Picked up a Line 6 Variax Standard in burst locally for £360, no battery, charger or VDI cable (lost in a house move). The seller, nice enough guy, had a Spark to test it through and had it on a fairly gainy setting. I should have asked him to put it on a clean setting as I've got it home and the piezo pickup on the D string is low output and fizzy - sounds like a bad contact somewhere. I hope it's not a bad sensor. The TRS cable and the power supply I built for the Variax 300 worked fine, though.
There have been better deals but too faraway (Doncaster, Newport, Essex).
NGD: Line 6 Variax Standard
Moderated By: mods
NGD: Line 6 Variax Standard
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Re: NGD: Line 6 Variax Standard
Funnily enough I found a Youtube video of someone replacing exactly that piezo saddle for a similar reason..
In before Nick says
Fretboard needs a good scrub, too.
In before Nick says
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Re: NGD: Line 6 Variax Standard
Looking to investigate the low output/fuzziness of the "D" string I took the bridge off the Variax Standard. There's a PCB attached to it and a wire runs from each bridge saddle to a spot (or "land") on the PCB. Earthing/grounding is through the case of the piezo element, the bridge saddle and screws to the metalwork of the bridge. Loadsa pics:
The PCB does also have individual earths/grounds for each piezo element which makes it easier to replace the saddles with Graphtec Ghost piezo saddles if you want (£106 a set at today's prices). At the bridge end the cable that connects it to the main logic board is attached soldered connector, with a plug and socket connector at the and I should have taken a picture of exactly how the cable routes behind the bridge.
Anyway, I was a little suspicious about the soldering of the "D" wire but I decided that while I was ripping it all apart I'd swap the piezo element between the D and the low E saddles. So I did that and now it seems fine on both strings.
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Anyway, I was a little suspicious about the soldering of the "D" wire but I decided that while I was ripping it all apart I'd swap the piezo element between the D and the low E saddles. So I did that and now it seems fine on both strings.
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Re: NGD: Line 6 Variax Standard
Something about that PCB being bolted to the block like that makes me uncomfortable. I'm not sure why. I suppose it's a sensible way to minimise mechanical wear on the wires going to the saddles.
Re: NGD: Line 6 Variax Standard
Well, while I'm largely happy with the guitar modelling I'm not quite so happy with some other aspects.
- I'm not a pickup snob but I'm not that keen on the Yamaha pickups in the Variax Standard and got feedback (not in a good way) when I turned up the gain; they may need wax potting.
- The alternate tunings/virtual capo show that Line 6's pitch shifting is not up to the standard of Digitech's. There can be strange, almost tremolo-like effects on certain notes.
- The modelled guitars seem to have a strange attack that sounds a bit compressed, which maybe a side effect of using piezo pickups. I didn't notice that on the Variax 300 co I'll check that out. There's also talk of an effect described as "plinking" that may be related to piezo as well.
- The models seem to need a bit of finessing to get the balance right - there's a chap who'll sell you a bundle of tweaked models for a consideration...
The guitar was allegedly set up at Anderton's for the previous user, but the action's too high for my taste and I think the neck may need a bit of shimming and/o truss rod adjustment to sort this out. All in all, I haven't exactly fallen completely in love with the Variax Standard, but we'll see what a bit of TLC can do. In the meantime I think I may build a second phantom power box so I can sell one or other or both the Variaxes with power, and see if I can build a MIDI adapter that will substitute for the no-longer-sold Variax USB interface.
- I'm not a pickup snob but I'm not that keen on the Yamaha pickups in the Variax Standard and got feedback (not in a good way) when I turned up the gain; they may need wax potting.
- The alternate tunings/virtual capo show that Line 6's pitch shifting is not up to the standard of Digitech's. There can be strange, almost tremolo-like effects on certain notes.
- The modelled guitars seem to have a strange attack that sounds a bit compressed, which maybe a side effect of using piezo pickups. I didn't notice that on the Variax 300 co I'll check that out. There's also talk of an effect described as "plinking" that may be related to piezo as well.
- The models seem to need a bit of finessing to get the balance right - there's a chap who'll sell you a bundle of tweaked models for a consideration...
The guitar was allegedly set up at Anderton's for the previous user, but the action's too high for my taste and I think the neck may need a bit of shimming and/o truss rod adjustment to sort this out. All in all, I haven't exactly fallen completely in love with the Variax Standard, but we'll see what a bit of TLC can do. In the meantime I think I may build a second phantom power box so I can sell one or other or both the Variaxes with power, and see if I can build a MIDI adapter that will substitute for the no-longer-sold Variax USB interface.
Personal pronouns he/him
Re: NGD: Line 6 Variax Standard
- buttsaddle.jpg (340.79 KiB) Viewed 1352 times
Re: NGD: Line 6 Variax Standard
Ain't even Thursday yet
matte30is wrote:Someone man up and get a balloon.