tjon901 « Not your dads semi-hollow »
Published on 01/24/12 at 10:21When you think about cutting edge guitars you dont normally thing about Semi-hollow guitars, and you dont normally think about Vox guitars but these guitars are very cutting edge. You will be hard pressed to find a more comfortable and versatile semi-hollow guitar on the market. This is the Vox Virage II DC. The DC stands for double cut. There is a singlecut model as well. This example had a carved mahogany back and top. The set neck is mahogany as well. The fretboard is rosewood with 22 frets. Up top you get Vox tuners and the cool Vox hardtail bridge. It is like a once piece tune-o-matic. The pickups in these guitars are amazing. They are the Vox Coaxe pickups. They can do humbucking, P90 and single coil sounds all in one without any modeling. For the controls you get a volume and tone with a 3 way switch. Then you also get 2 mini toggles to select the mode of each pickup.
UTILIZATION
It is not apparent from the picture but these guitars are way more comfortable than the traditional semi-hollow guitar. The whole body of the guitar has a kind of bent shape. If you were playing this guitar the body of the guitar wraps around you. With most big body semi-hollow guitars you find yourself reaching around the guitar to play it. With this guitar it tucks into your body so you do not have to reach around it as much. The neck join is nicely cut away so you can really get up to the high frets very easily. It is kind of like the neck joint Washburn used on some of their high end guitars in the 80s. The joint isnt bigger than the rest of the neck so you can wrap your hand around the neck easily even at the 22nd fret.
SOUNDS
These Coaxe pickups are a real technical marvel. No one else is doing anything like this currently. These pickups are taking coil splitting to the next level. Each pickup has a set of rail magnets with a set of pole pieces inside them. This provides great noise cancelling but also gives great tonal variety. Each pickup has a mode selector 3 way switch. You can select what kind of tone you want from each pickup independently. The modes are clean crunch and dirty. To me these modes are pretty much single coil, P90 and humbucker. You can naturally select the combination you want since each pickup is independent. You can have a smooth humbucker tone in the neck and a crunchy P90 tone in the bridge. Or you can have a twangy single coil sound in the bridge with a P90 in the neck for a kind of beefed up Telecaster sound. The range of tones on this guitar is huge and it is all done without modeling.
OVERALL OPINION
With these Vox guitars they are trying something new and that is something you do not see often in the guitar industry. If someone has a popular model they will milk it for all its worth. You rarely see companies taking chances on things and thats pretty disappointing. With these Vox guitars if they caught on they could change the way guitar makers think of pickups. And its not just the pickups the body is super comfortable. People have been making semi-hollow guitars for 60 years and they are still making them the same way. This guitar is changing that up and giving you a feel that is much more comfortable. If you are looking for a Semi-hollow guitar ignore the names on the headstock and check out this Vox. It is one of the most modern designs on the market.
UTILIZATION
It is not apparent from the picture but these guitars are way more comfortable than the traditional semi-hollow guitar. The whole body of the guitar has a kind of bent shape. If you were playing this guitar the body of the guitar wraps around you. With most big body semi-hollow guitars you find yourself reaching around the guitar to play it. With this guitar it tucks into your body so you do not have to reach around it as much. The neck join is nicely cut away so you can really get up to the high frets very easily. It is kind of like the neck joint Washburn used on some of their high end guitars in the 80s. The joint isnt bigger than the rest of the neck so you can wrap your hand around the neck easily even at the 22nd fret.
SOUNDS
These Coaxe pickups are a real technical marvel. No one else is doing anything like this currently. These pickups are taking coil splitting to the next level. Each pickup has a set of rail magnets with a set of pole pieces inside them. This provides great noise cancelling but also gives great tonal variety. Each pickup has a mode selector 3 way switch. You can select what kind of tone you want from each pickup independently. The modes are clean crunch and dirty. To me these modes are pretty much single coil, P90 and humbucker. You can naturally select the combination you want since each pickup is independent. You can have a smooth humbucker tone in the neck and a crunchy P90 tone in the bridge. Or you can have a twangy single coil sound in the bridge with a P90 in the neck for a kind of beefed up Telecaster sound. The range of tones on this guitar is huge and it is all done without modeling.
OVERALL OPINION
With these Vox guitars they are trying something new and that is something you do not see often in the guitar industry. If someone has a popular model they will milk it for all its worth. You rarely see companies taking chances on things and thats pretty disappointing. With these Vox guitars if they caught on they could change the way guitar makers think of pickups. And its not just the pickups the body is super comfortable. People have been making semi-hollow guitars for 60 years and they are still making them the same way. This guitar is changing that up and giving you a feel that is much more comfortable. If you are looking for a Semi-hollow guitar ignore the names on the headstock and check out this Vox. It is one of the most modern designs on the market.