issue.

 

I have tried the Variax Standard at my local music store and worked like a charm. But both JTV-69 I ordered online don't.

 

Like in other posts, I can provide sound samples recorded directly (no mics) if necessary.

 

Any help will be more than appreciated!

 

  

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" It is really the sound of the magnetic pickups coming through the speakers at the same time as the modelling is on "---

Magnetics are turned off when the Modeling is on and vice-versa.

 

What is referred to as "magnetic bleed" is probably "warbling". That is a result of the magnetic pick-up height to string

distance not being adjusted correctly. Magnetic pull warps the transverse vibration of the string. In short,... a set-up issue.

 

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" It is really the sound of the magnetic pickups coming through the speakers at the same time as the modelling is on "---

Magnetics are turned off when the Modeling is on and vice-versa.

 

Yes, exactly. That is how it should be but it is not and hence all the posts reporting about it.

 

I mean, I am open to be proven wrong and I wish the solution was as simple as fixing a "set-up issue". The height of the strings / pickups look good to me but I am willing to give it a try and lower the pickups. That way, the magnetic pull should not interfere with the vibrations of the strings. I will get back with the results.

 

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14 hours ago, acastrom said:

Like in other posts, I can provide sound samples recorded directly (no mics) if necessary.

 

 

  

 

This might help diagnose the problem. It is possible to blend the mags with the models in Workbench... but it's something you have to do deliberately, and then save to the guitar. Seems rather unlikely that it would happen spontaneously, but you never know... it's worth a look to see if you've got that turned on inadvertently.

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  • 1 year later...

I realize this thread is several years old but has anyone found a solution to this problem? I have discovered (on my JTV-59 at least) that the "ghost notes" change depending upon which alternate tuning you have selected. In other words, in BluesG tuning, the high E and the A string have ghost notes. In DADGAD, the D, G, and B string have ghost notes. Is there any fix for this? I've read that some users replace the bridge but I don't know if this remedies the problem or not. Thank you for your help.

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13 hours ago, jaxondi said:

I realize this thread is several years old but has anyone found a solution to this problem? I have discovered (on my JTV-59 at least) that the "ghost notes" change depending upon which alternate tuning you have selected. In other words, in BluesG tuning, the high E and the A string have ghost notes. In DADGAD, the D, G, and B string have ghost notes. Is there any fix for this? I've read that some users replace the bridge but I don't know if this remedies the problem or not. Thank you for your help.

 

99.97% of the time your "ghost notes" are the result of hearing the guitar acoustically, along with the altered pitches that are coming from the speaker(s) with which you are monitoring. Nobody ever wants to believe this at first (myself included years ago). It's almost always dismissed as "impossible" with the wave of a hand, and most will argue until they're blue in the face that this couldn't possibly be happening, but I assure you it does. I initially declared my JTV69 "defective" right out of the box for this very reason... and I was mistaken.

 

Solid body guitars ring out a lot louder than you think, you're just used to ignoring it in favor of whatever is belching out of the amp... which is easy to do provided that the sound that is heading directly from the body of the instrument to your ears is the same pitch as that which is emanating from the speaker. However, when those pitches are no longer the same, particularly at close intervals, dissonance is not only inevitable but VERY easily perceived. Crank up up the volume and drown out the acoustic sound of the guitar itself, and the problem vanishes.

 

I also use a Digitech Drop pedal with the rest of my non-Variax guitarsenal, and the exact same thing happens... if you're not cranked up sufficiently (and depending on the individual instrument, that might be a lot louder than you'd guess),  then you're gonna hear unaltered pitches acoustically whether you want to or not... turns out ears work really well...;)

 

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