If you have never heard anybody talk about their laptop's look and feel, my guess is that you don't have much communication with Apple computer users

ya, you're right, i try to avoid apple users (sorry, you left yourself hanging out there)...

My scenario would apply to someone who wanted to transplant their apple components into an even more high end, custom case, maybe with exotic inlays or a special finish.

ya, that's kinda what i meant...  sorry for disrespecting apple by suggesting that anything dell could be better than apple...  actually, now that i'm thinking about it, that was kinda dumb of me to say, but i wasn't really considering the quality of one versus the other...  i was just making the analogy of wanting to transplant the guts out of one computer into another one because you didn't like the case...  anyway, i'm as big a computer nerd as the next guy, and i wouldn't waste a millisecond of thought thinking about transplanting the guts of one laptop into another...  certain pieces i suppose...  one's that are already meant to be exchangable, like the processor, the memory, etc...  but if you wanted that case so bad, wouldn't you just buy that computer?  last time i checked, the good cases come with good computers...  and let's just say that there was a computer with a particular componant and you could only get it on that computer, but the processor was slow and it had no memory and you couldn't expand it, and the monitor was EGA and it had a trackball and a cyrillic keyboard and a plain grey case that was totally rectangular and ugly...   you have to ask yourself "is it even possible to transplant that component into this bitchen computer over here?"  because it is possible to do with the variax guts...  people have done it...  it's nothing new...

anyway, please, this is starting to hurt...  no more laptop analogies, my god...

Why you could even put them into a hollow body guitar, connect it to a remote monitor, integrate the pick guard with the touch pad, and surf the web while playing a song, or maybe while waiting for a long drum solo to finish. Next you could attach the iSight camera to a small boom, and then use skype to demonstrate your latest musical creation by video chat.

if you ever hear me talking about doing that, please, my address is 205 vodden street east, brampton, ontario, canada, apartment #501...  come over and put a hollow point bullet in my head...

     As this is all you need, with your creativity and extensively demonstrated persistence, would it be so hard to get these Variax components from a service center? Their have been posts about people obtaining replacement motherboards for out of warranty guitars. We've heard from the Line 6 folks that they aren't interested in selling transplant kits, but I haven't read anything about not making components available in special cases, and I'm confident that you, as well as anyone who has followed your posts, know you are that special.

well, i'm glad somebody noticed...

but, ya, i hadn't thought of that one...  the lack of a variax guitar might make that a bit difficult...  but i know some slippery people at my local music store...  who knows, maybe i can get somebody to stick it to the man for me...

but really, do i want to do such a dishonest thing to my favorite digital modelling company and all the swell friends i've met here...  i wouldn't want to let the kids down!!!  i have a reputation to uphold, you know?

no, but really, is that the point?  i admit that if line6 were to email me tomorrow and tell me that they'd be willing to provide me with all the variax parts i want as long as i keep my mouth shut about it, i'd probably take it (i take enough friggin' flak from users around here, why the hell should i stick my neck out for you deadbeats...  hehe...  jk), only because i'm really the only one around here that takes it much further than agreeing that they would like one...  but ultimately i'm trying to make the point that it's good for business, maybe not on an immediate monitary basis, but on a community relations/marketting basis...  the variax technology is in its infancy right now, imagine what it's gonna be like in 20 years...  should line6 not be attempting to expand thier customer base any way they can, regardless of current profits?  shouldn't they be representing themselves not only as a company that has the ingenuity to invent such a unique bit of technology, but also one that will bend over backwards to put that technology in your hands, instead of making cursory excuses aimed at keeping you away from it unless you play by thier rules?

sure, i can just buy a variax off of ebay and get the parts i want, but what i really want is a community...  i want a whole transplant section in this forum...  i want to be able to ask really technical questions about the variax electronics and get answers from the people who make them...  i don't want us to be fumbling around with this stuff...  as much as i've enjoyed my bit of research into the subject, i'm no luthier...  i don't build guitars...  i don't modify them...  i play them...  the only reason i even come on this part of the forum is because i'm so friggin' facinated with the whole variax concept...  i don't own one...  i've never even played one!!!  but if it does even half of what everybody around here says it does, i want that...  but i want it in my guitar...  even if gibson came out with an es-339 with variax already in it, same color, same neck, same everything, i'd still want it in my guitar...

line6 knows that they will never be able to satisfy everybody no matter what kind of guitar they make and no matter who they get to make it...  why limit yourself like that?  because you're afraid of some idiot like me bitching about it not working?  there's got to be a reasonable working solution to that problem...  they're just not looking for it...

why are they not looking for it?  well, it wouldn't be the first time i said that i felt that they have the wrong people pulling the strings over there...  not enough vision, not enough balls...  they might have been the first, they might even be the best, but everybody and thier mother is making amp modelling processors these days...  the variax is the one thing that sets them apart (don't even mention gibson and fender's weak-*** attempts), and they're too chicken to pull the trigger on it...  i can't wait for the next variax to come out so i can start shaking my head...  i already know there's no built in wireless VDI (shake, shake, shake)...  that alone makes me quite convinced that they have no idea what they're sitting on...  what the hell was the point of buying the X2 technology?

anyway, i'm getting way off topic here, but the point i'm making is that they're sitting on the most important piece of guitar technology (and i mean guitar technology, not amp tech or processor tech) since the friggin' volume pot, and if they don't get off of it, it's going to suffocate!!!  and we, the people that are in love with it (even though some of us haven't even played one...  hehe), are willing to help them do that...  LET US HELP YOU!!!

that is all...  nice gripe, don't chya think?

i know what you're saying, but i don't think the transplant thing has anything to do with it...  line6 is pretty tight lipped about all thier products...  i have an X3L, and because there is crosstalk between the 1/4" outputs, i can't use it as an A/B switch to route signal to either one of the channels on my fender twin...  since they didn't see it as a big enough deal to warrant fixing it (they said is was withing acceptable tolerances), i asked them for some technical information so that i could either get somebody at my local repair shop to modify the unit to suit my needs, or if it was simple enough to do it myself...  they won't tell me anything at all, and i've never seen or heard of them release technical information like that at all...  having you send in your guitar is pretty standard practice for line6, and indeed alot of companies these days...  most people that are doing transplants get a used variax off of ebay...  it was mentioned in this thread, but i haven't heard of anybody getting a hold of the variax electronics from a service center...  it's more than likely because they are just generally protective about those kinds of things, not because they're specifically trying to prevent transplants...

ya, it's still a rotary switch...  it's not even so much the look, it's the quickness of being able to use a switch like that...  i'm used to being able to just flick my finger quickly and get a different tone...  if it's a rotary switch i'll have to actually grab it and turn it...  that would be fine for the model selector knob, but not for the pickup selector...  i'm in the middle of an email attack on the internet trying to find somebody that either already makes a switch like that or can make custom made switches...  i found a place that makes custom pots, i don't see any reason why there shouldn't be somebody that makes custom switches...

i wouldn't even know who to get a hold of to have something like that done...  i've been all over the internet, googling "custom switches", "custom selectors", "5-way gibson style switch"...  stuff like that...  i've stumbled upon some sites that have thousands of switches but it's hard to go through them all and figure out which is the right one...  i don't know what the codes mean or what the details are that i'm looking for...

for instance, how would you describe this switch to an electronics manufacturer (ie. how many poles, whatever that means, etc.):

http://img3.musiciansfriend.com/dbase/pics/products/0/0/1/370001.jpg

like i said, i'm not a luthier, i'm not an electronics guy...  i'm a guitar player who's slowly getting interested in how guitars work and all that...  i'm a relatively smart person but alot of it goes right over my head...  that's why i want to do the strat first, so i can at least test out the electronics part without much hassle (much easier to put a cavity into a solid-body than to start ripping wood off of a hollowbody)...