The VG is going the way many said it was going to go. I remember we sat at the demonstration with the Fender Rep. for like 45min. before this thing was available and when I walked away I thought it will never fly and a few others there said the same thing. Purest but the tech junkies thought it was the next best thing to bread. Fender is not in business to sell you a guitar they want you to buy many guitars over time. Why try to make a do all one? Are there not Pedals and Modeling amp? You want a different tuning well part of the fun of playing is doing it yourself. And the tele sound and the Hbucker get the real thing.

_________________
The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

Thomas Jefferson

At least they realize that people want more traditional instruments unlike a certain other major guitar company. But that's a whole different discussion.

well, it did very poorly in sales.
look.
1. HOW MANY of you guys (BOUGHT) a VG strat?

I consider myself a traditionalist,being 60 years old,loving my 73 Jag,65 Xii string and on and on but i have a vg and just love the thing.It,s gotta be the economic downturn that cut the sales.Too bad,an update might have been interesting

Wow, Virtual Goner... had a 2 year and 4 month run...
Technologies are definately coming in the near future smaller than ever seen before, only imagined. It will be interesting to see these tiny technologies become a part of our already existing instruments without any intrusion of wood, design, characteristic, and/or breaking the back of any company that desires to try to market them. It may be sooner or later, who is to say... but the day will come, probably sooner than many would think. With new materials smaller technologies become possible...
Screw this lap top! I want a watch! or somthing even smaller!

_________________
explorationx

Amen to that!!

_________________

I bought one yesterday at the closeout price. I was never all that interested at $1,799 but $999 definitely worked. With a trade in I got out the door with a Black/Rosewood VG for under $650.

That's not all that much to pay for a soon to be slice of Fender history.

John

I bought a Roland VG-8 when they first came out. I loved it so much I bought a Fender American Standard Strat w/the built-in Roland GK-3. That was a nice set-up. But as far as the VG Strat goes, I never wanted one because:
1) It could only run on batteries.
2) I couldn't modify or add new patches to it.

That's where Line 6 has Fender beat and that's why, IMHO, the VG Strat failed. Line 6 was also wise to make using their modeling guitars with their amps.

R.I.P. VG Strat.

Hi Matt_B_67, welcome to the Forum.

Not my area of activity at all, so the discussion is entirely academic to me. However, you are not the only person to mention Line 6's supremacy in this field. But further, others have also noted that the Variax guitar itself is kinda less than many people's dream instrument. And I've read some who feel it is actually overburdened with functionality, far as the sounds are concerned. I've no view on that: just what I've heard said.

On paper therefore I can see how the VG made sense. A really good and desirable guitar with some of the more mainstream digital features added in.

So I think you must be right: the limitations of the digital side of the instrument must have been what let it down. They just pitched that part of it at the wrong level.

Strange then that they appear to have simply dropped it, rather than taking it forwards. Strange - but seemingly true...

Cheers - C

Ceri - I think your assessment is exactly correct. But instead of "taking it forward", I bet that - in the face of the current economy - they opted for just cutting those R&D dollars right out of the budget to better their bottom line. They probably were looking to cut where they could, and (my guess is) the VG had the worst ROI ("return on investment") compared to other Fender options.

_________________
Laughing out loud with fear and hope, I have a desperate plan ...