line 6 variax 300

Also, there is a phantom supply system for the Variax, so battery life is not necessarily a big issue for this product.

I generally like Line6 stuff, but just had an annoying experience with my Delay Modeler. (DL-4). It went into a lock-up state during a performance. Okay, de-power to reset right? Nope. I could not get it to reset quickly. I had to power it down for some minutes to get it to recover. After spending 20 seconds trying to force a recovery, I had to yank it and play on without it. 20 seconds on stage is a long time -- too long, and I still had to bail without success. If it were my guitar, I'd have been really pissed off. The Variax line is based on the same general sorts of DSP hardware and modeling implementations as Line6's other modelers -- my pedal included. This has left me cautious about not having backup for critical equipment based on DSP hardware and associated software/firmware algorithms. Of course YMMV.

Arjen said: Leo: no guitar has personality when you buy it in a store, regardless of what the Fender and Gibson PR-machines wants us to believe. 'Personality' is something that every guitar gets when you've played it enough. As for the batteries, 99% of metal guitarists use active EMG pups, and the 1% that doesn't uses pedals requiring batteries. If you are dexterious enough to get a gig you should be able to replace the battery. As for quality: it is the cheapest version after all.

What i really ment, is that the way the guitar feels, sounds. Every guitar even of the same model has a different sound and feel.

PS
Are the EMG pickups active? I didn't know. Does that mean that it has a built in pre-amp?

Are the EMG pickups active? I didn't know. Does that mean that it has a built in pre-amp?

Only the EMG Hi-Z line is passive. All of the others, including the "killer" metal pups are active and do indeed have internal pre-amps that require powering.

The individual differences between two Variax300 guitars will be just as big or small as between any other factory produced guitar. Personally I've never believed much of the supposedly huge differences people hear in two guitars of the same model and year. Feel maybe but not hear.

They are alright. I have the 500, i love it to death. Its got its problems but they aint major. I just have one problem with one of the pots which im getting fixed as soon as I get the time to bring it to the store... Its a great guitar though. I highly reccommend it.

I spend about a hour with one plugged in at GC.
IMHO.....It does many, many things. But it only does a few of them well.
If you need the sound of a banjo....get a banjo.

hmmm, well the main thing is if it sounds horrible muted its not really worth me getting.... no chuggage :-(

Just try it yourself and see if you like it.

I have not tried or even heard the Line 6 guitars. I DO have a Line 6 amp. The things I do not like about the amp are things I've heard people say they don't like about the guitar. Some of the digital sound is pretty cool, but the cleaner you get, the more fake it sounds. I think it's a question of whether or not the benefits out-weigh the negatives for you. Looking at the reviews on harmony-central, it seems rated very high. Only those looking for the exact sound rated it poorly. Like someone said, if you don't mind a bit of a digital sound, go for it.

All of the benefits do sound pretty neat though. Who knows, we may be only a couple of years away from some company nailing it. It happened with photography.

All of the benefits do sound pretty neat though. Who knows, we may be only a couple of years away from some company nailing it. It happened with photography.

Unfortunately, digital modelling of analog instruments doesn't have the profit appeal that digital photography has had, so won't see the same level of R&D investment. Instrument modelling is also a much less straightforward technical problem than creating and improving digital photography. The quality of photography can be improved through brute force methods: more memory, better sensors, less compression, more processing power, better optics. Guitar modelling is one of those things that most will get to a 90% goodness point, but then have expend incredible resources to improve it much further. All to sell not really that many guitars, whose price points keep dropping.

Gibson is working on digital guitars as well. If they nail it and sell it cheap they won't sell a single LP anymore. So they either won't nail it or I won't be able to afford it. :D

What's the ETA on those Gibsons?

No idea, if I am correct they started before Variax with some experiments. They seem somewhat in doubt whether or not it is the right time for it to me.

http://messe.harmony-central.com/Musikmesse03/Content/Gibson/Digital-Guitar-System.html

Gibson has been talking about that digital guitar for a long time -- certainly for more than 5 years. It's probably just overhang-the-market PR cr@p.

One prototype actually had something like CAT-5 cable with an RJ45 connector. Maybe they've kludged in a Wi-Fi connection by now.

"Hey Lennie, look it's a digital Les Paul."
"Yeah, George, just like my networked 'puter. Tell me about the digital signal processing bunnies again, George."