Yesterday my new Variax 300 arrived in the post, ordered last weekend from Dolphin Music (they never did tell me when it was going to arrive). I’ve been playing it quite a bit since then, getting to grips with what it can do, and playing with the Line 6 Spider III 15 amp I got at the same time. I may not have had much experience with electric guitars (this is the first I’ve owned), but so far things are looking rosy.

For those who have not heard me raving about this guitar before, allow me to quickly explain what makes this guitar so different from most others you may have seen. At first glance it looks like any other electric guitar, with the red body and white pick-guard and traditional cutaway body shape. But take a second look and you’ll find something missing – the pickups. Rather than it being one guitar, this is lots of guitars in one, thanks to some clever modelling and a selector knob. Think of it a bit like the voices on a keyboard – hit the right setting and you’ll create a completely different sound. The Variax 300 has several guitars built-in, including a variety of electric guitars, some semi-acoustics, a handful of acoustics, and some fun instruments too (banjo and sitar, to name but two). It truly is one of the most versatile guitars I’ve come across.

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Those of you who know me will know that making decisions is a long and hard process at the best of times, even with something as simple as deciding what to have for breakfast (not a problem when there’s only one cereal on offer, but present me with a choice of six different cereals and it could easily take me a couple of minutes to decide which I want). So coming to a decision on something as important as which guitar to spend money on has turned out to be quite a monolithic challenge for me. Thankfully, I think the decision has been made. And I think it’s the right one.

Until this morning I had my heart set on the Yamaha RGX A2, which is a futuristic looking white guitar with some fantastic design elements and quirky features, including an LED in the volume knob and tuning pegs that are round rather than flat. In terms of looks, this guitar is awesome, right up my street. However, it is about £250, and having played it in the shop this morning it didn’t quite feel that much. Sure, it was fun to play, and allowed me to create some really cool rocky tones, but because it only has two humbucker pickups it’s rather limited in tonal variety, which is a shame.

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For those of you whom I haven’t told already, I’m in the market for a new guitar. A couple of years ago I bought a nice Fender Stratacoustic, which is effectively an acoustic guitar that looks like an electric, with the idea that it would be able to perform the job of both an acoustic and an electric at the same time, saving me a bit of money in the process. Unfortunately, as with most things that try to do too much, it’s only really mediocre at either. On its own the body isn’t really loud enough unamplified to fill a large room, and the action just isn’t set up for electric guitar licks, and can’t be adjusted because it doesn’t have the useful adjusters for tweaking the intonation and action. However, with my deposit due back from my previous house I shall have enough money to spare that I can go out and do the job properly and get a good electric guitar and amp. The problem is, I’ve got to decide what to get…

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