Access to the upper frets has always been super-important to James Tyler, and it’s a big part of his James Tyler Variax designs. Check out the following pictures – each one is worth 1,000 words.
JTV-59
JTV-59 is a set-neck guitar but James Tyler designed the neck joint in such a way as to have absolute access to the upper frets.
JTV-69
For JTV-69, James did a carve-away design very much like the one he does for his own Tyler Guitars. He used four neck mounting ferrules, which eliminated the need for a neck plate and allowed him to carve away even more wood from around the neck screws.
JTV-89
For JTV-89, James did a couple of things to give maximum upper-fret access. First, he kept the neck depth thin all the way up the neck, including right into the neck heel. It doesn’t grow thicker at the heel, unlike most bolt-on guitars. Then, he carved away all the wood in a sweeping pattern around the neck bolts and used four neck mounting ferrules, which eliminated the need for a neck plate and allowed him to carve away even more wood from around the neck screws.
A very important part of staying in tune on any guitar is great tuners. We made sure that we over-delivered on tuners for both the Korean and USA-made James Tyler Variax guitars.
JTV-59US, 69US AND 89US GUITARS
All USA-made James Tyler Variax guitars will feature Hipshot tuners. These are the same tuners that James Tyler uses on some of his own guitars. They are truly innovative and awesome.
JTV-59US and JTV-89US guitars will have Hipshot Classic Guitar Tuning Machines. They are sleek, precision-built tuners with an ultra-smooth 18:1 gear ratio.
Locking tuners eliminate the need for multiple string winds around the tuner post. When you have multiple winds and you dive-bomb your tremolo, the winds relax. When the tremolo drops back into position, the winds bind up and pull the string sharp. So when the string is “locked” and there is only about a half a wind, the string doesn’t bind up.
Staggering the tuners eliminates the need for string trees that bind up the string by putting too much down pressure on the string at the nut and add another surface for the tuner to bind on.
Hipshot Products, Inc. was born in the USA in 1983 in a small shop in Van Nuys, California by Dave Borisoff. Dave’s first invention was a lever connected to a Tele® bridge that allowed you to create pedal steel guitar sounds by using your hip. This device was dubbed Hipshot.
His most famous invention is the D-tuner for bass guitars. It allows bass players to throw a lever connected to their E-string tuner that drops the E string immediately to D. This lead to a whole slew of great Hipshot Products.
I asked Dave for the inside scoop on what makes his tuners so cool and here is what he said.
“The open classic, retro look has always been an appealing feature to the designer and player alike. Reminiscent of early vintage guitars, the pleasing design of the instrument inspires the musician to make great music. Also, by eliminating the extra material which forms the body of the tuner, the weight of the tuner is reduced which, in turn, lightens the head stock allowing the instrument to balance better. Now your left hand does not have to support the instrument and is free to play.
Our precision-cut 18:1 gears coupled with lifetime lubricated nylon bearings assure super-smooth and accurate tuning for years to come.
The large, easy to grasp Knurled Grip Locker Knob provides the clamping pressure needed to couple the hardened steel pin located in your string post to your strings assuring a strong “NO-SLIP” connection.”
Check out this video tour of Hipshot’s New York factory.
JTV-59, 69 AND 89 GUITARS
For the Korean James Tyler Variax guitars, we went with 16:1 sealed tuners on all three models. They are die-cast, modern-built, solid tuners. They are sealed permanently and lubricated to work smoothly for years to come without slipping or binding.
As with the JTV-69US, we went with locking and staggered versions of these 16:1 sealed tuners.
Rich gives us a first-hand, hand-held look into what it was like recording James Tyler Variax sound samples. As the session winds down, we’re treated to comments about JTV from the session’s all-star cast.
A few blogs ago, I told you about the new tremolo bridge design for the JTV-69 and how it, in conjunction with the locking tuners, keeps you in tune. Well, there is one more piece to that puzzle: the Graph Tech Black Tusq XL nut.
To understand why these nuts are so amazing, you need to understand the motivation behind Graph Tech president Dave Dunwoodie’s innovation.
Two decades ago, as Dave explains on Graph Tech’s website, he was rocking a solo when he hit the tremolo bar on his first Strat® and was immediately introduced to the problem of string binding on traditional guitar nuts. His guitar slipped way out of tune and he realized he couldn’t use the guitar for stage work at all. Spurred on by the popularity of non-locking tremolo guitars and the need for pencil lead in nut slots, he engineered the world’s first permanently lubricated nut, which is 500% more slippery than graphite.
This is why James Tyler and other luthiers use Graph Tech nuts, and why James chose them for every James Tyler Variax guitar.
Anyone can see why the Graph Tech nut is essential to keeping the JTV-69 in tune. As you work the tremolo arm, the nut keeps the strings from gripping and sticking. But, even without a tremolo, it is still super important that the strings don’t bind up in the nut. As you hit the strings on a fixed-bridge guitar, they flex and retract and move back and forth in the nut. If they bind even just a bit you will end up horribly out of tune.
So it was an easy decision to use them on EVERY guitar we make.
Like with any new technology, chips get faster and smaller and allow us to do so much more. In regards to what they can do in the James Tyler Variax modeling guitar, our crack engineering and sound design teams really stepped up to knock this thing out of the park!
Let’s get the info straight from Curtis Senffner, Sr. DSP Software Engineer at Line 6. He worked tirelessly to up the ante and bring to life the most authentic-feeling modeling guitar in history. Then we’ll hear from some players who got to reap the benefits.
Curtis explains, the new chip is significantly more powerful and has allowed us to:
Run fuller and clearer models of guitar bodies and pickups
Allow all models to be alternate tuned
Improve alternate tuning purity and speed
Provide alternate tuning customization
Allow new modes of operation and editing
Thank you, Curtis.
And here are a few quotes from pros who are beta-testing for us:
“Freaking guitar sounds stupid good even on camcorder.”
“Been playing with it through a few Marshall® amps, Fender® Bassman®, UniValve® and my rack…I hope you don’t need this back immediately. I’m way floored.”
“In general, this JTV sounds and responds much more like a complete instrument than the previous versions. You don’t have that sense of being once removed from the tone. Feels much more organic and like the traditional guitar experience.”
When it comes to transporting your James Tyler Variax modeling guitar safely and stylishly, we go above and beyond.
Overseas-made guitars don’t usually come with cases – you have to kick in extra money for something to put it in. This isn’t the case with our imported JTV guitars. Each one comes standard with a durable, padded gig bag with a stitched Line 6 logo and 2 pockets big enough for all your gig essentials.
What about the American-made JTV-US guitars? Each one ships with a legacy. That legacy is a G&G Quality Case. G&G is the original electric guitar case company that dates back to 1952. They got their start when founder Ben Germain met a young entrepreneur and inventor named Leo who was seeking a manufacturer to produce cases for his new electric guitars, the Stratocaster® and the Telecaster®. More than 50 years later, G&G is still at it supplying cases to Fender®, Anderson Guitar Works, Tyler® Guitars, Mike Lull Guitars, Sadowsky® Guitars, G&L, and many others.
Check out the video for a personal look at how G&G Quality Case got started.
We decided to hang on to the Virtual Capo video for the moment, to spread the news that every James Tyler Variax® digital modeling guitar will be shipping with Variax® Workbench™ software!
Variax Workbench is your virtual custom shop. Choose from famous guitar bodies, pickups, pickup placement, tone and volume controls, and tweak away until you’ve designed the guitar of your dreams – without choking on sawdust!
This combination USB interface/software package for James Tyler Variax guitars allows you to see and hear the physical changes to your custom guitar in real-time. Ever wonder what a single-coil pickup would sound like on a hollow-body guitar tuned an octave down? Probably not. That’s because it wasn’t a reality – until now.
Currently, Variax Workbench is an indispensible tool for many power-users of first-generation Variax guitars. Coming soon, these power-users will post their Workbench secrets so you can get their tones!
Imagine going from a Stones tuning to a Zep tuning with the twist of a knob. Imagine having more foxy in your Foxy Lady because you are tuned to Eb without touching a tuner. Imagine playing slide guitar without lugging an extra axe. Imagine being ready to play in D because your singer is having a trouble with the original key.
Imagine no longer. Variax Alternate Tuning technology makes it possible, and puts a dozen different tunings at your fingertips and instantly accessible.
Each James Tyler Variax modeling guitar has a dedicated Alt Tune knob. This knob has 12 settings, including two labeled “Model” and “Standard.”
Set to “Model,” the Alt Tune knob lets you access the alternate tunings you created using Variax Workbench™, which is Line 6′s virtual guitar workbench software. (These tunings are stored on your Variax’s Model knob.) Set to “Standard,” the Alt Tune knob overrides saved tunings to set every model to standard “E-to-E” tuning.
The Alt Tune knob’s remaining 10 settings are hand-picked for each style of James Tyler Variax guitar.
Alt tunings for JTV-59 and JTV-69:
MODEL
STANDARD: E A D G B E
DROP D: D A D G B E
1/2 DOWN: Eb Ab Db Gb Bb Eb
DROP Db: Db Ab Db Gb Bb Eb
1 DOWN: D G C F A D
DADGAD: D A D G A D
OPEN D: D A D F# A D
BLUES G: D G D G B D
RESO G: G B D G B D
OPEN A: E A C# E A E
BARITONE: B E A D F B
Alt tunings for JTV-89:
MODEL
STANDARD: E A D G B E
DROP D: D A D G B E
1/2 DOWN: Eb Ab Db Gb Bb Eb
DROP Db: Db Ab Db Gb Bb Eb
1 DOWN: D G C F A D
DROP C: C G C F A D
m3 DOWN: Db Gb B E Ab Db
DROP B: B Gb B E Ab Db
M3 DOWN: C F Bb Eb G C
DROP Bb: Bb F Bb Eb G C
BARITONE: B E A D F B
Next I will post a video showing the Virtual Capo™ in action, and demonstrate how you can save user-created tunings to the Alt Tune knob in seconds flat.
A few blogs back I talked about all the things that James Tyler brought to our new custom bridges. In parallel, Lloyd Baggs and company (of L. R. Baggs) spent an incredible amount of time and effort perfecting the piezos.
First-gen Variax® players helped us identify some of the features they wanted to see in the bridges of James Tyler Variax guitars. The big ones we looked into were eliminating clang-tone and maximizing reliability.
What is clang-tone? Clang-tone, or wolf tone, is a sound inherent in a vibrating string. A string vibrates in three modes: Torsional, Longitudinal, and Transverse. Torsional vibration does not produce a sound wave – it is the string just twisting like a drive shaft in a car. Longitudinal vibration is what the magnetic pickups on a guitar are “hearing” and reproducing. Transverse vibration is a wave going up and down the string as it is stretches and relaxes longitudinally. Magnetic pickups do not reproduce Transverse vibration, but it is the type of vibration that a piezo pickup “hears,” and it produces the clang. Some describe its sound as a “ping” or “plink.” It is there even on acoustic guitars.
Numerous times Lloyd and his crew met with a Line 6 team that included Line 6 co-founder and chief technology officer, Michel Doidic. We showed Lloyd and his people what we were up against and they took the bull by the horns to help us tackle it. They did a great job. Between Lloyd and Michel’s work on the clang-tone issue, and some slick DSP algorithms by our engineering and sound design guys, clang-tone has been essentially eliminated. (Big kudos to Lloyd and Michel for spearheading this.)
With respect to reliability, these new piezos are built like tanks. We put them through accelerated strenuous lifetime abuse procedures to ensure that they can take all the punishment you can dish out. To ensure the highest level of quality, reliability and tone, the piezo saddles are being made by Lloyd in Nipomo, CA. They will be shipped to the bridge manufacturer to be inserted into the bridges.
