7 electric guitars that can also handle acoustic sounds


https://www.guitarworld.com/features/7-electric-guitars-that-can-also-handle-acoustic-sounds

Excellent article! I'll second the Taylor T5 series and the Music Man Majesty.

I'd also include the Godin A6 Ultra - great neck, humbucker and piezo, body's about the size of a Tele, and it's made in North America (parts in Canada and parts in the US) for under a grand!

Line 6 Variax +++ Variax +++

If you don't want to spend a lot of money you might want to look at Blue Cat's Re-Guitar:

https://www.bluecataudio.com/Products/Product_ReGuitar/

It does an excellent job of changing guitar tones, including electric to many different acoustics.

But if you go that route it takes away a perfectly good justification for buying another guitar.

This is on my someday list now that the motherboard issues have been fixed. I know a half dozen people who had one and notes just stopped playing. More accurately, STRINGS just stopped playing. I was at a show when the 2nd and 3rd strings suddenly stopped responding and the guy had to stop mid song and change guitars. They seemed to be really badly affected by humidity back then. I understand the James Tyler variant does not have that problem. I do like the concept of modeling guitars along with my Line 6 modeling amp.

All so I can play in my upstairs bedroom studio! But hey, you can't take it with you, right? I make it, I spend it. No concern in the slightest about saving money. I don't need money, I have credit. So many hoard money because "what if I have a medical emergency". Okay. I get it. I also don't have that worry with the VA standing behind me. So yeah, I'll get one soon here. Likely a white Strat body model. Love them when they work.

I still have an original model from the first run of the Variax and also have a James Tyler model. Both still work very well and have never had any issues whatsoever with either.

You play a lot of outside gigs? Most of the trouble I have seen was related to humidity, and you guys have that in spades and doubled down in Florida.

Not really. I have ReGuitar and I'm still buying guitars.

PS - don't tell my wife about my ReGuitar

Got one of those on my list. I 100% second this motion.





Who needs justification? Guitars exist that I don't own yet, there's my justification!




I actually had an old Variax 300 come onto my workbench a couple years ago, the owner had plugged it into the wrong port on his amp with the ethernet cable. Fried the guitar irreparably, and I found out in the process that Line 6 neither sells parts nor allows users to talk about repairs on their forums, so we were unable to get it fixed.

Can you elaborate as to what he plugged where and how current got to where it wasn't supposed to be to fry things? All I know about these is that a CAT 5 runs to a pedalboard that has a display that shows what model is selected and that the analog audio runs from the guitar to an amp. The only amp I even know has a CAT5 are Line 6's amps and that CAT5 runs to the shortboard. I want to learn things from people who have touched these beyond the youtube videos. It is so attractive to me to be able to switch from standard tuning to dropped D or open E or open G to play slide with the twist of a knob and then back again during the same song. It just freaked me out to see my pal Billy playing and suddenly the 2nd, 3rd and 6th string stopped responding.

The new models have both cat 5 and regular 1/4" jacks. The cat 5 is great if you have other line 6 gear (Helix or amps etc.) as it can plug in and also be controlled by the gear. Say you have a certain setup on helix, you can also program it to change the Variax to the guitar you want and the tuning you want just by stepping on the right buttons (which you set up when you do the program). I have no idea what someone could have plugged it into that fried it though. If you don't use the cat 5 (which also provides power), it has a battery pack that is rechargeable and last plenty long enough for a several hour gig. The older model has a foot switch that provides the power using the 1/4" jack.

You mention a pedal board telling you which model etc. That is not an included item. I can only attest to using it with a Line 6 Helix which I find to be quite nice. You can also connect it to your computer and use Line 6 software to create your own models, say you want a Gretsch with the 5th and 6th strings to be bass strings (as Chet Atkins did on several songs) you can program the strings down an octave and place it in one of the model's spots so you can dial that in when you need it. Pretty versatile. The acoustic models are pretty cool, I find they work best in a mix as I don't really like their naked sounds, but that is probably just me and my preference. It could be I have not figured out how best to use them (this is more likely).

Yes, parts are an issue. I have not had to deal with Line 6 support very much at all. And have no idea about their forums.

And lastly, I do not play outside very much so I have not noticed any humidity issues, although inside my house can be quite humid at times and I have not had any issues there.

[quote/] It just freaked me out to see my pal Billy playing and suddenly the 2nd, 3rd and 6th string stopped responding. [/quote]

That would freak me out too. Like anything else in this world, nothing is perfect and electronics have a way to finding the worst time and way to fail. I have owned a lot of Line 6 gear over the years and so far nothing has failed me (he types as he knocks on wood!)

As far as I know, it was the other RJ45 connector on the amp, the one that was meant for the floorboard. The pinout on them is vastly different, as is the voltages present on each pin, enough so that it fried the guitar.

Oh wow. I think that is right under Ohm's Law in the electronics textbooks, formally known as The Moron Equation. WHO would just randomly start plugging things in just because they fit like that???

I think the real question is why would a manufacturer have the same type of ports for two different things when one would cause that kind of damage?

Also that is what can happen when you don't RTFM!

Also begs the question "Why isn't it the same wire in all RJ45 cable ends the wire that carries +vdc?"

I have a bunch of Line 6 stuff and it is all labeled quite nicely and I always, always, always make sure I am connecting stuff to the right place on anything I am connecting to anything else. But accidents happens.

I agree with Eddie, probably should be a standard associated with which wire carries what. So then even if you screw up you don't brick you stuff.

Ah yes. "Brick". After doing that to a couple of iPhones trying to Jailbreak them, I am intimately familiar with the term.

As far as what Simon Says (see what I did there?) I would love to know WHAT the guy plugged into where. I don't know anything about equipment I don't have, and my Line 6 amps CLEARLY say that the RJ45 is for the shortboard. I have moth the little practice amp and a Spyder III modeling amp head plugged into my 2x12 speaker. That this is SO LOUD I an barely use it at home. I haven't even gone through all the modeling settings yet. 100 bucks from a pawn shop in Los Angeles! Also have a Pocket Pod I got for $30 and shipping from a pawn shop in San Francisco. All those guitar toys!!!

And I am a keyboard and sax player who used to be a guitar player and now can't grip a pick because of arthritis. LOL!! We won't even get into how many guitars I have.

My favourite thing to do is to RTFM, it stops me from being an ID-10T!

Yes, it seems like a major design oversight to me. Two physically compatible ports that are not electrically compatible.





The ethernet standard doesn't actually have a pin for +VDC. Signal on the wire is generally +-2.5V, transmitted on differential pairs. No ground, no power, simply 4 pairs with signals. RJ45 was not designed for the power delivery requirements that a Variax or FBV require.





I heartily agree.





There are a bunch of Line 6 products that have two RJ45 connectors for the FBV pedalboard and for the Variax - both use a "standard" RJ45 socket (although the Variax uses a ruggedized connector, but this doesn't stop someone from using a regular ethernet cable). This customer plugged their Variax into the FBV plug. I think the Vetta was among the first that did that.

And since you didn't ask, I'm "down" to 8 guitars now after my last move. Far too few!

I remember helping a new, very young tech at the law firm when I worked there. A new lawyer came in and the kid went up to set up his computer. He called the desk about 45 minutes later because in his words "I have no idea what's wrong but the computer just will not connect." I had a feeling it was SOMETHING to do with the cable so I grabbed a new 10 ft CAT5 and headed up. I got into the office and looked at the wall jack and the connectivity light was amber. The lawyer was not in the room so the kid wasn't going to be embarrassed when I explained the problem. I plugged in the new cable and it came right up. When we got back to the desk I sat him down and showed him the two cable ends side by side and showed him how pin 3 and pin 6 were swapped, and that he could tell because blue faced blue and green faced green, and that blue had to face green when you lay the connector side by side, and blue had to face blue when you laid them contact to contact.. I explained that this is why you ALWAYS take a new cable, because as luck would have it he managed to pick up a crossover cable out of a big box of cables. I had to explain transmit and receive and all of that, how using the crossover cable would result in transmit in the cable being connected to transmit on the wall jack and that it had to connect to receive. I frankly don't know how he could have been hired as an IT guy and not know the basics of how to wire CAT5 cables. But he never made that mistake again, so...