Variax 600 - Solution for volume pot problem (bypass)?

[lindsayward]

Hi folks. The volume control on my Variax 600 is not working properly and I want to ask if there's a workaround where I can essentially disable it with my Helix?

When I use the footswitch power and guitar jacks, it seems the volume knob works fine, as expected.

But when I plug in via Variax input to my Helix (and previously my POD HD500), the volume drops very noticeably and the volume knob doesn't seem to do anything much. Previously, I didn't know what was going on but I just turned up my POD patches. Now that I have a Helix, I see in HX Edit that the Variax volume drops from 10 to about 2.8. It's not consistent; sometimes it wobbles around, sometimes adjusting the tone knob makes the volume go up and down (as seen in HX Edit)... I can always drag the slider in the software back up to 10 and the sound is fine, then after a bit it 'glitches' back down. Sometimes I get several minutes of blissful full volume, other times it's only 1 second...

 

So I had a great idea... I set up an unpowered effect and assigned the volume knob to one of its parameters. This seemed like a great solution, until... it glitched again and I had to drag the slider back up. Now I'm uncertain, sometimes the slider in the software drops and sometimes the sound drops but not the slider. :( 

 

So, as in my first line... is there any way to effectively bypass the volume knob completely and just fix the guitar on 100% volume?

 

Thanks in advance!

[silverhead]

There is a setting in the Variax section of every Helix preset that is effective with the VDI connection. It allows you to assign the Variax Vol knob as a controller and specify how you want it to behave. Since it is a per-preset setting you may be experiencing unexpected volume changes when switching presets due to this parameter setting. Sounds to me like you want to set it to Don’t Force which means you want to control the Variax Volume using the guitar itself.
 

I know this feature works with Variax guitars from the JTV series onward. I’m not sure whether this works for the pre-JTV guitars. Try it. If it’s not available the issue is something else.

[lindsayward]

Thanks for replying!

It definitely seems like a hardware problem, not just something astray in some patches. It's been this way for many years. 

I found a setting in HX Edit for "Lock Control" that I can set to lock the volume control. I'll experiment with this. It seems a better option than reassigning the volume to control an unused parameter (which would require an unused effect block).

Being per-patch does mean setting this for all my patches... but I only want it for this guitar, not my JTV59. The 600 is my practice guitar that hangs on the wall.

 

[silverhead]

On 6/1/2025 at 12:49 AM, lindsayward said:

…

Being per-patch does mean setting this for all my patches...

 

That depends on whether or not you use Helix presets to change the Variax model (or any other Variax settings) in your 600 as you select different presets. There is a Global vs. Per Preset option for Variax controls. If you don’t need/want to change Variax models using presets you can use one preset to set the Variax Volume level to 10 and then set the Variax contro parameter to Global. Any future changes to the Variax controls that are stored in different presets will be ignored as you switch presets until you change that parameter back to Preset control.

[lindsayward]

(I'm sure I wrote a reply, but maybe I didn't post it and it disappeared.)

Thanks again. I didn't know about that global setting. It's ideal for my situation.

Unfortunately, the guitar is now glitching even more, so I may have to give up on it for this purpose.

I appreciate your continued expert replies over many years, @silverhead :)