LunatiqueRob
SS.org Regular
- Joined
- Nov 11, 2021
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- 479
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Thanks for the great tip on the IRs.Okay, let's talk Variax for a bit.
There're essentially two options with the Variax guitars.
I have an Acoustic 700 (mentioned above) that's about 15 years old now. Edge of U2 has a couple of these things and uses them onstage. It's actually *not* a shallow-body acoustic guitar, though it looks like one. It's a solid mahogany guitar that has what looks like a spruce top. That makes it pretty much impervious to the feedback issues you have with most acoustics onstage, but you look like you're using an acoustic. That particular guitar has a bunch of acoustic models built in *and* the ability to use alternate tunings. I use one that has the low E and A tuned an octave down, to play bass lines, with the rest of the strings tuned normally. The sounds don't work all that well (IMHO) with a guitar amp, which has limited frequency response, but they're pretty darned accurate through a PA or similarly wide-range speaker system.
I've also got three of the electrics, including two newer JTV-89Fs with Graphtech Ghost saddles on an OFR. These guitars mostly model other electrics, but they've also got some decent acoustic models built in, and it's about the only way you can get an acoustic guitar and a Floyd together. Again, a standard guitar amp is not how you want to hear these models. But they sound mostly like a piezo-miked guitar, like the Expression series setup on a Taylor 814ce. Good, but not an acoustic miked in air.
The issue with miking an acoustic in air on stage is that you have to deal with feedback, stage volume, and every other instrument in a band/orchestra contaminating the sound. But there's a cure. You can actually download IRs of specific guitars miked in air. Drop them onto a Helix (for example), run your Variax through that, and you've got (for example) a Taylor 314 miked in air sound instead of your Takamine or Yamaha with a piezo. You can use these with the models in a Variax, and it's eyebrow-raising. All of this from a guitar shaped like a shredder super Strat.
I have a JTV-69, and the acoustic models on it don't sound nearly as good as on the acoustic Variax (as you said, they just sound like plastic piezo acoustic). I assume they could sound great with the IRs you mentioned, but I have never heard them with those IRs before. I might give it a try at some point, but for now, my Yamaha Silent guitars do everything I need in the acoustic area (both steel and nylon). Also, I'm skeptical if it's even possible for any of the Variaxs, without or without the IRs, to nail the nylon acoustic sound.