Is the Variax concept dead?

[Bach5G]

This looked fun when the first Variax models came out but the line was discontinued a couple of years ago. My impression is that it never really took off.

Is there a company that continues to make modeling guitars?

[starjasmine]

I think there are still modeling guitars out there, including some new arrivals from China on Amazon, that are pretty nice. I would expect that they'd only get better as signal processing improves. There are also some very impressive cigarette-pack-sized processors that don't model guitar sounds but pack a lot of processing into a pocket-sized box.

I was really jonesing for a Variax when I was doing pit band gigs that called for acoustic, electric, banjo and mando. It seemed so practical to be able to just bring one axe. I remember one guy I shared a gig with who had a variax built as a folk guitar that could do most of what I wanted. I never found one that had all of the sounds in one box tho... they would always have something not-practical like sitar instead of 12 string, or they'd be missing one of either banjo or mando. I kind of drifted away from that scene during covid and never really pursued it since.

What may be going the way of the Old West is MIDI guitar. Seems like there are now analog processors that can modify the output of a standard guitar radically, without the tracking delay issues of pitch-to-MIDI. That's another area I may be out-of-date on, tho. Modern processors might not have appreciable pitch-to-midi delay.

[Bob_Ross]

What may be going the way of the Old West is MIDI guitar. Seems like there are now analog processors that can modify the output of a standard guitar radically, without the tracking delay issues of pitch-to-MIDI. That's another area I may be out-of-date on, tho. Modern processors might not have appreciable pitch-to-midi delay.

I dabbled in MIDI guitar back in the late 1980s (had a GR-700 plus a rack full of modules from E-mu, Roland, and Ensoniq) and I still like to think of myself as being fairly knowledgeable about the current state-of-the-art in music technology ...but I was proven wrong a couple months back when I did a session with another guitarist who had a guitar-synth rig that was absolutely unrecognizeable. Odd looking pickup on his guitar -- not the current Roland 15-pin thing, this was something entirely different -- with a fantail of six (!) separate outputs feeding a tiny interface box, then USB from that into his laptop. Zero latency whatsoever, and the world's yer oyster in terms of which synth patches he could access. I was gobsmacked.

Last time I saw anyone using a Variax was 25 years ago when Steve Howe of Yes was using it in lieu of his old Coral Electric Sitar.

[Alder Statesman]

Godin still offers them. Godin ACS Grand Concert Nylon-String Acoustic-Electric Guitar Natural | Guitar Center

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

Godin still offers them. Godin ACS Grand Concert Nylon-String Acoustic-Electric Guitar Natural | Guitar Center

That’s a Multiac. Variax was a series of guitars with digital electronics made from about 2000 until a few years ago. James Tyler was the designer IIRC, and Line 6 made them.

[ThatRhythmMan]

Well, this is exactly the same thing, but seems somewhat timely. Actually, it seems somewhat surprising that Line 6 never did a drop in Variax for Strats.

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[jim777]

Well, this is exactly the same thing, but seems somewhat timely. Actually, it seems somewhat surprising that Line 6 never did a drop in Variax for Strats.

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That's 990 Euro, quite the upgrade!

[jzucker]

Godin still offers them. Godin ACS Grand Concert Nylon-String Acoustic-Electric Guitar Natural | Guitar Center

this is not the same as a variax, the godin simply has a hex pickup that converts to midi, variax is something completely different.

[nyc chaz]

I bought a Variax years ago.It was actually pretty good at simulating various guitars.It's main problem was the piezo's kept having to be replaced.After the 2nd replacement failed again, i gave up on it.

[Jim Soloway]

The Vox Giulietta has a couple of modelling guitars in the line up.

Giulietta VGA-3D - Vox Amps

[olejason]

The just announced Helix Stadium has support for Variax so Line 6 hasn't given up on it.

[WilliamScott]

I had a variax that I lent to a pal to do some recording. Here he is playing that variax (

). It sounds pretty good in that recording but they had lots of trouble with it. It would cut out randomly. Later I tried giving it to a kid who was my son's friend and very decent guitarist. He tried it for a week and decided he didn't want it. Gave it back. I rarely played it. Finally gave it to the local high school.

[jim777]

I'm a bit surprised Yamaha gave up on it, but at the same time as the whole "now you can sound like any instrument" tech was gaining speed the, "now you can have 100+ amplifiers and 100+ cabinets at the touch of a switch" tech kind of steamrolled it. More amps and cabs, and effects and such was simply more popular to the guitar buying market. Now, Yamaha evidently has no real interest in updating the Variax systems, possibly because they sell the instruments the Variax models.

If I had a Helix though, I might look for a reasonable used one to play with (there is one on Reverb now for $220 ).