Line 6 Variax

Following up on recent posts I thought I'd put some comments here. What follows is all over the place, but bear with me.

I went into town today to see if anyone had one of the fabled beasties. Not in until about January 20th, but luck would have it that Ross from Line 6 was demoing the Variax in Turnkey. I was there when he arrived so had the pleasure of a 40 minute demo, chat and dabble in a nice quiet environment.

He had the guitar plugged into a Flextone II and a Fender acoustic amp for the acoustic patches. We kept the gain down as I wanted to hear the difference between electric patches.

The tones were nice and varied, and it provides some pretty good models. I have a lot of the guitars that the Variax models and felt they were good approximations. The 335, Strat and Tele sounds all seemed about right. However, none of the electric patches blew me away. I would have preferred to hear it through a valve amp as I couldn't help feeling there WAS a slightly sterile, processed nature to the sound. I don't know how psychological all this was - I guess someone needs to do a proper A/B test. What I would certainly say is that playing this guitar induced no passion in me at all. I find I can still get goosebumps playing a new guitar or amp and they weren't forthcoming here. This instrument very much appealed to the part of my brain that likes good software and effects boxes, rather than the more emotional creative bit that a good Les Paul excites. It felt very clever rather than very beautiful.

I have to say I agree with most people here about the instrument's strengths. The J200 was a fantastic simulation of a big woody acoustic. I have a Gibson J45, but have never played a J200 for comparison I think for live work it would take some beating for the acoustic tones. Much better than any Piezo/solid body combo I have heard.

I also really liked the other acoustic tones (including a nice parlour guitar) and the more oddball reso/sitar/banjo sounds. I would consider the electric tones a bonus, rather than a life-altering, collection-replacing event.

Physically, the instrument felt to me like a good Pacifica or similar. Workmanlike, comfortable and practical, but not my cup of tea. Again it feels a bit sterile and generic - perhaps this is essential for a guitar pretending to be so many different things.

I feel much the same as I do about the Pod. I don't really care how authentic the sound is, just how good it is - and there are some very good sounds. I also think that, again like the Pod, on a recording you probably wouldn't be able to spot the difference between the electric emulations and the real thing.

If I was a gigging guitarist who had even one song that required a switch from acoustic to electric mid-song I would buy one immediately. But if I was in the market for a single electric guitar, I would still buy a Les Paul and to hell with tonal variation. As it is I can probably live without one for a while. That's never stopped me in the past though.

One things probably true - we're all going to have to at least try one of these.

I think this is a view I pretty much agree with. I still have the Variax for photographic purposes here with me and I've been picking it up and noodling around with it all over the Christmas break. Sadly I have to give it back at the end of next week.

I do play in a gigging covers band where there's a need to cover electric and acoustic numbers inc. 12 strg. and I cannot think of anything better to do the job than the Variax - it's a thoroughly practical instrument. My acoustic playing mates have seen it and heard it and declare total yet grudging respect!

I won't, however, sell my Gibson Historic '54 Gold top LP, even though that's all it will ever sound like, thankfully. It's got soul and I love it - I want to look at it and hold it etc etc. The Variax won't elicit the same emotional response from many people - I could be wrong.

One more very important thing I have to add that you'll have to find out for yourselves that Variax does which is great fun and offers superb creative opportunities...

Whilst enjoying myself hugely on said guitar, doing my best to shred after a few Stellas in my front room the other night - monstrously overdriven valve amp cooking nicely et al, I mistakenly engaged one of the resophonic models. It sounded like the end of the world - the most outrageous organic blues tones I've ever created. I was hooked - I went through all of the acoustic and jazz settings to see what evil I could summon up. True, many of them were unspeakably awful, but others were more than usable with a few being truly excellent.

Not everyone's cup of tea, I know, but the point is this - you can abuse these models and get some v. interesting new sounds and that's got to be good hasn't it? ...well I think so, but then I've got dubious taste!

All the best