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Why No Replacement Piezo Elements For Jtv69?


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You know what would have secured you guys from NEVER having to buy a replacement piezo piece? HAVING A GROUND WIRE.

 

I don't understand why they couldn't have done that. It's that simple. You have an OPEN piezo that grounds via contact, crap will get in the openings and a layer will form around the piezo and eventually disconnect the grounding. If you have a ground wire, it'll always be secure as long as you don't blatantly rip out the piezo from the socket and break the wire, which is something you shouldn't be doing.

 

Graphtechs are looking better and better as the days go by...

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You know what would have secured you guys from NEVER having to buy a replacement piezo piece? HAVING A GROUND WIRE.

 

 

Well, that AND a better way of securing the piezo so that it does not flop around and make noise - the Graphtech piezos are sealed inside the saddle, all Variax piezos lay loose in a hole on top of the saddle. I never had any problem with the old Baggs saddles flopping around and making click-clack noise, that development came with the Tyler bridge and seems to be causing quite a few people here noise problems.

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Do you have them in a JTV, or an older Variax?

 

I currently have Graphtechs in my Variax transplants, will be adding them to my JTV after my warranty expires in June.

 

My JTV is getting very little use at the moment due to the noisy/clicky-clacky piezos, after I swap in a Graphtech bridge and replace the neck I expect the JTV to be my #1 guitar for recording.

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I currently have Graphtechs in my Variax transplants, will be adding them to my JTV after my warranty expires in June.

 

My JTV is getting very little use at the moment due to the noisy/clicky-clacky piezos, after I swap in a Graphtech bridge and replace the neck I expect the JTV to be my #1 guitar for recording.

 

Looking ahead to various changes myself. I have a couple of other question, if ya don't mind. Do you plan to swap out the entire bridge on the 69 (and if so, does Graphtech make an entire compatible bridge), or just the saddles? Also, do you know if anything else is required, electronics wise, for the Graphtech piezos to work with the rest of the JTV hardware (like their Ghost preamp, for example)? Thanks...

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I know of no bridge that you can swap into a JTV69.  It is fairly custom and part of the Trem design.  I have not noticed any noise problems with my JTV69S bridge.  The piezos do now slop around.  Maybe it's my playing style but it seems fine to me.  I agree that the Graphtech piezos are probably better since they each have an actual ground wire.

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I know of no bridge that you can swap into a JTV69. It is fairly custom and part of the Trem design. I have not noticed any noise problems with my JTV69S bridge. The piezos do now slop around. Maybe it's my playing style but it seems fine to me. I agree that the Graphtech piezos are probably better since they each have an actual ground wire.

Thats what I thought, but he had mentioned "swapping the bridge" in his last post, so maybe he knows something we don't?

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Looking ahead to various changes myself. I have a couple of other question, if ya don't mind. Do you plan to swap out the entire bridge on the 69 (and if so, does Graphtech make an entire compatible bridge), or just the saddles? Also, do you know if anything else is required, electronics wise, for the Graphtech piezos to work with the rest of the JTV hardware (like their Ghost preamp, for example)? Thanks...

 

I do not have a 69, I have the JTV 89. I will have to swap out the entire bridge with a Graphtech wraparound bridge.

 

For the 69 I would wait and see if Graphtech will offer the correct set of saddles, short of that it would be worth it to buy 2 sets of the mixed saddles to get a full set of the ones with the screws on the correct side.

 

Also, you could buy a regular knife edge Strat style bridge with the saddles that have the center mounted screws ($20 and up on Ebay) then buy a set of center-screw Graphtech saddles.

 

There seems to be a lot of inconsistency in the JTV bridges, many people are reporting saddle slop and noise and some have no problems - it might have something to do with the thickness of the plating/finish on the bridges, the thicker the plating is the tighter the saddle fit would be.

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I know of no bridge that you can swap into a JTV69. It is fairly custom and part of the Trem design.

How is the 69 bridge design different than a regular knife edge or 2 point Strat style bridge? It looks like the old Variax 500/700Baggs bridge would fit.

 

Is there some reason you couldn't use something like this with some Graphtech saddles?

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Wilkinson-Electric-Guitar-2-Point-Knife-Edge-Bridge-with-Black-Block-/360863498815?pt=Guitar_Accessories&hash=item540524023f

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The old 500 bridge is fixed and just screwed to the body and the strings went all the way through the body.  Maybe you could attach a 2 point Strat bridge but you need to be able to route the piezo wires through it and attach it to the trem block. The 69 bridge also supports the ends of the strings where most Strats have the strings going all the way through the trem block.   I don't know what is available that would work.  It was a true statement by me since I did not say there was no bridge just that I know of no bridge for the 69.  I am not crazy about the saddles that mount from the side.  From what I have seen of the Graphtech saddles, it would not be hard to drill and tap the opposite side of the ones that are mounted on the wrong side rather than buy two sets.  If I start having any trouble at all  with my piezo's on my 69 I will consider trying the Graphtech saddles. 

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The old 500 bridge is fixed and just screwed to the body and the strings went all the way through the body.  Maybe you could attach a 2 point Strat bridge but you need to be able to route the piezo wires through it and attach it to the trem block. The 69 bridge also supports the ends of the strings where most Strats have the strings going all the way through the trem block.   I don't know what is available that would work.  It was a true statement by me since I did not say there was no bridge just that I know of no bridge for the 69.  I am not crazy about the saddles that mount from the side.  From what I have seen of the Graphtech saddles, it would not be hard to drill and tap the opposite side of the ones that are mounted on the wrong side rather than buy two sets.  If I start having any trouble at all  with my piezo's on my 69 I will consider trying the Graphtech saddles. 

 

Ooops, my bad - what I meant to type was "it looks like the old 600/700 Baggs bridge would fit", i realize the 500 had a fixed bridge.

 

Yes, if you used a regular 2 point Strat bridge you would need to drill holes for the piezo wires to pass through or have someone do that for you - there used to be lots of info on how exactly to do this on the internet but much of the Variax transplant info has been removed. Pretty simple really, drill 6 holes and pass the wires through.

 

Here is a guy who did it, though the bridge drilling process is not shown step by step as it was on other pages:

 

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/paul.langwade/

 

You could also get a new Baggs piezo Strat bridge but that would be pretty expensive after you add the Graphtech saddles.

 

And drilling and tapping new holes on the Graphtech saddles is another possibility, but I would be too scared of damaging them to do it myself. I think I would be way more comfortable drilling new holes in the Tyler bridge plate to match the available Graphtech saddles, but only because I have never drilled and tapped graphite before...

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I would just go with the Graphtcech saddles and stick with the JTV bridge if I were to upgrade my piezos.  I have not complaints about this bridge or the method of attaching the strings to it.  Retrofitting just the saddles looks like it would not be any more difficult than the work I did on my 500.

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Midcourse update. I'm feeling bullet-pointy today :-)

  • I finally got the Graph Tech Right Offset set yesterday - roughly a week after I had ordered the original incorrectly pictured set. Was definitely a hand-collected set of 6, although Gray did say they tested them for balance.
  • Installed them. A bit more work than I thought as the intonation screws are larger on the Graph Tech and thus the holes in the back of the bridge had to be drilled out slightly. No biggy, but the heads of the screws don't sit in the pockets like they did with the original hex head screws.
  • Stripping and soldering went quite fast. There are two separate leads - one with a slightly bluish tint. I chose that one as "hot" for the pickups and I seemed to get signal, so either I chose correctly, or neither lead is grounded through the body of the saddle (probably the latter). The blue is definitely a bit hard to see. I used a soldering iron to melt the insulation slightly for "finger stripping"
  • Re-assembled the guitar and am still tweaking the bridge height, etc... I haven't gotten into Workbench yet to adjust the sensitivity.
  • More soon..
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Sounds cool.  In looking at mine, it seems like you could countersink for the new screws (unless they're really huge).  You'd want to do it in a drill press with the bridge piece clamped at the correct alignment.

 

If both sides of the piezo element are floating the polarity probably doesn't matter as long as they're all consistent with each other.

 

I'll be very interested in hearing your impressions on the sound!

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Midcourse update. I'm feeling bullet-pointy today :-)

  • I finally got the Graph Tech Left Offset set yesterday - roughly a week after I had ordered the original incorrectly pictured set. Was definitely a hand collected set of 6, although Gray did say they tested them for balance.
  • Installed them. A bit more work than I thought as the intonation screws are larger on the Graph Tech and thus the holes in the back of the bridge had to be drilled out slightly. No biggy, but the heads of the screws don't sit in the pockets like they did with the original hex head screws.
  • Striping and soldering went quite fast. There are two separate leads - one with a slightly bluish tint. I chose that one as "hot" for the pickups and I seemed to get signal, so either I chose correctly, or neither lead is grounded through the body of the saddle. The blue is definitely a bit hard to see. I used a soldering iron to melt the insulation slightly for "finger stripping"
  • Re-assembled the guitar and am still tweaking the bridge height, etc... I haven't gotten into Workbench yet to adjust the sensitivity.
  • More soon.
  •  

 

 

Pretty exciting! Could you post some pics when you are done?

 

Looking at pics of the 69 saddles and the Graphtech saddles they look so different i am interested to know about stuff like string angle over the piezos, did the height adjustment screws line up with the originals... I already know they sound great.

 

After reading the saddle crosstalk thread I am thinking I will experiment and compare the crosstalk on my Graphtechs and my JTV, I am having some problems with the JTV that I am pretty sure are caused by crosstalk but have never had any problems with my Graphtech equipped guitars so in addition to the Graphtechs superiopir tone and noise rejection i am betting the crosstalk is much lower on the Graphtechs.

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I wish I had better news to report...

  • Most of the pickups sound very good :-)
  • Two of the Graph Tech pickups sound kind of lifeless or have a high frequency resonance. I can change that somewhat by moving the pickups slightly from side to side, but I can't make all of the pickups sound good at once.
  • I am really not sure what the cause of the funky sound is. It could be the angle of the string over the saddle. It could be bad saddles (although they were apparently tested). It could be something else (theories?).
  • The pickups are definitely higher toward the rear than the original pickups (see pics in the links below). This causes the screw to run up at angle from the back side of the bridge, which may be putting force on the pickup. I bought some nylon screws (4-40 3/4") to see if the flexibility might help. Haven't installed these yet - tonight.
  • I also put nylon washers under the Philips head end of the intonation screws on the back side of the bridge. This is to keep the screws from partially recessing into the countersunk holes for the previous (smaller) screws.
  • I discovered that there has been a bridge update by Line6 since I got my JTV69 (mine was a very early model). Not sure of everything they changed, but one thing they did do was move the PCB to the back of the block, apparently.
  • Suspecting that the bridge itself may be affecting the tone/sustain, I ordered an updated one from Full Compass. About $185 with piezos included, so not too horribly overpriced. P/N 50-04-0066 (only orderable over the phone - 608.831.7330 or 800.356.5844). Should be here in a week or two.

Anyway - haven't found the Glail yet. Still seeking :-)

Pics here: https://app.box.com/s/tbpja55e5g6cllhud77d

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  • Most of the pickups sound very good :-)
  • Two of the Graph Tech pickups sound kind of lifeless or have a high frequency resonance. I can change that somewhat by moving the pickups slightly from side to side, but I can't make all of the pickups sound good at once.
  • I am really not sure what the cause of the funky sound is. It could be the angle of the string over the saddle. It could be something else (theories?).
  • The pickups are definitely higher toward the rear than the original pickups (see pics in the links below). This causes the screw to run up at angle from the back side of the bridge, which may be putting force on the pickup. I bought some nylon screws (4-40 3/4") to see if the flexibility might help. Haven't installed these yet.
  • I also put nylon washers under the Philips head end of the intonation screws on the back side of the bridge.
  • I discovered that there has been a bridge update by Line6 since I got my JTV69 (mine was a very early model). Not sure of everything they changed, but one thing they did do was move the PCB to the back of the block, apparently.
  • Suspecting that the bridge itself may be affecting the tone/sustain, I ordered an updated one from Full Compass. About $185 with piezos included, so not too horribly overpriced. P/N 50-04-0066. Should be here in a week or two.

Anyway - haven't found the Glail yet. Still searching :-)

Pics here: https://app.box.com/files/0/f/1705119386/Variax_Pics

 

 

Sorry to hear that you're still having issues...

 

I'm curious about the bridge you ordered. That part number doesn't turn up in the search at the full compass site. I scrolled through every Line 6 part they claim to have, and didn't see an entire bridge. Maybe you got the last one...lol. Could you point me to it? Thanks...

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"Pics here: https://app.box.com/...386/Variax_Pics"

 

I can't seem to view the pics, even though I have a Box account.

 

Sorry 'bout that. Try this link: https://app.box.com/s/tbpja55e5g6cllhud77d  Hopefully that will share the folder with you. First pic is of my guitar with a Fender Strat neck. Sorry about the cluttered background.

 

The last picture is the underside of the bridge. Apparently the PC board has been moved to the other side of block in the new versions of the bridge, although I'm not sure how the piezo wiring works in that case. Possibly there are holes drilled through the block for the wires.

 

Let me know if you still can't access the pictures!

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Sorry to hear that you're still having issues...

 

I'm curious about the bridge you ordered. That part number doesn't turn up in the search at the full compass site. I scrolled through every Line 6 part they claim to have, and didn't see an entire bridge. Could you point me to it? Thanks...

 

I don't think they advertise that P/N on their website, but it is orderable. I got the P/N originally from a Line6 Support person. I'm pretty sure I got it right - I just re-checked it against my order acknowledgment from Full Compass. It would be nice to see a pic ahead of time...

 

If you call Full Compass, you can order it over the phone. 608.831.7330 or 800.356.5844.

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The fact that you have lateral force on the intonation screws could well be the source of the problems.  The load on those screws is supposed to be straight out from the holes on the back of the bridge plate.  As long as you have a new bridge coming anyway, try boring out the holes enough to relieve that torquing stress - then counterbore in from the back to let the larger screws seat inside.

 

And, yes, your bridge assembly looks a bit different from one in my JTV-69.

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That bridge / trem is different than the one in my JTV69S.  Mine is fairly recent - last September and they did change it for the better.  They no longer have those cables tiewrapped to things and the board has been relocated.  I did not take any pix of mine though.  The pickups look fine in your pix.  Not sure why they would not work great.  Did you run the wires back to the main board?  How did you ground them.  I do not see any mechanical problem with your install.

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Your bridge doesn't look level though.  You should probably adjust the spring tension on the Trem to get it more level with the guitar body.  I do not see a problem with the forces though.  It's not ideal that the intonation screw is to the side but it's that way with the JTV  saddles also.  The string tension should be holding the saddles in place just fine and there should be good contact with the Piezo element.  The only major difference in my 500 saddles is that the strings come up through the bridge from the back of the body so they go over the sensor at a much more severe angle than on the JTV bridge.

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The fact that you have lateral force on the intonation screws could well be the source of the problems.  The load on those screws is supposed to be straight out from the holes on the back of the bridge plate.  As long as you have a new bridge coming anyway, try boring out the holes enough to relieve that torquing stress - then counterbore in from the back to let the larger screws seat inside.

 

And, yes, your bridge assembly looks a bit different from one in my JTV-69.

I'd be interested to see a picture of your bridge at some point, if that's not too much trouble! I assume it will look very much like the one I will get from Full Compass in a few weeks.

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Your bridge doesn't look level though.  You should probably adjust the spring tension on the Trem to get it more level with the guitar body.  I do not see a problem with the forces though.  It's not ideal that the intonation screw is to the side but it's that way with the JTV  saddles also.  The string tension should be holding the saddles in place just fine and there should be good contact with the Piezo element.  The only major difference in my 500 saddles is that the strings come up through the bridge from the back of the body so they go over the sensor at a much more severe angle than on the JTV bridge.

Indeed - not quite level. I did some experimenting and it didn't seem to make a huge difference in tone, but I will go back and get it leveled and re-test.

 

The comment about the force was actually referring to the fact that the screw hole on the back of the GT saddles is higher off the plane of the top of the guitar than in the original LR Baggs saddles. Thus, the screw is a angled upward a bit in the hole and could be binding in the hole and/or coupling vibration from the bridge. I will try the nylon screws I mentioned above and see if that helps. When it doesn't (;-) I will drill the holes at a slight upward angle, as Iknowathingortwo suggests above.

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That bridge / trem is different than the one in my JTV69S.  Mine is fairly recent - last September and they did change it for the better.  They no longer have those cables tiewrapped to things and the board has been relocated.  I did not take any pix of mine though.  The pickups look fine in your pix.  Not sure why they would not work great.  Did you run the wires back to the main board?  How did you ground them.  I do not see any mechanical problem with your install.

 

On the wiring - I did indeed solder both the hot and ground leads to the indicated pads on the mounted PC board. I was fairly careful about joint quality and polarity, so I don't think there's a problem there.

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I think you may have tuning problems with nylon screws.  They may stretch on you under tension.  I think if you angle the holes in the back of the bridge, the screws should not be a problem.  I don't see why that would mess up the pickups anyway.  Did you turn down the string volumes?  When I switched to these pickups on my 500 I had to back the string volumes way down to prevent clipping.  It sounds great now but not so good before I did that.

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I don't think they advertise that P/N on their website, but it is orderable. I got the P/N originally from a Line6 Support person. I'm pretty sure I got it right - I just re-checked it against my order acknowledgment from Full Compass. It would be nice to see a pic ahead of time...

 

If you call Full Compass, you can order it over the phone. 608.831.7330 or 800.356.5844.

 

Ahh...that explains it, thanks! One more question. I'm assuming that the new one will include only the hardware, and not the board mounted to the sustain block that all the piezos are soldered to, correct?

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When it doesn't (;-) I will drill the holes at a slight upward angle, as Iknowathingortwo suggests above.

 

Not sure whether "IKnowathingortwo", but you may address me as "..he who knows enough to be dangerous..." :-).  Seriously, I'm not sure I'd recommend trying to angle the holes unless you are setup with a good drill press and a clamping fixture to maintain the angle while you bore it.  If it was me, I'd simply oversize the hole along its current direction to the point where the screw wasn't binding against the top. 

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Actually, what I ended up doing was using the nylon screws and washers. The don't seem to bind at all. I am not that worried about stretching as much of the force associated with the string tension is down into the bridge. I'll keep an eye on it, though.

 

I have gotten things adjusted pretty well (nylon screws, bridge angle relative to body, string height) , and it sounds much better, although certain saddles sound better than others still. Some still have some high frequency resonance or ringing. But...

 

It turns out that adjusting the string height screws significantly affects the tone, even with very small rotations. Hypothesis is that the tips of the screws are riding in/out if the little tracks that Line6 etched into the bridge plate for the pointed LR Baggs screw tips, for lateral positioning. Anyway, at this point I can get pretty close on the tone by doing very small adjustments of one or both of the height adjustment screws.

 

I am very interested to see the new version of the bridge and see if they retained the "tracks" etched in the surface of the bridge or not.

 

As to the question "do the GT saddles sound better than the LR Baggs", the answer is clearly yes for me, but my stock saddles sounded really bad so my comparison may not be valid for you. I will do an A/B comparison when I get the updated bridge from Full Compass.

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Is the center-to-center spacing between height screws on the GraphTech pieces the same as the originals?  If so, I bet you can pickup some pointed set screws with the correct thread size (I'm assuming from your comments that the GraphTech screws are not pointed).

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I decided to stay with the flat-bottom screws for now. I was still getting significant high-freq ringing, though, so I put a piece of tape across the top of the GT saddles, behind where the string drops down, and things sound significantly better. Still not perfect, but definitely a usable sound now! Will be experimenting with tape thickness :-)  I had to do a similar thing with my Parker NiteFly, BTW. There was significant ringing behind the bridge saddles so I wove a piece of fabric under/over the strings back there, and it killed the ringing.

 

Will post some updated pics tonight.

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I'm always surprised to hear reports of behind-the-saddle ringing on a JTV-69.  I've plucked the free portions of the strings with a jeweler's screwdriver and hear essentially nothing but the tick of the blade hitting them.

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