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(More customer reviews)This guitar is fairly new and I haven't begun to explore all of its capabilities yet, but so far I am amazed by it. A few limitations do detract from some aspects of the instrument, but overall it is just astounding.
The first thing I probably should cover is good luck finding one of these things. Some suppliers are listing arrival dates in September of '11 for certain models and it's still early March! There are some people who have been waiting since last summer for theirs. After looking at all the James Tyler Variax models I decided that the one to suit my needs best would be the Strat model, designated JTV-69. And I had to decide that based solely on internet reviews and a few videos posted on youtube. I could not find one music store near me with one available for Demo. But listening to the sound of them on youtube was enough to convince me to put in an order.
So I ordered one of the three-tone JTV-69s on Amazon. The problem was this was early Feb. and Amazon couldn't even tell me when they would get one in. As March approached I still did not have a confirmation of shipping date from Amazon. Also, none of the big suppliers had any of the Strat models in stock. Nor could they tell me for sure when they would get one in. I was wondering whether I would be waiting until 2012 to get my hands on one.
So I decided to check around on the net. There was a store in New Mexico selling one of the 89 shredder variants on ebay so on a whim I called them to see if they also had one of the Strats. Bingo! They had the Lake Placid Blue model hanging on the demo wall and would sell me that one if I wanted it! Well, it was a good decision to buy it. The guitar arrived in really pristine condition. The protective plastic still covered the pickups, pick guard, all the access areas in the back save for the battery cover, and there wasn't a scratch on it. So I ended up with a barely touched JTV-69 at a demo price. Although the blue color wasn't my favorite in the pictures, in person it looks really fantastic, just a hint darker and less baby-blueish than the internet pics render on my monitor, but still audaciously pastel. One look and I was in love with the thing.
So far I have only played it for one extended jam session on my birthday, but when you put it in acoustic mode and dial up the D-28 you can get some pretty darned good sounds out of the instrument. It is very slick to be able to play a flatpick lead on "Whiskey 'Fore Breakfast" with a thin little pick and a deft touch and never worry about not enough volume. (I am used to playing acoustic most of the time, a D-19, or one of my mandolins)
I detect no lag or sense of delay when playing. Everything stays right in sync with zero latency. This model Variax features -- in addition to the modeling piezos -- a standard set of James Tyler designed single-coil pickups. So you can switch the thing into a standard electric guitar with decent tone at the push of a button. Overall, the workmanship of the instrument is great. There is literally nothing on it that appears to be of sub-standard workmanship. There is nothing wrong with the string spacing and for a guitar that hasn't been professionally set up, the voicing is not all that bad. I can play it in every key and still feel confident about grabbing partials up the neck. I will still have our local guitar tech do a full setup on it for me, but it is not half bad out of the box. When this guitar is fully set up, I expect to have a real nice player worth every penny I paid for it, not even counting the fact that I can spin a dial and have it sound like a sitar or Tom Petty's Rickenbacker and another to have it play as if it were strung as a baritone guitar.
So as for those bugs: What I am seeing is occasional warble for *some* of the modeled instruments in certain tunings. Dial up the Guild 12-string, select "Baritone" tuning and do some fast picking. You will hear some digital artifact wobble in the sound, particularly in the harmonics. Basically, you have next to no usable harmonics on this guitar in modeled mode. So if you want to play "Little Martha" or something like that, push the button and play it through the pickups instead. I also understand that with the Line 6 HD500 amp modeling pedal board, you can split the output of the guitar and get simultaneous modeled and magnetic tones at the same time. I have the HD500 ordered and will be trying this when it gets here.
Basically, I can live with the limitations of this guitar. No, it is not perfect, but that does not subtract from the fact that it can do things no other instrument on the Earth can do right now. This is a breakthrough, this guitar. I feel lucky to have gotten my hands on one and I am going to spend the coming months and years learning how to make some unique and interesting music on it.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Line 6 James Tyler Variax JTV-69 Modeling Electric Guitar; Lake Placid Blue
James Tyler Variax JTV-69 by Line 6 is the first truly advanced guitar of the 21st century. The finely crafted instrument wraps itself around the very latest Variax technology to excite your fingers, your ears and your imagination.
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