Last year I did a review of the Variax Shuriken from Line 6, a design by Stevic Mackay of the band 12 Foot Ninja. It’s a real fun guitar, and by far the most metal of the Variax designs, but its guts are the same as any Variax guitar out there. If you have a Variax, then you know the extreme power and flexibility it contains, even just on the knob controls. Wanna play a banjo in any tuning? Done. 12 string guitar capo’d at the 3rd fret? Easy. Drop G Les Paul sound? Piece of cake.
But the true power of the Variax can only be unlocked with the aid of a Helix. Using the Helix, you can set up one-button (or no-button, if you’re using MIDI to sync to a click track) patch changes that will also trigger patch changes on the Variax over the network cable. That’s one of the coolest things I’ve ever tried on the guitar. It’s the most flexible a guitar can be at this moment in time, as far as I know.
I made the above video demonstrating how to set up patch changes on your Helix and associate them with a patch on the Variax so you can do this at home if you have any of the Helix hardware and a Variax of any kind. Hope it helps!
