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.

Straight out of the box, the guitar was out of tune, but that’s no surprise. The action wasn’t bad, and the bridge adjusters weren’t all level so I’m guessing a certain amount of work was done in the factory to set up the intonation. Of course, it being a clever bit of kit, you can’t just plug it straight into an amp and start playing, you’ve got to find another power socket for the guitar transformer, which is a little box that sits on the floor. A special lead (which is supplied) plugs from the guitar to one side of the box, and a conventional jack-to-jack lead plugs from there to the amp. The special lead looks much like a normal jack-to-jack lead, except that it has an extra contact point on it for carrying power to the guitar.

Once we’re plugged in, the fun starts. Changing between guitars is quick and easy, even if the markings and names on the knob are a little confusing to begin with – to avoid copyright complications the Fender Stratocaster sound isn’t listed by that name at all, although everything is neatly explain in the manual (but who ever looks at that??). The tones seem pretty realistic, and gives plenty of scope for creating interesting sounds. The pickup selector switch actually does a variety of things depending on which guitar you have selected – sometimes it’ll do what you would expect in swapping between pickup combinations, but in some cases it switches between guitars as well; the acoustic setting on the guitar selector knob gives you five guitars depending on which pickup position you use, including three 6-strings and two 12-strings.

One of the consequences of not using traditional pickups is that lack of noise – regardless of which guitar you select, there is no discernible hiss or background hum, which is pretty impressive. The downside is that when playing through a heavily distorted amp setting there is no guitar resonance to hide your mistakes. I’ve also found that the strings don’t seem to ring on for very long, making those soaring guitar solos a little more difficult to produce. That may be resolved by a different choice of string, but I have to admit this is one of the guitars biggest failings for me.

Another small gripe is that when playing vigourously my strumming hand hits the volume knob, which is just slightly too near the strings for comfort. I’m sure this can be avoided with practice, but it’s a shame Line 6 didn’t pick up on this during development.

Something else worth pointing out is how it feels to play. Although it may sound like a Fender or a Gibson or an Epiphone or a banjo, it won’t necessarily feel like any of them when you’re playing. There is sadly no vibrato built into the bridge, and bending notes somehow seems to deaden the note, which is rather frustrating. Nonetheless, it’s a guitar that promises fun in bucketloads, and I’d thoroughly recommend it to anyone who wishes they had a room full of guitars but can only afford 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.

I then picked up a Yamaha Pacifica. These are legendary guitars, loved the world over by amateur and beginner guitarist for their reliability and flexibility. With a more traditional Strat-inspired body and layout, and with a combination of humbucker and coil pickups, it has a lot more tonal variety than the RGX A2, and also has the benefit of a vibrato (sometimes called a Tremelo or Trem) bar. That makes playing punchy rock solos a little more interesting! In terms of completeness, then, the Pacifica is actually more suitable for me than the RGX A2, in that it’s able to play a wider range of styles. It might not have such good looks, but it is likely to be more reliable, and comes in much cheaper at around £140. Of course, it’s still a beginner’s guitar at the end of the day, and has Yamaha written on the headstock. Yamaha make motorbikes and cheap keyboards, remember. Do I really want to be playing a beginner’s guitar? Not really. I’m far from being professional, but I wouldn’t consider myself a novice either.

That brings me back to the Line 6 Variax 300 that I found a few months ago. Line 6 traditionally make guitar accessories and amps, but have recently turned their hand to guitars, bringing out a range of digital guitars – rather than having normal pickups it has a clever electronic bit of wizardry that models a bunch of other guitars. At the flick of a switch you can make it sound exactly like a Fender Strat, or a Gretsch, or a Guild acoustic guitar, or a banjo… how’s that for flexibility! Apparently some of the acoustic sounds aren’t perfect through a normal guitar amp, but through a PA system it sounds awesome. To beat it all, it comes in at an affordable £250, which is the same as the RGX A2. Those who know me will know that I don’t like to be limited to one style of music, but rather I prefer to explore all sorts of different sounds, from rock to jazz to classical to quiet acoustic to funk to pop to whatever, and in that sense this guitar is pretty much perfect for my needs. Sure, it’s perhaps not as attractive as the RGX A2, and the internal electrics are a little more tricky to replace if they go wrong, but for studio recording and playing at church this would be a fantastic choice.

So there we go, I’ll be buying the Variax 300 then. In fact, I’ve also got my eye on a Line 6 Spider III 15 amp to go with it, which has some fun features too. With all of that in mind, it should be a while before I get bored of that setup and need to invest in effects pedals, which is even better! The only down side is that I’ll have to buy the guitar and amp on the internet, as none of the local guitar shops stock them, but maybe that’s a good thing – it means I’ll have bought it before I play it, which means I’m less likely to start thinking about rethinking my decision…

Last week I went to the Music Warehouse in town with Anne-Marie to help her choose an electric guitar, bass guitar, amp and accessories. Actually that was an interesting experience, because people kept coming up to me and asking me questions, at which point I had to apologetically say “sorry, but I don’t actually work here!!” Anyway, she ended up coming away with some good starter instruments, nothing fancy or expensive, but enough to get her started anyway. I did get the bug a bit though, and that’s encouraged me to bite the bullet and buy a new toy myself. Music Warehouse has a sale on at the moment, so I might pop in there tomorrow and see what I can find.

Having looked on various web sites it looks like Music Warehouse has a fairly limited range, which is frustrating. I’m after something quite specific, both in terms of style and function. I need an amp with a dedicated line out (not headphone) socket, so that I can plug the amp into the PA system at church and still have the sound coming through the amp for foldback, and cheepo rehearsal amps don’t tend to have that. I’m also after a guitar that not only looks distinctive but will also be pleasing to play. I’ve fallen in love with the Yamaha RGX A2, which has all sorts of modern-looking extras that make it look drop-dead-gorgeous. And from reading some reviews, apparently it sounds fantastic too and plays really well.

So then I thought, well why not go and play the Yamaha guitar in the shop, then buy it online with an amp? I’ve found a nice amp that will do the job, and then some, that’s just about within budget (i.e. not excessively over what I was planning on spending). The Line 6 Spider III 15 is awesome, by the looks of it. It’s plenty powerful enough for my purposes, and has some pretty stunning functionality, including several styles of distortion and a reverb function with a tap button to set the delay length – how cool is that!! In fact, for that alone I’m seriously considering just buying everything from the web site and hoping for the best. I know it’s not exactly ideal, buying an instrument you’ve never played before, but then again I’m the sort of person who will make the most of whatever I’ve got, so I’m not sure it’ll make that much difference. I’d rather have my pick of a large range and get what I want from an online shop than have to settle for whatever the local shop happens to have that might be good enough. In fact, Music Warehouse doesn’t have that nice amp, and doesn’t appear to have anything equivalent either unless I pay a fortune, which I’m not really able to do right now. Spending £330 is going to be painful enough as it is!

So watch this space, I may have a nice shiny new guitar in a couple of weeks’ time…