Hi! First post here - I'm a pastor, been playing acoustic guitar for over 40 years (Martin HD-35, lately into a Yamaha acoustic stomp pedal board, into our PA - Presonus board, Nexo amps and speakers), and decided to trade in an old Yamaha 12 string on a Variax. I ended up with a scratch and dent 69 (humbucker, two single coils, upgraded to HD 2.0 firmware) from Sweetwater - also a POD 500X and L3T.
My preferences and experience is with acoustic, so I'm looking first for great acoustic sound - and I find the Variax a little "thin" - not quite there. I read on Sean's blog where he insisted that stringing it with 11's is the way to go for acoustic sounds - mine came with D'Addario 10's. I also haven't been able to get into the POD 500X much yet.
So - a basic question - are people happy with 10's on the 69, and are able to make it sound great with the 500X? Or should I go to 11's? I downloaded Sean's patch and will try that. I plan to get into it in a big way this weekend and over the next couple of weeks.
Following on that - what adjustments need to be made to the guitar to accommodate the 11's, and how do you do it?
I've never actually changed gauges of strings on a guitar - I had mine set up by Martin when I ordered it, and have stuck with basically the same strings. I did have some trouble with intonation on it and had a luthier set it up with the Buzz Feiten system - MUCH better. Is it advisable to take the Variax to a luthier to be intoned and set up?
Thanks so much,
Larry