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Line 6 Variax modeling guitar, the sound of the future?

In: Modeling guitars Friday May 2,2008

Yesterday I was speaking about the fact that I haven’t found much time these last days to spend in front of my computer and about the Easter grill party that we threw at the rehearsal room. There, I met an old band mate that I haven’t seen since, I don’t know, maybe 6-7 years (OK, I think I have seen him a couple of times on the street but this doesn’t count, cause we’ve didn’t talk too much). He currently plays in a band here that is quite known, Spin is the name, that had, I think 2 hits, and is doing fine, he says.

The previous guitar player of the same band was an other band mate of mine, from my previous band, Kapela…man, WTF am I doing, my ex band mates have good music contracts, I think I must be a lucky person, I definitely must be the reason they are doing well, don’t you think? I think I am some kind of a talisman of some sort, who knows…

By the way, an other ex-band mate, drummer, is also doing fine and has been in a few well known bands here, see, the talisman story stands…damn, I must move to Bucharest too!

But the reason of this post is not the fact that already 3 ex-band mates have a visible music career, but the fact that while drinking a beer and eating some cooked lamb chops, me and Silviu spoke about electric guitars, about preferences and latest acquisitions. And there he told me about his last acquisition, a brand new guitar that he is very happy about! Well, let me have it, what’s that wonder guitar name?

I was expecting some wonder Fender, some high tech Gibson, this kind of guitars, considering his expression. Well, no! How about a no-pickup guitar? No pickup? What? Is it a MIDI guitar or what?

Well, no, after he explained it to me a bit and he showed me on the internet (we have internet connection next to the grill, did you know that?) I understood what he was speaking about.

The guitar he bought was a Line 6 guitar. I have seen it before, just that because it has no visible pickups, I didn’t give it too much attention. A MIDI, guitar, of course, I thought! BUT IT IS NOT A MIDI GUITAR!!! No!

Line 6 Variax is a regular electric guitar,(at least from the point of view of how the string vibrations are caught by the pickups), otherwise you could call it an electronic guitar, I guess!

The guitar has pickups, just that not 1, 2 or 3 regular pickups but 6 pickups, one on every string, but they are not visible because they are in the bridge.

I guess you could call Line 6 Variax a modeling guitar, the way they call it, or an electronic guitar, or a guitar collection, because this is exactly what it is! A collection of guitars, electric and acoustic guitars!! The manufacturers studied a lot of famous guitars, like Fender Stratocaster, Gibson Les Paul, acoustic guitars, hollow bodies, etc, and put all those studies and statistics into some electronic processing unit INSIDE THE GUITAR!

Then, by adding an extra knob on the guitar, you could just PICK THE GUITAR YOU WANT FROM THE COLLECTION! I must say I was amazed! With one single move of the knob you could get the sound of a genuine Fender Telecaster or of a Gibson. And if this does not amaze you, how about getting the sound of a regular acoustic guitar? Well? He showed me a live show on YouTube where he was playing his new guitar using the acoustic tone, right from the guitar! I must say it was quite impressive and at first I thought it was not live!

I was also impressed by the line of musicians playing Line 6 Variax, artists like Steve Howe (Yes), Andy Taylor (Duran Duran), Ed O’Brien (Radiohead), David Whild and Donnie Mathis (Outkast), Khaliq Glover (Prince), Charlie Clouser (Nine Inch Nails), because in the beginning I thought it must be one of those gadgets that everybody loves but nobody really uses. Well, seems not!

For a studio musician I guess it must be the Heaven on Earth, because you don’t need to carry extra guitars for getting THE SOUND. With just a spin of a knob you have a double six guitar right there along with the the large hollow body guitar!

There are 25 models the guitar emulates, 3 Telecaster models, 1 Stratocaster, 11 Gibson, 2 Gretsch,
2 Rickenbacker, Guild, Dobro, Danelectro, a Sitar, a banjo, an Epiphone and a National, if I haven’t missed some, see the exact list here and the sample collection with how this guitar sound when emulating the guitars here.

There are a few models, Line 6 Variax 300, 600 and 700, my friend got the 700, which he said it costs around $1400 but worths every cent. The 300 and 600 models seem to have the exact same modeling features, what is different is the quality of the “outfit”.

If you also count the fact that with the use of Line 6 Workbench you can tune the strings the way you want, so you can get the drop D tuning or the open tuning without actually tunning any string other way than the standard international way, then I think you should have a look at this guitar if you haven’t already done it. I know I took a long dive into this new (for me) guitar and I must admit I would love one!

I ask myself, am I too impressed or this guitar is a must have? How do you see this? Would you buy one of these? Do you know anybody using one? Would you invest trust and money into a guitar that has actually no “real” pickups?

Can the modeling guitars be the future of electric guitars or this is just an other direction as with MIDI guitars and guitar synthesizers that will never replace “real” electric guitars?

What’s your call on this?

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20 Responses to “Line 6 Variax modeling guitar, the sound of the future?”

Dr. J
May 2nd, 2008 at 1:10 am

I played the 600 model but it didn’t have a tremolo; I think I’d like the 700 model but haven’t played one. Very nice sounds!
Stratoblogster
May 2nd, 2008 at 4:20 am

Somebody’s gonna build a Guitar Hero interface for these guitars. Then real guitar players can play real guitar in Guitar Hero. And what an excellent chop building tool that will be.
Ovidiu
May 2nd, 2008 at 5:47 am

So, Dr. J, I feel a good vine in there, I guess you had a nice experience playing it, right? I am currently considering one myself and I said to myself to go try one when I have the opportunity, even if the price range is a bit out of my current possibilities, because if you consider the benefits, the price is good.

The tremolo, well, as long as it doesn’t have a Floyd, I don’t know how much it helps, but that’s OK, I asked my friend about this and he says yes, he feels the need of it once in a while but he managed to learn not to use it, considering the benefits this guitar brings.

By the way, if you want feedback a la Jimi Hendrix seems you won’t get it…
Dr. J
May 2nd, 2008 at 2:05 pm

I didn’t notice that it doesn’t feedback; –wow, that’s interesting. I don’t think the 700 has a floyd rose, but I definitely missed having one, especially w/ the resophonic and sitar sounds.
GLW
May 2nd, 2008 at 2:29 pm

A friend of mine sold a very nice guitar and bass collection and replaced them with three of these Variax things - acoustic, electric, and bass models.

I have to confess that I don’t like them. They have no soul.
IG
May 2nd, 2008 at 6:07 pm

I’ve only used a “>Variax Acoustic, so I can’t comment on the Variax electric guitar sound and feel.

BUT, the Variax Acoustic is a good piece of gear, in my opinion. We use it in my cover band for “acoustic” type songs, and it does really well on stage. I also bring it home at times (it belongs to my bass player) and do some direct recording with it, which I think is the best thing about the guitar (and it may be for the electric one too). When you record direct you get pretty nice, convincing acoustic sounds.

I recorded one my guitar playalongs with the Variax Acoustic, so, you can judge for yourself.

IG
Mike g
May 3rd, 2008 at 8:28 am

I’m not too impressed. Who wants to play 24 different guitars. I have three guitars that I like, and those are plenty. This thing is overkill.
Ovidiu
May 5th, 2008 at 7:55 am

@GLW: kind of a bold move, to buy them all 3 at once and sell your current guitar set! He must have been quite confident in these guitars! I guess that for somebody used to having pickups on a “regular” guitar these modeling guitars may seem like processors for somebody used to stompboxes.

@IG: The acoustic guitar sounds very well, in my opinion. It does a good job, if the electric guitar performs the same, it’s great!

@Mike g: Well, Mike, I don’t think it is about playing 24 guitars but finding the tone you like out of those 24(25) guitars. Plus that if you are a studio “hired gun” you need to sound like a lot of folks, so you need to be versatile.

This is the case with my old band mate, he records a lot of commercials and he needs to find different sounds for different jingles and he says this guitar helped him a lot.

@Dr J: the lack of feedback is something I guess myself, because there are no regular pickups. Also there is no humm, like with the regular guitar pickups, and this is not something I say, but they show it in the commercial, plus my friend told me himself that there is no need to turn off the volume for this since the guitar is very quiet.
silviu
May 5th, 2008 at 2:03 pm

Hello Ovidiu. I see that you did some documentation on this guitar. I’m glad that you took took the time to do this. First, for those that don’t know me, i should mention that i am Ovidiu’s friend that owns this guitar. I have read all the comments, and most of them are correct. Anyhow, I feel the need to post a comment myself.

My variax 700 has no floyd rose system, but a classic one. I have played for many years on guitars that have floyd, so i thought it would be unpleasent for me too. It is not. Variax 700 has gotoh keys which don’t get out of tune. If you desire you can set the tremolo to float, or you can set it to go only down.

Concearning the feedback, i must say that you have feedback on this guitar if you know how to get it.

I played with my variax in many concerts and i must say that it is a beauty. Of course i use only a few models in a concert, but in the studio is something else.

Actually, since i have both this guitar, i didn’t feel the need to play any other of my guitars, except the classical ones.

Another intresting thing is that you must change the way you are playing when you go from acustic to electric or to other instruments (like sitar etc.) So, if you are only an electric guitar player and you don’t have the knowledge to play on acustic, this guitar won’t save you.

For any questions regarding the variax, i would be more than glad to answere here.
Ovidiu
May 5th, 2008 at 3:45 pm

Hi, Silviu!
Nice to have you here with us, thanks for joining!
I really got interested in this guitar after speaking to you. It somehow makes me a bit uncomfortable because it has no pickups, so it gives me a feeling of “research”, something not yet accepted by the market, something still under construction…

Plus that if you break something on it, I guess it’s difficult to fix it, while with a regular electric guitar you can do it yourself in most of the cases.

You were also speaking about that cable with double function, sound plus power supplying.

But it sounds damn interesting to have one!!!
silviu
May 6th, 2008 at 9:32 am

First. The fact that it has no visible pickups bothered me too in the beggining, but, in the same time it helps a lot concearning your image as a guitarist. When i go on stage with this, a lot of people get very intrested only by seeing this strange guitar with no pickups.

Second. It depends on what gets broken. A lot of parts are simmilar to a conventional guitar. One thing is that you are not allowed to take down the tremmolo system since the pickups are iside the bridge, so everything is full of wires over there. Also, if the internal processor gets broken, you have to contact line6.

Third. Since it has an internal processor, this one has to be supplyed to a current source. Line 6 gives you 3 choices. 1-batteries, 2-you can buy the line6 pod xt or x3.you can connect the guitar to this processor using a digital cable (simmilar to usb) and this cable also gives you the current that you need for the guitar. 3-if you do not want to use the line 6 processors, you have a footswitch which also powers the guitar using a hi-quality stereo cable. The signal goes through one channel and the current through the other channel.
Ovidiu
May 6th, 2008 at 10:00 am

Is there such thing as Line 6 office/shop in Romania? I mean, when you say contact Line 6, I guess you mean the central office, right? So if you need it to get fixed, you will probably end up without a guitar for a couple of weeks, considering other similar experiences.
silviu
May 6th, 2008 at 10:56 am

A.V. AUDIO SYS is the exclusive importer and distributor of line 6 products in Romania. Here you can test almost anything designed by line 6.

http://www.avaudiosys.ro/
Ovidiu
May 6th, 2008 at 11:34 am

Interesting, I think you mentioned it when we spoke about the guitar at that grill. I will take a look, thanks!
Mogarr
May 13th, 2008 at 11:18 pm

Like all gear Line 6 makes the Variax will change the way musicians think of thier gear (notice I said musicians not the general population) and for good reason.
I own a MKII Marshall , an AVT 150 Marshall , and a Line 6 Spider 2 and not only does the Line 6 sound and feel like the 50 watt classic in the “50 watt marshall ” channel but the tone controls and volume settings are perfectly identical to the original:-).
These guys are not some flash in the pan (ADA) they work on models till they arn”t just good they are great.
As to having no soul ;-( the soul is in your fingers .
Don’t know about the rest of you but I’d rather have Line 6 spend the time and money getting the sounds we seek as opposed to buyn’ 12 amps and 40 guitars!
Mogarr
May 13th, 2008 at 11:28 pm

BTW unlimited budget guys like EVH ,Clapton, ect will always play real pickup guitars no matter how many they need to buy .
Ovidiu
May 14th, 2008 at 9:39 am

@Mogarr: It is possible to see in the near future a change in how musicians look at guitars. And indeed, lately I have started to think less and less about the my guitar sounding like a particular guitar and more about sounding right. So, if a modeling guitar gives me a good sound and more than this, giving me 25 different sounds, well then, I think it is great!

About Clapton and other people affording what guitars they like, it is easy to explain, it is the fun part too. And I don’t think I will see Clapton playing a modeling guitar, he’s an old school guitar player, he found what he was looking for, I don’t think he would have a reason to change his guitars for a modeling guitar. And it doesn’t sound like him, in the end.
silviu
May 18th, 2008 at 11:34 am

Hello Ovidiu. If you want to see and hear this guitar, come on the 20th of May, in Pitesti, in front of the cityhall, near the new fountain, at 7 PM. It will be a concert with Spin and Phoenix and after, fireworks. Hope you will come.
Ovidiu
May 19th, 2008 at 10:17 pm

OK, Silviu! I will be there!
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Line 6 Variax modeling guitar, the sound of the future?

20 Responses to “Line 6 Variax modeling guitar, the sound of the future?”

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