The Varilap

[Jeff Highland]

Well I've been using a Variax Standard since early this year, and soon after getting it started wanting to have a lap version. These are discontinued and not very common in Australia so it took me a while to find a used one at a reasonable price. Finally got it 10 days ago, and built a conversion neck for it.
Strung it up today, still a bit of setup to do.
For those unfamiliar with Variax, it uses individual piezos for each string enabling alternate tunings with the twist of a dial and models of guitar sounds from Fender Gibson Ric etc as well as acoustic, reso, sitar, banjo, 12 string
At the moment I have it tuned in open D with settings for Dm and low base G

https://imgur.com/Gxv1KGD
https://imgur.com/JasO3JP
https://imgur.com/BEp2mdY

[Jeff Highland]

IMG_0165 (1).jpg

IMG_0166.jpg

IMG_0167.jpg

[Peter Jacobs]

Cool idea! And nicely done! What are you thinking you’ll be playing on it?

[Jeff Highland]

Well I'll be playing it on "heroes" and "how to make gravy"(paul kelly christmas song) with my buddies this afternoon in preparation for a party set, and I'll be looking to explore some of the more unusual settings like Sitar and banjo. Only got it strung up yesterday and I'm gradually adding custom tunings which require some mental gymnastics since it expects the strings to be tuned to E standard and I have them in open D

[Peter Jacobs]

Wow — sounds ambitious and fun. Have a great time with it!