[atlantaprog] For gearheads only

As some of you know I have followed Steve Howe for some time and did an interview with him on The Ladder tour five years ago, which was published in Progressions magazine.

His use of the Line 6 Variax guitar on the current Yes tour is, to put it in perspective of his personal life, the equivalent of Hell freezing over.

Steve is one of the most famous vintage guitar collectors in the world, and has published a coffee-table book of his collection (out of print but I have one personally signed--eat your heart out). With Yes, heretofore, he typically takes about fourteen very expensive and rare guitars on the road, and uses all of them in the course of the show.

The Line 6 Variax is not an expensive guitar. They are assembly-line made in Korea and the street price is $800; they can sometimes be found on eBay for as little as $500. Basically it is a cheap Strat-like guitar body with a digital audio computer inside. The computer models and synthesizes the sounds of many different famous brand electric and acoustic guitars, so that with the flip of a switch you can go from the sound of an acoustic 12-string guitar to the sound of a Gibson Les Paul, Rickenbaker, or a banjo or dobro.

For his whole career, once Steve recorded a certain song with a particular guitar (say his 1957 Martin) he's been obsessed with carrying that guitar around with him for the rest of his life and using that guitar and only that guitar to perform the song. So for the past thirty years he would perform "Roundabout" on the exact 1970 Gibson ES Switchmaster that he used to record the song in 1972. (He has made occasional exceptions in certain situations, and some of his guitars have been stolen and required replacement).

When he took me up on the stage before the show on The Ladder tour, he showed me his guitars. There was his 1957 Martin acoustic guitar, beat to hell, with the lacquer cracking off in all directions. I said, "Hey, Martin is now selling their Steve Howe Commemorative Model guitar, which is an exact replica of your '57."

He replied, "Sure, I have two of them. They're great."

"Well, why not leave your fragile, expensive, irreplaceable guitar at home and tour with one of the replicas?"

"Wouldn't feel right."

Same with his 1964 Gibson ES-175, the one he used all over "The Yes Album" and on "Heart of the Sunrise" from "Fragile." This is one of the most famous guitars in all the history of rock. If it were to go up for auction I can't even begin to guess what it would sell for, but it would be in the middle six figures in US dollars. Gibson sells a Steve Howe commemorative ES-175 which is a $2,800 exact replica of Steve's original guitar, yet Steve still tours with the real deal. He won't let anybody touch it, not even his most trusted roadies. I knew better than to try.

At the time that I interviewed Steve, I asked him if he had tried the first computer modeling guitar system, the Roland VG-8, which had just come out. He said, "Oh, I've heard of those, but it's nothing I would ever want to use."

It's not strictly a vintage, rare thing. Steve bought a new Fender Strat in the late 80s for the ABWH sessions and tour, and he still uses it. He recorded with Steinberger graphite headless guitars in the 90s, and still tours with them. Along the way he got a hand-built Swiss acoustic guitar, the Scharpach, with a high-tech pickup and amplification system inside. While he favors it for the new stuff, he still reaches for those old Martins and Guilds when he performs stuff from the 60s, 70s and 80s.

Last year I read that Steve Howe had decided to upgrade the Roland synth pickup on his custom-built Gibson Les Paul (from the GTR album, circa 1984) to the latest version and hook it up to a Roland VG-88, the newest computer modeling guitar system.

Now he's gone a step farther and bought a Line 6 Variax, the Roland system's competitor.

He's replacing a half-dozen American hand-built expensive guitars he's been carting around for 30 years with one mass-produced Korean cheapo--with the state-of-the-art in computer sound modeling inside.

On Friday, April 30, 2004, at 03:04 AM, Sean wrote:

Steve replaced his Coral electric sitar this year with
a new fangled guitar with today's technology, the new
Line 6 Variax guitar. It emulates the sound of many
different types of guitars via modeling. He used it
for a lot of acoustic parts here and there (not all
though, he still used some of his Martins too like the
12 string for AYAI). Then changed the setting, and
played the sitar parts on it (during Ritual), then
used it during And You and I for all the electric bits
(sounded like humbucker setting), and it sounded like
all of these things. It actually came through clearer
in the mix than the old Coral sitar did.

Wheat Williams
5345 Pinnacle Peak Lane
Norcross, GA 30071-4914

770-448-9734
wheat@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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