Urgent help with Variax 700

[lespaul1964]

The other guitar player in my band has been using a Variax 700 and the Line 6 footpedal for two or three years now, it is an amazing guitar. But for a couple of weeks now the B string is putting out this underlying crackling hiss when the string is struck and the noise is getting progressively worse. This only happens with the B string.

 

The thing is that we have a gig tomorrow and another one saturday, and his backups don

[nickeroo]

I am thinking it may be the piezo wire going from saddle to CPU board?

 

Check at the saddle first perhaps. Unscrew fixed bridge, GENTLY examine the B saddle. Is it torn or damaged at the little insert physically going into the saddle?

 

Turn the bridge over. Is the solder pad for the B string intact? Is the wire stripped anyway from pad to saddle? If so it may be grounding or shorting out on the bridge unit metal. For precaution, try insulating the wire with a tiny tiny strip of tape.

 

Does he use the trem a lot? I am guessing that may be it.

 

I have had to fix my Vax a lot, and you can get by with ordinary thin hookup wire from pad to piezo, but it is VERY fiddly, and the piezo wire is VERY fragile, and the coating is very brittle and hard to strip to solder to. I cannot stress the "be careful!" aspect enough.

 

I had worked on mine so much that basically 4 saddles are rewired, and my high e has to be shimmed sideways a little to stop it shorting out someplace. That could be an idea too, try pushing the b GENTLY to the left or right and see if it improves.

 

If it is not that, maybe try reseating the connection at the CPU unit onboard.

 

Does he use batteries or power?

 

EDITED to add: if none of those seem to help, he may have a broken or damaged piezo, especially as you say it is getting worse. Bad news is they are really only stocked by Line 6 repair houses.

[lespaul1964]

He uses power, and yes he uses the tremolo quite a bit mostly as a vibratto technique. He doesn