Variax - what do you honestly think?

Variax - good, bad or ugly?

  • It rocks!

    Votes: 33 22.9%
  • It sucks!

    Votes: 23 16.0%
  • Haven't tried one.

    Votes: 72 50.0%
  • Do you want fries with that?

    Votes: 22 15.3%

  • Total voters
    144
After having the guitar for a couple of weeks time to update my thoughts.

From my limited perspective it plays really nice and smoothly.

Once I got the Variax cable an XLR cable and a Roland Keyboard amp my options really opened up.

I'm currently using the acoustics a lot through the DI box and XLR, they sound good to me.

Still not noticing a huge sound difference in the different electrics.

I would love to get some recommended workbench patches, ION has a lot of them but no real idea if the patches are good one's or not.

Tony
 
Ya, you drop $800 in both the guitar and the XT Live. But that is all you need, and then you have lots of options. It is like having, reverb, chorus, flage, gate, and distortion pedals along with tons of sim amps. So really it is not a bad deal, but you have to sort of "sell out" to digital unless you have the bank for an analog rig as well.

I think I would get the XT Live over the variax if I could have just one. I would miss the XT live more than the variax.
 
I've been having so much fun with my variax and workbench recently.

I programmed a BASS into a standard Variax 500 which works REALLY well

I programmed a Les Paul tuned up 1 octave which lets me do higher pitched power chords which still have the fullness of the thicker strings and works great for double tracking guitars

I programmed a bunch of standard alt tunings

I programmed a set of tunings that made certain songs easier to play. For example pushing the the tunings so I can play an F as a G to greatly simplify some changes.

Downside is I'm spending more time tweaking than I am playing :)
 
I love it, I used it a lot in the studio before I gigged it & to have the sound of a strat without the niggling hums was fantastic
 
I wonder how many real guitars Id have to sell to buy one of these.

I have 3 acoustic's

3 electrics

3 bass's

It would be cool to have that space back...do they make drums too?
 
BTW...what are the necks like??? did they go with a Jackson type feel...because that would be great...and do you have to tune these...keep up on string changes...from what Ive seen...it just seems vauge.
 
I wonder how many real guitars Id have to sell to buy one of these.

I have 3 acoustic's

3 electrics

3 bass's

It would be cool to have that space back...do they make drums too?

whatever you do, dont count on it for chugging sounds - its hit or miss there.

but its my main gigging axe (i do mostly rock, no metal live), and i absolutely love it.
 
BTW...what are the necks like??? did they go with a Jackson type feel...because that would be great...and do you have to tune these...keep up on string changes...from what Ive seen...it just seems vauge.

im not an expert on neck feels, i have no idea what to compare it to - maybe a strat (im talking about the 600 however)...

you have to keep them in tune. the tuners are of good quality.

strings, yeah.

its all relative.

basically, its just audio processing. Its like an envelope shaper + eq + delay.

it takes the control signal, the base signal of the electric strings into piezo pickups, and then shapes that into the various guitars.

it works quite well, i havent seen anything like this anywhere else yet.
 
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