Are you using Line6 JTV guitars? Any good?

hussamd

Power User
I have used Variax guitars in the past and experienced some latency and they were a bit flat compared to a real guitar. I have seen demos of the new ones coming out and was interested in the JTV-69 model and wanted to check to see what owners think of their performance.

So my questions are:

1- What is your overall impression of the JTV series,
2- Are the US version so much different than the Korean one considering it is 3x the cost?

I would appreciate any insight.

Thanks

Hussam
 
+1 here. I've considered them because of the possibilities. It would be nice to see a review here with the AFX.
 
PHi, own two korean JTV 69ers and play them for one and a half years now in a covers band as my main guitars.
The good:
1 The acoustic models are far better than the usual cheap tricks that other sims do, the sound is really good. Combined with the easy playing (no bigger neck, no bigger strings) it's just awesome. Ok, you need to play over FRFR mons, which I do anyway.
2 The handling is good, is like a strat, trem can take some action without detuning, volume keeps highs well when you roll back, tone control is good too.
3 Mag PUs are good sounding. No highlight, but good. Neck SC reminds me very much of a strat. Very good, maybe the best sound on it. Bridge HB is typical for a Strat with HB too, but I heard better sounds.....Ok, maybe not from real 7enders but from other types of guitars. Same for the other poisitons, good fenderlike sounds, but nothing special.
4 No batteries anymore, yeah! The Li-ion accu has power for around 15 hours or so. If it's empty the mag PUs still work, without any change of the sound. Great!
5 Modeling got improved a bit. Some presets for special tunings too, you can make custom tunes, even without the editor.
The bad:
1 Since you can switch between the mags and the modeling, you can easily hear, that the mags are more open sounding and have a better reaction on the picking. You can change the models to your liking using the editor and get some really interesting sounds that are good, but that are adds only, I usually play the mags.
Some sounds like muffled notes are still a bit unnatural, you have to play different to get certain sounds using the models.
2 When I got mine new, the balance of the mags and the models wasn't good. Volumes were not eqaul, some models were too bassy and lacking highs. I had to edit almost every sound.
3 When you use the special tunings, the sound gets worse, is it tracking, or would a transposed sound sound weird anyway? Don't know.
4 I'd prefer a higher frequency of the tone knob, touching highest highs only. Since this thing is a crazy computer I have been avoiding to solder a different capacitor in, which I for sure would have tried with a usual guitar.

Two more things:
Also tried the 59. The HBs sound great there, now there are the SC sounds worse. I had to decide which too take, they have each their advantages.
The 89 didn't hang right on my body, some how I couldn't reach the higher frets that good, belly vs. arm, too bad.

I'm still very happy with these guitars. They cover a wide range of sounds and my acoustic can stay at home since. But they are not perfect.

What else? Gibson Firebird X, Music man reflex game changer?
 
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I have a 69,

I don't like the neck. It is not like my strat. I don't particularly like the tone of the guitar with mags but it is tolerable.

Compared to my real strat and les pauls, I much prefer the real thing.

The Acoustic models are pretty good, but the 12 string still warbles a bit too much. I like the Roland vg99 better, but I don't want to have to carry it around so I use the variax.

I use it for songs where I need acoustic and electric in the same tune. Not ideal but as a toll it serves it purpose.


I would stay away from any of the Gibson auto-tuning. The are prone to breaking down and they don't have a lot of parts to fix them. I will not buy another Gibson guitar after my horrible experiences with the Dark Fire. The eventuually (after 5 months) replaced with a Standard Plus Top because they did not have parts to fix it. I took a bath on that one.
 
Why not use your present git to get the benefits of the Variax: just need a hex pick (Graphtech Ghost is best) and the RackVax (rackvax.com). I have four gits outfitted and they sound awesome.
You can even split the signal from the hex or mag pickups to run different processors or amps.
 
Why not use your present git to get the benefits of the Variax: just need a hex pick (Graphtech Ghost is best) and the RackVax (rackvax.com). I have four gits outfitted and they sound awesome.
You can even split the signal from the hex or mag pickups to run different processors or amps.

They always have a bit of tracking/latency I guess? Can you use the mag PUs and the hex PU side by side?
 
I had one for a while. Didn't like it at all, unfortunately. All the electric sims sounded and felt fake, palm mutes didn't work. The guitar itself was dead as a rock. That thing just wouldn't ring, and the magnetic pickups (which where quite dull) didn't help. I know others have liked theirs, but I really didn't dig mine. Try before you buy, that's my tip!
 
I don't think the whole guitar modeling thing is quite there yet. It is one of the things I wish FAS would jump on board with, could you imagen what could be if Cliff put his head into this...
 
I love my JTV-69 (black). I swapped the neck out for a Mighty-Mite Compound Radius, Maple Strat Neck...had a professional fret/setup, changed the pickups to Kinmans. It's not a pretty guitar, but it's a real workhorse. The best utility guitar I've ever owned and matches well w/the utility provided by the Axe-Fx.

I do wish Mr. Chase and team had time to turn his energy to build a similar guitar/addon that would work natively w/the Axe-FX and perform similar to the JTV.
 
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