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Korean Deal

Alongside the USA-made Variax guitars are three models made in Korea by World Musical Instruments (the company that makes guitars for numerous brands including PRS's SE line).

The JTV-69 replicates our reviewed guitar; the JTV-89 has a wrapover bridge and dual humbuckers; and the JTV-59 is an arched top single-cut with wrapover bridge and dual humbuckers. The technology and function of these guitars, including pickups, will be identical to the USA models.

"They're exactly the same," confirms Rich Renken. "You're not making any compromises on the sound when choosing this as your weapon."

"We've worked very hard with World Musical Instruments to achieve a high level of build quality on these guitars," adds James Tyler. "Recently, someone handed me a [Korean] candy apple red JTV-69 to evaluate and I thought it was the American model at first!"

Sounds

The new version is easier to use than ever: check your battery, plug in and play. Even without charge the magnetic pickups will still work: a low output vintage humbucker married with two modern, clean singlecoils. Excellent.

Press down the Model Selector and you enter the virtual world - 10 banks and 50 sounds (plus two additional custom banks) from some 25 classic guitars. The first thing you notice is some slight background hiss, not intrusive but it's there. Constantly referencing the digital against the magnetic sounds, you do perceive differences.

Overall the dynamics are a little more limited and bass response can sometimes seem a little clouded; conversely the high treble response can sound a little over-crisp on brighter sounds.

But the quality of the models is excellent, they'll always sound a little different from the real thing, but they more than capture an accurate character and there are some excellent sounds onboard.

The really difficult areas are the altered tunings and 12-strings, which use sophisticated pitch-shifting. The electric 12s sound less processed to this writer's ears than on Mark I Variax (and, of course, are much easier to play and tune than the real thing) but you do hear some slight pitch chasing and again your playing technique needs to be firm and spot-on.

The Variax doesn't physically retune your strings - they stay in standard pitch, but when you apply an altered tuning, via pitch shifting, the outputted sounds are in the new tuning.

If, for example, you just want to add a Stones tune to your live set (or a Stones-y intro then return to standard tuning), Blues G works great. Dropped D with loads of gain is going to satisfy the modern rockers and a couple of DADGAD tunes in a Zep-style are easily possible.

The baritone setting really stretches the technology, and does sound the most synthetic, but if you just want to add some overdubs to your Americana tune, you'd probably get away with it. You can apply these tunings to any of the models, including the 12-strings.

A modern H/S/S solidbody with floating vibrato and electric strings is about as far as you can get from an old flat-top, so it's little surprise to hear a lot of zing on the acoustic tones. Adding an LR Baggs Venue DI and tweaking the sounds creates far more realism.

Our Fishman acoustic amp and the Baggs DI also works well with jazzier electric sounds: bluesy Kenny Burrell-type tones with the ES-175 models and a really evocative Epiphone Casino neck pickup model. Be in no doubt, there are an immense amount of usable sounds here.

Overall, our impression is more than positive. The modelled sounds just seem better, likewise the acoustics, 12-strings and altered tunings. It's a great guitar to play, stays in tune perfectly and is easy to use.

Dislikes? The back-lighting on the Model Selector and Alt Tuning knobs is fine in darker environments, less so on a bright or outdoor stage - you may have to shield the knobs to double check whether you're in digital or magnetic modes. But this is a small price to pay for such a fantastic instrument.

Variax has definitely grown up. This JTV-69US platform is a very credible guitar in its own right, a lot better than the previous guitars and, save for the additional Alt Tuning and Model Selector knobs, looks very conventional.

The new battery system is a godsend and internal improvements have clearly raised the quality of models and the switching functions, which are very fast.

In its USA-made incarnation it will have limited appeal unless you really understand its potential and could justify it as part of your earnings. The Korean version is where most interest will be and, although we have to reserve judgement until we've played those, if you're someone who appreciates and needs a variety of sounds for your recordings or live performances, we'd suggest you start saving…