Has anyone been able to get a decent 12 string sound with the FM3?

Take a look at @Cooper Carter's Stairway to Heaven video. It's not 100% possible because of the B and high E strings, but it's close enough. I use a similar thing for doing Wanted Dead Or Love with my band, and the crowd can't tell the difference.
 
Jim Amsden said:
Something the Line6 Variax did quite well.
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I've always wondered why the Variax didn't get more love. I have found it a very useful tool for playing in cover bands over the years. But I know guys that would rather bring six guitars to a gig then rely on a Variax. If I had a road crew and/or a big stage, certainly, a bunch of my favorite guitars would be more enjoyable. But for my ears and audiences' as well, a single Variax was "close enough" when needing LP, Strat, Tele, 335, Ricky 12, Martin, acoustic 12 and so on.
 
The original Variax 300 wasn't a great playing guitar, and didn't have any magnetic pickups. Then the Variax Standard (a Yamaha Pacifica) was an improvement by adding the magnetic pickups and vibrato tailpiece, it still was a mediocre guitar. The JTV models were a big step up. But by then, the Variax reputation was somewhat set. So the market couldn't sustain the development, the talented developers were lost, and Line6 essentially abandoned the product. I still have a JTV69S that has SVL Daytona pickups (Matt Schofield), and a very nice replacement Warmoth neck with stainless steel frets. So I have significant money in that guitar. It plays and sounds nice, looks ok and is a solid instrument. The models and open tunings are a nice plus. But I don't gig with it anymore preferring to use my Strat, ES-335 and Tele, just because they are nice instruments and I want to use them while I still can. The Variax goes to every rehearsal though, so it still gets played a lot.
 
Jim Amsden said:
The original Variax 300 wasn't a great playing guitar, and didn't have any magnetic pickups. Then the Variax Standard (a Yamaha Pacifica) was an improvement by adding the magnetic pickups and vibrato tailpiece, it still was a mediocre guitar. The JTV models were a big step up. But by then, the Variax reputation was somewhat set. So the market couldn't sustain the development, the talented developers were lost, and Line6 essentially abandoned the product. I still have a JTV69S that has SVL Daytona pickups (Matt Schofield), and a very nice replacement Warmoth neck with stainless steel frets. So I have significant money in that guitar. It plays and sounds nice, looks ok and is a solid instrument. The models and open tunings are a nice plus. But I don't gig with it anymore preferring to use my Strat, ES-335 and Tele, just because they are nice instruments and I want to use them while I still can. The Variax goes to every rehearsal though, so it still gets played a lot.
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I've had every iteration of the Variax, beginning with the 300 (for which I replaced the neck with a Fender Strat neck). All had their good and bad points. But I was always able to get the sounds and tunings I needed with little effort, so it was worth it to me to have to lug just a single instrument to the gig. However, I will admit that it didn't feel nearly as cool standing there playing a Variax instead of say a quilted top Gibson 'burst. ;)
 
I wonder how a modern updated version of the Variax would fare today. If someone tackled guitar modeling the way Fractal has done amps, it might be a pretty amazing product. I always thought the acoustic and 12 string models on the Variax were pretty cool. Fender's modeling Strat had some decent models in it too.
 
The models were essentially IRs that converted the sound of the piezo pickups into the sound of the instrument. That could probably be done a lot better today with AI if we could capture enough information from the piezo and the magnetic pickups to get a good training set.

I also owned all generations of Variax, and will keep the JTV69S for the duration - I have too much money in the modifications to be able to sell it.

As far as cool factor, maybe there's something cool about playing obsolete, I mean vintage, models? If people don't know what you're playing anymore, and it makes all those cool sounds, they might start thinking they're missing something.
 
mr_fender said:
I wonder how a modern updated version of the Variax would fare today. If someone tackled guitar modeling the way Fractal has done amps, it might be a pretty amazing product. I always thought the acoustic and 12 string models on the Variax were pretty cool. Fender's modeling Strat had some decent models in it too.
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Antares (yes, of auto-tune fame ) developed a truly mindblowing electric guitar that could turn into any type of stringed instrument you could imagine at the touch of a button. The latency was undetectable. Their big show-stopper demo was handing you a profoundly out-of-tune guitar, pressing the "tune" button on the body, and then turning up the amp. Out of this horrifically out-of-tune electric, you heard yourself playing a perfectly in-tune instrument.

Check out this thread: https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=30819.0

I was fortunate to be invited to one of the NAMM private showings when they had the prototypes out for the show. 12-string, DADGAD, dobro, you name it, it could do it.

My favorite demo that really showcased how crazy the tracking was: they made it so that any note you played came out exactly the same selected pitch. Shred as fast as you want, bend like crazy, and you heard was, let's say A-string, fifth-fret D. Imperceptible latency.

A real shame these never went mass market (as far as I ever saw).
 
Cooper Carter said:
Antares (yes, of auto-tune fame ) developed a truly mindblowing electric guitar ....
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Cooper, you mentioned the Antares auto tune in the guitar and it reminded me of this video I saw a while back. Thomman's Music interviewed Steve Vai's guitar tech, Thomas Nordegg. Thomas shows off one of the guitar Vai's gifted him and Thomas modded the shit out of it including the Antares auto tuning module! Probably the same as the one you mention!

Here's a timestamped link to the interview. I'm not really into Steve Vai but this was a very cool interview.

 
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