Variax or Les Paul... Is it a question?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Alexrkstr
  • Start date Start date

What would you do?

  • Keep the Variax 300 .. Versatility

    Votes: 12 22.2%

  • Trade it for the Real thing - LP Studio... A Strat and a LP will do it

    Votes: 42 77.8%
  • Total voters
    54
Keep the one that works best for you, whichever.

I have an assortment of regular guitars (LP Custom, PRS Custom 24, Strat, Tele, etc). I also have a Variax 500. The Variax is what I play live and the rest stay in their cases. It plays well and has a range of sounds that the others cannot touch.

Is it exactly like any of the guitars it models? No. It is close enough for me, yes. It also has the added feature, than none of the rest have, of zero noise.

Ed
 
In some of the work I do my Variax acoustic has become an absolute necessity, still in your case I'd say trade it in. I haven't dealt with the 'electric' Variax but it's been my experience that what you're using for amplification has a great bearing on it's sound.....that and learning it's controls. The ability to have so many instruments available and tunings you simply can do on a conventional guitar is a great aid, but it lends itself more towards solo work that with groups. I've also been amazed at it's recording abilities..something I wasn't expecting...so it's now an option in some situations. A word to the wise re Variax: If you think you're going to pick one up and be impressed, or think you can figure it out in short order, forget it.

Still, as said earlier, there's no substitute for the real thing, and a good guitar through a good amp is the best sound.
 
Ed Dixon said:
Keep the one that works best for you, whichever.

I have an assortment of regular guitars (LP Custom, PRS Custom 24, Strat, Tele, etc). I also have a Variax 500. The Variax is what I play live and the rest stay in their cases. It plays well and has a range of sounds that the others cannot touch.

Is it exactly like any of the guitars it models? No. It is close enough for me, yes. It also has the added feature, than none of the rest have, of zero noise.

Ed
Click to expand...

Question, how do you amlify it, regular guitar amp or pa?
 
I have two rigs, one at church and one for external live work. Both have the same basic setup. I run a small Carvin power amp into a personal PA wedge monitor for my guitar. I run a feed from the output to the main board for FOH sound. At church it's a small Fender 12" wedge. For external work, a larger Carvin 15" wedge.

The church setup is rack based for effects. The external rig uses a POD XT Live. Both setups also have Roland synths included (GK3 on Variax 500) that go through a small mixer which feeds both my Carvin power amp and the FOH feed.

Ed
 
Ed Dixon said:
I have two rigs, one at church and one for external live work. Both have the same basic setup. I run a small Carvin power amp into a personal PA wedge monitor for my guitar. I run a feed from the output to the main board for FOH sound. At church it's a small Fender 12" wedge. For external work, a larger Carvin 15" wedge.

The church setup is rack based for effects. The external rig uses a POD XT Live. Both setups also have Roland synths included (GK3 on Variax 500) that go through a small mixer which feeds both my Carvin power amp and the FOH feed.

Ed
Click to expand...

Though I'm not quite sure what you're talking about, it's definitely not a regular guitar amp, through which I don't think any Variax sounds good.

Actually, what I'm doing isn't much different. Primarily I'll run through my Bose PAS flat with no presets or eq changes and no effects.....that's what they designed it on. But the Bose doesn't play well with others as far as line outs go and for situations like last night in a band with a pa and then running to a house system I use a Carvin AG100D acoustic amp with a line out to the pa, along with a strat with an amp modler and a banjo. If I don't need as much monitored back I'll go with a smaller but cleaner GK 200MV, a great little amp with bunch of output options.
 
The Carvin amp is a PA style amplifier. I feed rack/XTL output into a small mixer. One mixer feed goes to the Carvin and the other to the house PA.

Usng a guitar amp is harder, for modeller gear. The POD Xt Live is a good companion to the Variax expecially when combined with either a keyboard amp or PA setup (like mine).

ed
 
Ed Dixon said:
The Carvin amp is a PA style amplifier. I feed rack/XTL output into a small mixer. One mixer feed goes to the Carvin and the other to the house PA.

Usng a guitar amp is harder, for modeller gear. The POD Xt Live is a good companion to the Variax expecially when combined with either a keyboard amp or PA setup (like mine).

ed
Click to expand...

Sounds like a great combination.
I think I finally hit on a combination that will work for the rare band situations I do, and that would be to use the three channels on the Carvin for Variax, Strat, and Banjo with the strat going through a modeler and a line out to the P.A.
 
mgrowe said:
I have a variax 600 and variax workbench,
That allowed me to upgraded the firmware and now the acoustic and LP sounds are much much better.

Just thought I would point that out.

Don't think the 300 can be upgraded like that

http://www.soundclick.com/mikerowe
Click to expand...

I've heard great things about the software....wish they'd come out with a version for the Variax acoustic. That aside, isn't there a firmware update for the 12 string? Oh well, it's probably only for the electrics too.
 
To build on Ed's comment:

The latest firmware is available for ALL Variax electric models. It does, to my ear anyway, really help the 12-string models in particular.

A not-yet-released version of Workbench software is promising to by applicable to Variax acoustics as well as electrics. (Current version applies only to electrics).

And finally, word is Line 6 is coming out with an acoustic 300 - a cheaper acoustic guitar modeler.
 
I still can't quite figure out the value of the workbench software for the Variax Acoustic. Sure it's better than not having it but it doesn't seem to be the answer to all prayers some seem to think ?
 
Can't speak from experience on Vax Acoustic. However the WB was much more useful than expected for the electric. I would expect a similar response to WB for acoustic.

Ed
 
Does the guitar make all those sounds or is it a controller for some other outboard tone generator/emulator?
 
The guitar. Everything is inside.

You can connect a regular guitar cable to guitar and your amp of choice, and all is there.

Ed
 
Ed Dixon said:
Can't speak from experience on Vax Acoustic. However the WB was much more useful than expected for the electric. I would expect a similar response to WB for acoustic.

Ed
Click to expand...

Agreed but, idiot that I am, there seems to be many less options for an acoustic and they can already do alt-tunings.

Electric allowed pickup changes, alt-tunings and custom/std settings with POD XTL none of which are an issue for Acoustic.

Again I'm glad it's coming I just don't see it as that big a deal :)
 
For the electric, the biggest thing for me was volume control. I needed all the models to have the same volume level, and WB solved that. That alone was worth the price.

I expect there is a similar need for the acoustic here, before you get to things like body model, pickups, etc.

Ed
 
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