very interesting "Boss And Fender Join Forces To Create Vintage Amp Pedals"

[tcobretti]

Fender will sell a buttload of those Fender Variaxes just because they look like a normal guitar.  Line 6 blew it when they designed that thing. 

I've already got an army of guitars; I really want the Variax bass. 

[black mariah]

hmmm. I liked that guitar better when it was called the Line 6 Variax.

Innovation indeed.

Before you get too smart-assed you should check your history. Fender's been selling their "Roland-ready" Strats for quite some time now. Frankly, I'm just surprised it took them this damn long to cram some of that VG8/88 circuitry into a guitar.

[rockgardenlove]

^I think the "Roland Ready" Strats are midi.  This uses a piezo pickup and then digital modeling along with that to get tones.

[coffyrock]

^I think the "Roland Ready" Strats are midi.  This uses a piezo pickup and then digital modeling along with that to get tones.

^ that's correct as far as I know. The variax doesn't use midi, a technology we were simeltaneously blessed and cursed with in the early 80s. I'm sure there were midi guitars as early as 1984, but they were just as limited then as now because the technology is weak (just a series of on or off messages to control an outside sound module. The "midi" sounds don't come from the guitar at all.

The variax (and presumably this fender) technology is newer and better as far as I can tell. You CAN plug in to a traditional amp and play all of the features of the guitar. Gibson has a Les Paul like this too, but I don't have a link...

That being said, I'll hold off on "upgrading" to digital guitars for now. I like my strat+ just fine.

[coffyrock]

here's the gibson les paul digital link:
http://www.gibson.com/DigitalGuitarNew/gibsonDigital.html