Variax Bass 700

Doctor J · 21-12-2004 12:11pm #1

http://www.line6.com/variaxBass/demo.html

Who do you want to sound like today? :rolleyes:

feylya · 21-12-2004 12:37pm

I'd love to get a Variax to mess around with. I'd put it in a better guitar though.

Doctor J · 21-12-2004 12:55pm

Yeah, don't understand why they go for such ugly body shapes.

feylya · 21-12-2004 12:59pm

It's not even the body shape. The guitar is supposed to feel horrible to play, even if it does sound good.

Doctor J · 21-12-2004 1:04pm

Warmoth do a replacement body for the Variax now, add a top Warmoth neck and off ye go

http://www.warmoth.com/guitar/line6/line6.cfm

feylya · 21-12-2004 1:08pm

Hmmm, that strat body shape, birdseye maple neck, ebony board, mmm...

Doctor J · 21-12-2004 1:11pm

They've started doing a load more body shapes

http://www.warmoth.com/guitar/bodies/bodies.cfm

feylya · 21-12-2004 1:13pm

Still no double neck explorers.

And I really don't like heels

Doctor J · 21-12-2004 1:15pm

feylya wrote:

Still no double neck explorers.

That's a bad thing?

feylya · 21-12-2004 1:16pm

Yeah.

I want to make one.

Doctor J · 21-12-2004 1:20pm

Meh, that's just going to be horribly awkward :eek:

Dunno, I just don't like this Variax thing, the presets seems to be based around players, like the fretless jazz bass one (big time Jaco), which synthesizes the fretless bass sound onto a fretted bass, so even **** players are in tune. That's just wrong. It's 'who do you want to sound like'?

I watched their little movie too, the acoustic bass setting is soft poo

feylya · 21-12-2004 1:22pm

By all accounts, the guitar is damn fine though. Sounds like it should. But then again, as someone on these boards said, would you rather play a strat and make your own strat sounds or sound like someone else thinks a strat player should sound.

Doctor J · 21-12-2004 1:25pm

That was me

I think the feel of a guitar has a big influence on how you play. A Strat feels different to a Les Paul and has an influence on how you play it. I dunno, the guitar got very good reviews but the whole thing just seems a bit sterile, lacking character.

feylya · 21-12-2004 1:27pm

Yeah, I want to feel a Gibson neck while getting Gibson tones, not an approximation.

Doctor J · 21-12-2004 1:36pm

Indeed. Your shoulder should suffer to get Les Paul tones. That's just the way it is and always has been baby

feylya · 21-12-2004 1:38pm

My shoulder suffers to get EMG tones

Doctor J · 21-12-2004 1:39pm

Bah humbug to EMG. Les Paul pickups should be left alone. The Gibson pickups are sweet.

feylya · 21-12-2004 1:40pm

Aye, that they are.

Doctor J · 21-12-2004 1:44pm

I wouldn't mind hearing that Tony Iommi Gibson humbucker

http://www.gibsonstrings.com/pickups/iommi.shtml

Bling

feylya · 21-12-2004 1:45pm

Indeed, bling.

Shame you can't get those Silver EMGs any more.

Doctor J · 21-12-2004 1:47pm

Tony Iommi is a man I'd trust when it comes to tone. Gibson's first signature pickup, apparently.

feylya · 21-12-2004 1:48pm

True.

But still...

http://guitarpartsdepot.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?LNG=en-US&Screen=PROD&Product_Code=EMG-81-7&Category_Code=EMGCS

Doctor J · 21-12-2004 1:49pm

Naaaaaahhhhhh

feylya · 21-12-2004 1:51pm

YES!!! €75 plus shipping. I think yes.

Doctor J · 21-12-2004 1:52pm

Fugly.

feylya · 21-12-2004 1:54pm

Fuggit.

Doctor J · 21-12-2004 1:55pm

Looks like a chunk of the dashboard from a VW Polo...

feylya · 21-12-2004 1:56pm

I like the Polo.

Doctor J · 21-12-2004 3:24pm

Tony Iommi pickup in JS chrome guitar?

feylya · 21-12-2004 3:28pm

Na, that'd just be wrong!!!

Maybe in Bad Horsie.

Doctor J · 21-12-2004 3:29pm

Nah, total chrome. Blingarrific

feylya · 21-12-2004 3:32pm

Na. Gold Top Les Paul, Real Diamond inlays.

BLING!

Doctor J · 21-12-2004 4:06pm

Or are we all heading towards piezo to all men?

feylya · 21-12-2004 4:09pm

Mmm, piezo...

John · 22-12-2004 12:18am

Hate to drag you both back on topic but that variax sounds ****. All the audio demos sounded like a guide of what to avoid in bass tone...

It wasn't me! · 22-12-2004 12:34am

The Variax's will nail tones, but they're horrible to play. They don't feel natural, the way a guitar should. They're very artificial, robotic almost.

Doctor J · 22-12-2004 11:56am

John2 wrote:

Hate to drag you both back on topic but that variax sounds ****. All the audio demos sounded like a guide of what to avoid in bass tone...

They were a bit over trebley alright, it's a workable system but there's just a part of me that is really quite suspicious of them

feylya · 22-12-2004 1:13pm

The more I hear Line 6's stuff, the less I like it.

John · 22-12-2004 2:58pm

Never really liked line6. Played through one of their amps with all the effects bundled in, seemed a bit jack of all trades but master of none

eoin5 · 22-12-2004 5:16pm

It says that if you change strings on the variax it has the same effect as changing them on a normal bass, then it has different settings to model both normal and flatwound strings? So what will the bass strung with flatwounds set to be modeled on normal strings sound like, whatever about tension and feel.

Doctor J · 22-12-2004 5:21pm

It says it'll do fretless Jaco tone and it has frets. It seems versatile enough, just seems to be the musical equivalent of a knock of pair of runners, it's pretending to be something it ain't.

It's a shame they can't creat a bass with a great voice of it's own, like the P, the J, the Stingray and the L2000

Giblet · 22-12-2004 11:19pm

Doctor J wrote:

It seems versatile enough, just seems to be the musical equivalent of a knock of pair of runners, it's pretending to be something it ain't.

That's exactly it. The fretless tone sound like muck on a variax, just a kind of phasing, delay effect.

You can still hear the fret, eh, bumpage

Variax Bass 700

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