la szum
Axe-Master
AS @la szum said, the Variax is a great tool. I do not like the guitar, but being in a cover band where I need all the tunings, all the kinds of electric and acoustic guitars all at once without having to bring 3 or 4 guitars to the gig is a dream. I own the JTV-59 (the Les Paul). It's not a TERRIBLE guitar, but it's nothing to write home about. It's a perfectly solid guitar and everything you'd expect in the sub $1200 price range. It doesn't feel like a premium guitar, but it gets the job done.
I would never go for the Shuriken since it only have a bridge mag pup. I use my Variax with the electronics turned off regularly. I think the actual guitar sounds a little better than the LP model. Well, not really, but here's the deal: Palm mutes sound like trash on these guitars when you're using a model. There's a chirp/plink that you can't dial out since, in the end, you're using piezo pups when you've got the modeling engaged. It's still usable in a full-band context, but jamming alone or for recording, you're gonna notice it.
So yeah; the TLDR is that they're decent guitars IF YOU NEED it. It's my least favorite guitar and I miss using my favorite guitars for gigs, but it's just too damn versatile as a tool to give up loL!
You sound EXACTLY like my friend. Or he sounds like you. It's quite literally a verbatim breakdown of
the Variax I have heard from him for a while now. It's like a convenient, no-strings attached sexual
relationship. It's just too damn easy to not take advantage of it when it is right there for you when
and if you need it.
Just a week or so ago he was "I think I am going to ditch the Variax." Then he doesn't.
Oh, and he rides on the mag pups as much as he can. It's not much, though, given all the
Drop stuff we play and then he spends about 1/3rd of the time on an acoustic. Like I said,
too damn easy.