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Music Manic
active member

Joined: 20/12/02
Posts: 1942
Loc: London UK

What's this guitar U2's Edge uses?
#994289 - 22/06/12 11:01 PM

U2's Edge goes through his Guitars in this youtube video:

Edge guitars

Near the end at about 4:10s there's an acoustic guitar which can have its tuning changed by a switch.
Does anyone know what it is and how it works? Is It DSP?

Thanks

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Gary_W

Joined: 18/10/06
Posts: 377

Re: What's this guitar U2's Edge uses? new

[Re: Music Manic]
#994291 - 22/06/12 11:55 PM

Yes, it's DSP.

It's a Line 6 Variax Acoustic. No longer on their website but you can view one of the versions here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vJQC7dSaNc

All of the Variax models allow you to do the virtual capo thing / different tunings. It's success depends on how far you take it (the smaller the pitch shifting jump the less artefact there is) and your expectations vs reality

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grab

Joined: 08/07/07
Posts: 2627
Loc: Cambridge, UK

Re: What's this guitar U2's Edge uses? new

[Re: Gary_W]
#994425 - 24/06/12 09:43 AM

Seriously useful feature of Variaxes. Mostly I use standard tuning, but I use drop-D to put a great grungy sound on the "Heard it through the grapevine" riff. And I found that the "Every breath you take" riff is a *lot* easier in open-G. Without a Variax, I'd have to take five to retune, or have multiple guitars. With a Variax, it's just a switch-flick.

Agreed that extreme detuning doesn't work. Dropping a full octave is kind of like a bass, but not really - it doesn't have the fatness of a proper bass sound. But a few semitones works very well indeed.

One thing it doesn't get, of course, is the sympathetic resonance between strings that you get with a true dropped tuning. This isn't significant on an electric, but it's a major part of the sound of dropped/open tunings on an acoustic. So YMMV on how well it does the job for you.

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