Variax Guitar

[Paul]

Maart

Great to have you on the board.

Can you give your views on the Variax guitar you have been using for the past couple of years. Does it feel strange having such a diversity of different guitar sounds coming out of the same instrument? I would have thought that the banjo, or 12-string setting must feel a bit unusual.

Paul

[Maart]

Hi Paul

Nice to be here. The Variax 500 is a complete guitar collection in one instrument, white man's magic from California. It's the instrument I use mostly nowadays for gigging as it has all the guitars I need for live work. Nearly. The 12strings are not so convincing and it has no whammy bar, or worry stick as we used to call it in Manchester. Still, if I need a worry stick I have a perfectly good Strat doing nothing at the moment. Also it's harder to get feedback on it as it has no magnetic pickups, but if you're from North Manchester you can. The Goldtop Les Paul is great at feeding back as I found out the first time I had it out with Jethro Tull back in '90. The Variax did feel a bit strange at first when I switched to a Gibson Super 400 (a big-bodied jazz guitar) or the Gibson J200 (a big-bodied jumbo guitar) but you soon get used to it. The banjo setting is cool as it feels a lot more comfortable than a real one and not half the weight. The bass Variax is on its way now...

Maart

[peluche (Chris)]

Hi Maart

Nice to see you here.

The Variax 700 acoustic looks a fine instrument, espcially instant alternate tunings !!

Have you any experience or comments ?

All best wishes for the coming year.
Chris

[Maart]

Hi Chris

I tried a prototype of the Acoustic Variax at the factory about a month before they starting shipping. It was plugged into a Line6 guitar amp so it wasn't the ideal setup. I was intrigued by the tuning thing but there was a delay involved with lower tunings. Also you'd have to have the guitar pretty loud to drown out the acoustic string, for example when you tune the B string up to C. I also saw the video demo of the software, Variax Workbench, which is still having teething troubles, but which they claim will enable the user of any Variax guitar to use alternate tunings. I'm very excited by this but I've been waiting since May... Hopefully the Variax bass will be a useful tool. I'll have to get a fretless neck one as well though maybe, although my trusty Rob Armstrong 1978 "third arm" could never be bettered. Rob's making me another one in the summer. I've got my name down on his waiting list.

Maart