Line 6 Variax 700 Acoustic Review

I have had this guitar for a few months now and it's become my main guitar acoustic guitar for practice and recording. All the current samples (as of April 07) on my songs page were recorded with the Variax acoustic. I was so impressed with this guitar that I splurged on a Variax Electric 700, despite having another great electric guitar in the Fender EJ Strat. The ability to change tunings by rotating a knob is about the coolest and most useful (esp. for fingerstyle players) tech advance I can think of. Sure, you could have 5 different acoustic guitars sitting around in different tunings, but cost and care start to get overwhelming. This guitar also models many different brand guitars including classic Gibsons, Martins of different size/shape as well as steels, and even a banjo and a shamisen.  I have found that it's a little difficult to really hear the difference between some of the models, although the primary reference point for me is headphones and they may color the sound a bit when compared to a good pa system or through a better preamp than I have. The ability to play the various songs I love on acoustic that require different tunings (DADGAD, Nashville, that weird open C-ish tuning for the Rain Song by Zep, etc.) is such a convenience for me. This guitar is actually a solidbody but it appears acoustic and is very  convincing when amplified, but don't take my word for it, listen to one of the songs I uploaded. That's one of the few drawbacks. Since it uses electronics to change the guitar sound and the tuning, you can't play them unamplified. In fact, you need to make sure they are amplified loud enough that you don't hear the strings or it could get distracting.

Line 6 Variax 700 Electric Review

I bought this guitar after playing the acoustic model for several weeks and I haven't been disappointed. This guitar is actually even more versatile in it's own way than the acoustic model. I found on the acoustic that there were only a few models that I really liked, but I have found a greater of variety of useful tones on this guitar.

I must admit to being stuck on the 58 Les Paul Standard since that was one of the main guitar sounds I had been lacking. I absolutely love my Fender Strat, but it doesn't quite work for more modern hard rock and metal tones. You can get close with enough processing power, but if you want your tone to approximate that of Eddie Van Halen, Randy Rhoads or pick you're favorite humbucker-centric player, then you need a guitar with humbuckers or one that is good at modeling the tone. The interesting thing is that I have a Brian Moore guitar with Dimarzio hums in it, but I have never been thrilled with the tone.  That's not the case with the Line 6.

This guitar was the missing ingredient in my arsenal. The ironic thing is that the Strat sound is pretty good as well and since I can switch back and forth I haven't been playing my strat that much lately.  This thing has pretty convicing models of Teles, Strats, Pauls, Rick 6/12 strings, Gretschs, ES-335, ES-175 and even includes a couple of acoustic and steel models. I really like the Danelectro model that is based on the one Jimmy Page played on Kashmir and other tunes. I think it sounds pretty good for "Ten Year's Gone" although he played a Tele on the live version (not sure what he played in the studio).  This guitar looks great and actually is very playable. It has a more Gibsonish radius (meaning flatter fretboard) in my opinion and just seemed really comfortable and familiar as soon as I picked it up. I posted my attempt at a Pat Methenyish tone (ES-175 model on neck pickup with some chorus/delay) on the "Time in a Bottle" cover. I intend to post more tunes featuring the overdriven and distorted tones this guitar is very adept at modeling. I truly am only limited by my ability at this point. With this guitar and the acoustic model I can get convincing close to any tone out there.

We took the plunge…

and bought Police tickets for the Dallas show at American Airlines center in June. I won't disclose how much we paid for tax purposes :), but we did get a much better deal on Ebay than the Internet scalpers were charging. It seems like most of the scalpers offer very similar ticket options and prices for individual shows, so I wonder how many of them are unique sellers or if they are all part of a international crime syndicate. You definitely feel like you're buying your tickets at gunpoint when looking at the prices. And it's hard to resist when you see they have 2nd and 3rd row center seats available. As long as you don't mind dropping a cool 3 g's for a single ticket, you shouldn't have any problems. 

We got 17th row center floor, so it should work out pretty well. (and our total for two tickets came out well under 4 figures). We saw Sarah Mclachlan at the same place on the 20th row and they were good seats, especially from an audio standpoint. Usually the better the view the poorer the audio in these big arena type shows. These seats are definitely an improvement over what I had for the Synchronicity tour across the street at Reunion Arena back in 1983. Now I just have to arrange to take time off to see the show since it's on a Wednesday. We are going to wait and find out our relocation schedule before we decide on where to see Rush. I was really tempted yesterday because someone was selling 9th row center nearer Alex's side for a decent price, but I decided to wait since the Dallas show may not be our best option. 

The Police and Rush are two shows I most want to see this summer, and I feel like these may be my last opportunities (especially the Police) to ever see these guys live again. I think Rush puts on one of the best shows in the current concert market as well as compared to previous shows I had seen. They used to perform about two hours with most of the material drawn from the current album they were touring on. On the last two tours, the shows have run over 3 hours (with an intermission) and they have played songs from their entire catalog, including songs like Xanadu and Natural Science. They try really hard to please their longtime fans and it's great to hear those songs from that period of their career (AFTK through MP), which is definitely my favorite.

My G.A.S. is cured

that's Gear Acquisition Syndrome for the unitiated. It's a phenomenon shared by most musicians, especially guitar players. It describes the seemly unquenchable thirst to obtain more equipment so you can achieve the magic "tone" that you are after from your equipment. The tone could be anything from clean to distorted or even more literal like the tone of famous player on a certain song. Although GAS isn't only about getting a tone you don't have. It could be because there's something aesthetically or functionally advantageous in a piece of equipment. In some cases it may be because you just want the same guitar that one of your heroes played.

I won't deny that I will buy more gear in the future, but for all practical purposes, any tone that I can't achieve is going to be related to my failings as a player or tweaker of my own equipment. Now that I have two Line 6 modeling guitars to go along with Guitar Rig modeling software, I have the ability to mimic a warehouse (literally) of different guitars, amps, processors, etc. I know it's going to require months if not years to get a decent handle on how to make it all work well.  So, the result is that my GAS should be cured for at least two or three weeks anyway :). 

Editorial Note (1 June 2010) - predicting the future was not one of my strong suits, at least in the GAS department...

Update on 2013-03-13 11:09 by Darren Hightower

I can endorse the June 2010 update by saying there will never be a cure for G.A.S.  It can only be subdued temporarily...

Book Review - One Train Later

The autobiography by the brilliant guitarist for the Police. This covers his entire life until this point with a large portion detailing his musical career before the Police which unknown to me prior to reading this book was actually pretty successful. He was a member of much of the 60s musical movement in England and the San Francisco/California psychedelic movement. He bounced around to various bands and gigs and was pretty well known to many of the big players in those days including the Stones, the Who and others. He played with the Animals and had a variety of backup/session type gigs including Neal Sedaka to name just one. He was heavily influenced by Jazz at an early age and it's the variety of musical experiences he had that allowed him to develop such a unique sound within the Police that had never been heard before and has been copied but never equalled in the time since. It's a good book for Police fans and a great book for Andy Summers fans. On the tail of finishing this book, the news broke that the Police have reunited and are touring this summer. I just finished watching them open the Grammy's last Sunday (they sounded fantastic by the way, they haven't lost anything in twenty plus years apart) and have now found out they will play Dallas in June. I plan to be there if at all humanly possible. I was fortunate enough to see them play across the street from where they are playing this June on their last tour (Synchronicity). Update: I was able to buy two tickets for 17th row center floor at the Dallas show in June. I'm just slightly stoked, to put it mildly.

Book Review - Stairway to Heaven

Stairway to Heaven by Richard Cole - this is basically the diary (or at least a very subjective retelling) of life on the road with Led Zeppelin by their primary tour manager, Richard Cole. It is mostly filled with stories of life on tour, including all the crazy stories that surround the band. Yes, the shark story is there in full detail. It's a interesting read in that it does reveal some character traits of the band members that may not be as readily obvious through their music and interviews. Since he was their tour manager, there isn't much about their studio time and the development of the songs and albums, which is what I would consider the most important aspect of their legacy as a band, although their touring is probably what made them most famous. This is mostly for the real fans of the band, but it is told by someone who was truly on the inside so it gives details you won't find anywhere else. I also recently re-read "Hammer of the Gods" which treads much the same ground as Stairway to Heaven



Book Review - An Equal Music

An Equal Music by Vikram Seth - tells the story of a classical violinist in a professional touring quartet in Europe. It's equal measures of the musician's life and relationships among the various players. It also is very focused on the failed relationship between the violinist and another student and his regret at losing her. After a chance sighting of her in London he spends the next several chapters trying to track her down only to find that many things have changed and neither of them are like they were. The relational aspects of the novel border on lifetime channel material, but the life of a touring classical musician rings true and is interesting for anyone who is a player or musician or has an interest in that life. I read this after seeing it recommended by Neal Peart on his website.