Mirror Finish Rg Variax W/ Leds

[Xanthus]

http://www.ibanez.com/forum/forum_posts.as...D=1842&PN=1

Just thought I'd pass along a fantastic build I stumbled over just a few seconds ago.

It still blows my mind looking at a guitar without pickups...

[crafty]

Well, that's how they're all gonna look in a few years. Magnetic pickups are going to go the way of the dodo bird as digital technology gets better and better.

[psw]

Well, that's how they're all gonna look in a few years. Magnetic pickups are going to go the way of the dodo bird as digital technology gets better and better.

I think you may be right crafty. I'ts good to see the variax coming out in other guitars, even if they have to take apart a variax to do it. Shame it doesn't have a tremolo, and a sustainer of course

pete

[cherokee6]

Very impressive! There's already a company that puts out pickups that are signal linked using a light optics system. They're pretty high end if I recall.

[borge]

awesome guitar

Well, that's how they're all gonna look in a few years. Magnetic pickups are going to go the way of the dodo bird as digital technology gets better and better.

people probably said the same thing about the roland synth pickups

[Xanthus]

At the rate custom Variax guitars are going, I wouldn't be surprised if Line6 just started offering just the hardware. Nobody I know keeps the stock body anymore.

"for serious luthiers only"

[crafty]

Eventually I can see the Roland GK system going piezo, especially as nanotech improves piezo technology. The nice thing about the Roland system on the new VG Strat is that you can use any bridge with the system, but the tracking is never going to be as accurate as piezo setups are going to become.

I think electric guitars are going to look very different 50 years from now. Of course, 30 years from now the guitar may be dying in popular music like the saxophone has in the last 20 years.

[crafty]

At the rate custom Variax guitars are going, I wouldn't be surprised if Line6 just started offering just the hardware. Nobody I know keeps the stock body anymore.

"for serious luthiers only"

I think you'll see more along the lines of premium manufacturers licensing the technology. Gibson has MAGiC and Fender has Roland/VG, but PRS is suspiciously quiet. I'd be willing to bet that Line 6 could eventually hook up with PRS for a premium line, or simply use Warmoth or another boutique supplier to source premium parts much like Yamaha did with the high-end Pacificas.

[jmrentis]

Well, that's how they're all gonna look in a few years. Magnetic pickups are going to go the way of the dodo bird as digital technology gets better and better.

Guitar of the Future?

Edit: I just thought about my little pic for a second, disregarding the size of the neck, could it be possible to build something to that effect. Having frets seperating each key, so you would be able to play a note on the string while at the same time play a key off the key board. Obviously, it wouldn't push down like keyboard, but it could at least be touch sensitive. I know this is stupid and childish, but I think it might be possible, huh? Just think about the sound variations from that, but I would suppose the body would be the size of an accoustic.

LOL sorry too much homework tonight, think I might have fried my brain. Eye jest cont tinc stret enmor

Edited May 18, 2007 by jmrentis

[SwedishLuthier]

awesome guitar

Well, that's how they're all gonna look in a few years. Magnetic pickups are going to go the way of the dodo bird as digital technology gets better and better.

people probably said the same thing about the roland synth pickups

And guess why Loe Fender sold his company. It was because the future was in solid state amplifiers and no one was ever gonna play a tube amp any more. Ever!

[Magnus]

Well, that's how they're all gonna look in a few years. Magnetic pickups are going to go the way of the dodo bird as digital technology gets better and better.

I wouldn't be so quick

to send the pickups

down the river.

People have said the same

thing about tubes ever since

electronics went to transistors.

[Petrol]

This is music, things don't obselete if people like it. Pickup guitars have many years left, unless some very influential musicians take the new fangled technology, give the world something new, and create a market for it.

I love trying new things, but I can't see conventional pickups dying. How old are the designs for LP's and fender instruments? Hardly new, but still so common and popular.

Wonderful, I'm curious as to how the mirror finish is achieved though.

[crafty]

And guess why Loe Fender sold his company. It was because the future was in solid state amplifiers and no one was ever gonna play a tube amp any more. Ever!

Actually, it was because he fell ill and his doctors were telling him he needed to get his affairs in order. After he was able to get back in the business, he developed a line of very fine tube-based amps at MusicMan.

I'm not saying that magnetic pickup-based guitars are going to totally disappear, but their popularity is going to be seriously diminished as the digital modeling technology matures. 20 years ago, Gibson built a few MIDI-based Les Paul prototypes. They gave up back then because the guitar and associated rack full of equipment to make a limited amount of sounds was too expensive and too immature. Now Fender, Gibson, and Line6 are using the evolution of that technology to build digital guitars that'll run circles around traditional electric guitars within just a few years.

20 years ago, as the F4 was coming out as the pinnacle of Nikon's 35MM SLR film technology, Nikon was also selling F3 bodies to Kodak to have special digital backs installed and sold to companies to make ID cards. If you'd told me 13 years ago that my school ID card made with one of those was the future of photography, I'd have told you "no freakin' way". Now Kodak is on the verge of shutting down their film business, 99.9% of photojournalists, event and portrait photographers, and most amateur photographers exclusively use digital cameras now. It's coming to guitars, too.

Edited May 18, 2007 by crafty

[ibanezlover]

Wonderful, I'm curious as to how the mirror finish is achieved though.

I think that he said he put an actual mirror on it. Could have read it wrong, though.