The Variax 700 by Line 6 is a modelling guitar, which basically means that it is able to emulate the tone of 25 other guitars, including Fender, Gibson and many others. The user is also able to “virtually” and instantly change parameters such as guitar types, number of strings, string types, positions, number of pickups and tuning.
It would stand to say that therefore, that the quality of the sound is down to how well Line 6 have managed to emulate other guitar tones. I was quite interested then, to read GuitarFlame’s experience in testing a Variax 700 and how they found the sound.
I’ll try not to spoil it for you, but apparently they discovered that the Variax 700 is not meant to be played through combo amps, hence the result below:
I can tell you it was not what I was expecting, the sound was not realistic at all, in my opinion. It sounded like a strange electric guitar but nothing like an acoustic. Maybe a bit that string scratch you get on an acoustic more than on electric.
Once plugged into the PA system directly though, they started having more fun:
I also liked the Strat model, but I liked Tele models better for clean patches due to that sparky sound which worked great with the clean preset on the Digitech. And again, Gibson model works great on clean too!
Anyway, if you’re interested in the Variax 700, it is definitely worth a read.
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Indeed, it’s meant to be played directly on the PA, it sounds well that way. I speak about acoustic sounds. Electric sounds are OK everywhere.