Two years ago, Big Dude Bill bought a Variax 500 for his four-night-a-week gig. "When I got it, I also owned a Strat, a Tacoma 12 string, an Alvarez Yari classical, an Ibanez Artwood and a Bouzouki. I had all of these guitars on stage and it looked very impressive, but I never wanted to take the trouble to put down my Strat and pull another down and retune it in the middle of a set. After I got the Variax, it was so much easier because all I had to do was turn a knob to access every sound and tone I needed."

Equally useful for recording as it is in the live setting, the Variax series recreates all of the wonderful tonalities of vintage guitars, but without all of the unwanted qualities that frequently hindered the tone. "The Variax is the merging of the organic qualities of an electric guitar with the cutting edge technology of analog to digital conversion," Bill says. "For example, the Fender Telecaster-style setting in the Variax sounds just like a Tele but without the single coil noise. That is really advantageous in today's digital recording world."

• Carved-top solid mahogany body (Black Only)  
• One-piece maple neck with rosewood fingerboard, bone nut, and pearl inlays  
• Gotoh® Tuners 
• 22 medium profile frets  
• 25 1/2" scale length  
• 10" fingerboard radius  
• Custom Baggs tremolo bridge 
• Standard 1/4" guitar output jack
• Digital I/O jack for PODXT Live™, Vetta™ II, and Workbench connectivity 
• Volume and tone controls respond faithfully for each model  
• Included XPS A/B footswitch selects between two outputs: 1/4" standard guitar output for connection to any guitar amp or XLR balanced output for sending acoustic sounds to a separate amp or PA
• Powered by footswitch, on-board batteries, Vetta II or PODXT Live 
• Custom-fitted heavy-duty gig bag