Thursday, April 21, 2005

Virtual Guitar Customization

Will wonders never cease? The originators of the world’s first digital modeling guitar, Line 6 have just released their Variax Workbench customizing software. In conjunction with a Variax guitar or bass it is now possible to design your dream axe on your computer and then to download it into your instrument. Musicians can choose between wood types, pickups, pickup positioning, body and neck type, volume and tone knob tweaking, and all through a USB connection between your computer and instrument. Wow. It all sounds very intriguing, but speaking as someone who loves the smell of sawdust and nitrocellulose lacquer, I won’t be putting away my jigsaw and router just yet. But I can imagine that as a tool for testing out different combinations of components before putting saw to wood, this tool will be invaluable. Click here for the full details.

The blogging on this column will be taking a short break as I’m off to Seattle on Friday for the Steve Vai show – armed with backstage tickets. Let the rock star stalking begin!

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