Hello,

I've had Variax 700 guitar for about 3 years now and I recently found the new James Tyler Variax models and I got somewhat excited about those new JTV variax guitars.

I found out the that the new JTV variax models should have about 4 times as much DSP processing power as the previous variax models, and now I'm interested to know how much the variax guitar modeling has changed and improved.

Looking the specs and youtube videos about these new variax models it seems that the 'thing' in these new JTV variax's is the 'tuning knob' and this is mostly because of increase on DSP processing power...

Anyways, as I already have old Variax 700 I'm interested to know how much the actual guitar models have improved. I feel that many of the 'old' variax guitar models are somewhat 'thin' and if you listen to it very closely you can hear the 'variax signature twang' in almost all of the guitar models -- there's something in the modelling that annoys me (or it could be the piezo's or both). There's also something in the dynamics (how the guitar reacts to both volume knob and how hard you hit the strings) that could have been improved (or at least I hope so).

Now I would like to know if the guitar models have changed, or is the additional DSP power is used just for having those alternate tuning features.

Don't get me wrong, I'm still quite happy with my old variax - to me it is very versatile guitar (as I play in crappy cover band). I can play a gig using just 3-4 amp settings, and changing to different pickup models instead (which is nice, I have very simple and compact setup: Variax + Spider Valve MK2  - the other guitar player in our band has Mesa Boogie amp, G-system, Tri-axis pre-amp, bunch of stomp boxes and who knows and we are both able to nail some killer tones)

To me having both magnetic pickups and variax modelling would be killer, but I'm very interested to hear FACTs about the variax models as well as subjective experiences from users who have tried both 'old' Variaxes and new JTV models.

Thanks in advance, Juha