If FAS would go into digital guitar modeling, I surely hope that they
DON`T go the "guitar" route but instead choose to have it externally, like:
RackVax
I haven´t seen one Variax guitar that I thought looked good (enough, if we wanna set the bar low here). Add to that, the problems many have been reporting on regarding these guitars AND on top of that the price. And that IMHO, is a perfect example of how to NOT do it. That´s a lots of waste of resources (and many good ideas) in the wrong way.
A guitar is transported, moved, roughly handled, played, occasionally dropped (in worst case), vibrates/resonates AND often ends up in difference surroundings (in regard to temperature and humidity) within the same day if you´re playing out, it consists of wood (a material that may force its own tensions in abovementioned conditions) and have got whatever more factors you can think of that I may have forgot here. Conditions that probably aren´t the most optimal to DSP circuits. To have it "failsafe" means close to MIL or rough industry spec, but then no one (in mass market) would/could afford it based on that part alone. Problem is that a guitarist, when buying a guitar looks equally for how well the guitar is built as how it sounds (and how it looks too).
So there is the other half of the problem, no model fits nor appeals all guitarists (or at least enough of them). To cover that you have to mass produce huge amounts and/or offer several models. My guess is that none of which can´t really be done without cutting costs, there are always someone expecting a good turnover in the end. But how would you choose cutting costs, if not evenly spread out in all regards of what it is that makes this guitar a guitar (for you, the customer)?
IMHO, external device is the way NOT a guitar.
My 2 cents...
