ext1jdh
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Received from Sweetwater yesterday as a Scratch n' Dent, and I put about three hours of practice time on it with both the magnetics and the Variax models. I couldnt get a great feel for it's sound last night since it was in a full-band situation, and I put another hour on it at home tonight. The sound situation at home was better
Feel and playability:
The guitar weighs in just over 8 lb. My BFG weighs about the same, but the Variax feels lighter. This is probably due to the thinner body and more balanced profile.
The neck feels very thin. The BFG has a 50's profile neck, and this feels substantially thinner down low. Higher up the neck feels a bit thicker, but not much. I have no problems whatsoever reaching the highest frets.
The neck has a satiny finish and I'm able to play it faster than I can play my BFG. Frets are finished nicely with no frets extending out or even bumps. It's at least as clean as my BFG in terms of fret finishing.
The body is finished with poly. Though it was a Scratch n Dent, I can find no problems with it's finish anywhere. The burst pattern is a little clowny, but it's pretty normal for this series - I didn't see any of them that were more gradual. In bright light it's more noticeable but it's not bad by any means.
A point to note, the pickguard is not white as it appears in the photos. It's more mint green like what Fender has.
My home practice space
I wanted to only hear the Variax and then the Variax with the HD500, so I didn't put it through my Handsome Devil. It went straight into the Kustom PA. EQ on the PA was set flat, and the HD500 was going in via XLR. I used the Variax cable to go from the guitar to the HD500.
The magnetics sound nice on their own. It hasn't got the "body" of my chambered BFG but it's very articulate and spanky. Where my BFG sounds and feels like a pork roast, this feels like a nice crisp cold beer. Tone and volume controls are very responsive and linear and can take you anywhere you want, within Stratland.
Turn on the piezos and you have a nice palette of tones to choose from. When you go to the Lester model, it's pretty close to my BFG but not identical. The 5 way switch lets you choose between 5 built-in LP models that each have different characteristics.
So far I've been hanging out in the "Spank" models. The guitar feels and responds more like a Strat naturally and those models tend to fit a little better. The Tele model also works well and provides a fairly authentic Tele tone.
There are several other electric models but I'm not terribly excited by any of them so far. That said, it gives me the ability to find any guitar tone that I'm reaching for to fit whatever feel I want in the song. In terms of sheer flexibility, I have never seen anything with this level of versatility.
Acoustic models are very authentic. Rather than just a straight piezo sound (which can sound very bad on a thin-bodied electric) the processors for each acoustic model are doing some great work. The models come out sounding full-bodied and woody with articulate pick attack. The 12 string models sound authentic as well and I'm certain they'll come in handy for the style that I play.
Alternate Tuning
Perhaps it's just the software version on this Variax, but the alt tunings could be improved. For individual strings they sound fine for Dropped D, DADGAD, Open D, and Blues G. For the Baritone simulation and for chording in all the alt tunings, they sound very processed. Even when sending this through an overdriven model on the HD500, the alt tunings sounded like an old Digitech Whammy was being used and couldn't track as well as it should. Someday soon I'll put this through my Handsome Devil and see if it sounds any better.
This is the part where I'd put up some sound samples, but frankly I'm a piss poor guitarist and you shouldn't be subjected to my playing. If anyone has questions please feel free to contact me and I'll do whatever I can to answer them.
