THE MOST UNDERRATED GUITAR? 

This would have been great advisement if the still made these

I had a JTV59 and a JTV89. I did not like the neck of the JTV59, I loved the overall ergonomics of the JTV89. Sound-wise, the mag pickups were OK, and the models were...OK...just OK. I had coupled it to a Helix Rack, and I had to tweak quite a bit my sounds to get what I wanted. Also I had to adapt my technique to get rid of the unpleasant high pitch "pluck" the models were generating at high gains. I have to say though that being able to switch pickups, models and tunings on the guitar by just pressing one foot switch on the Helix was a killer feature! The last release: the Shuriken, was a commercial flop. It was a great piece of tech, but this particular tech (more than 10 years old) was not enough to get it to quality standards that most of us expect.

I have never gotten so much value out of any instrument I have ever owned. My main use for the Variax was for covers and for worship. When paired with the Helix, all I ever heard was comments like "you sound just like...". It's not for everything, but there is nothing like it for many situations. I was literally heartbroken when they were discontinued. I don't think it will be missed, but it should be...