The acoustic tones are better if you’re picking than strumming chords, but to have something sounding remotely acoustic though an old Peavey Deuce is something of a minor miracle in itself.

The Tele is passable, with the ‘essence’ of the Tele twang, without completely reproducing the sound.

As long as the Roland technology holds up I think this one could sell a few models.

How old are you Cary?

Keep us informed!

The new Gibson is out of the question since it costs the doubble :S

=P

I know I’m not comparing apples with apples, but there’s something to be said for technology that tunes & intonates YOUR guitar and remembers YOUR alternate tunings (not a preselected group). It requires no modding or even drilling to change out YOUR original bridge, tuners and volume control & knob (with the system controller/replacement volume).

Lets face it, folks play a Strat because it looks, sounds, and feels like a Strat…if you read most guitar magazine interviews with dedicated Strat players…their modifications generally are to either reduce the 60 cycle hum or get more output….nothing that fundamentally changes the sound of the instrument….sure, you can put a humbucker on a Strat, but at that point, it no longer sounds like an authentic Strat.

Fender is going to have to pull a rabbit out of its hat to make this one fly… either that or sell the VG at rock-bottom prices. I don’t see the VG as being a budget instrument, so I guess it’s all hinging on how good those models are, and as you said, the recordings here don’t really let us in on the full story.

Should be interesting…

What would be awesome is if you could take the true digital output from a guitar and record it….then do any manipulation on a computer (instrument modeling, tuning/detuning, effects, amp simulation, etc). Kind of like what a keyboardist does with a midi synth but NOT like a guitar synth. Anything short of that has already been done.

I’ve played with Line6 gear for years now, and whilst it is impressive… it does not “feel” as good as the real thing….sure it can sound pretty darn close…and in some cases make improvements in the sound (no noise, etc). I just can’t escape the fact that a classic Strat, Tele, Les Paul, 335, Dreadnought or Rickenbacker makes me play differently…to paraphrase what Michaelangelo would say “I’m just releasing what the instrument was meant to do.” I get good results from my Line6 Variax because I am “imagining” playing the modeled instrument….not because the guitar feels differently.

An authentic signal chain (or acoustic instrument) just fills up the room differently. The other day I cranked up my Tele through my Mesa-Boogie, and then switched to the Line6 rig through really good studio monitors. It is comparing a “recording” to the real thing. Both will always sound completely different in different circumstances just by the what they bounce sound around the room.

If folks knew what happens to most recordings of guitars we hear on CD and the radio after the signal comes out of the guitar or amp (mics, pre-amps, compression, eq,…then mastering), I bet the guitar they play on wouldn’t matter as much as these vendors would like us to believe.