the 500 when they introduced the 700 in 2004. They discontinued the 500 about a year later. It was manufactured in Korea. The "budget" model 300 came out in 2005, was in limited supply by 2007 and was finally discontinued in early 2009. It was manufactured in Indonesia. The 600 featured a vibrato bridge and all-maple neck with six-on-a-side tuners. It was manufactured initially in Korea, then China. The upmarket 700 had a carved top, either a hardtail or vibrato bridge, maple neck, and rosewood fingerboard. It had three-on-a-side tuners and diamond shaped mother of pearl inlays with an abalone "V" at the 12th fret. It was manufactured in Japan. The bridge of a Variax electric guitar has an individual piezoelectric pickup for each string. The instrument's electronics converts each of these six signals to a digital signal, and digitally processes each to emulate the selected sound. Since the system processes the strings separately, it can model the effects that one string of a target emulation might cause on another. It can also shift individual string pitches to digitally create alternate tunings instead of pitch-shifting all strings at once. Some enthusiasts have transplanted Variax electronics and hardware into different instruments. These "transplants" can look like almost any popular guitar, yet produce all the Variax emulations. Variax acoustic guitars Line 6 marketed four models of Variax acoustic modeling guitars: the 300 Nylon String and 300 Steel String, which allow varying virtualbody size and mic placement—and the more expensive steel stringed, cedar (later spruce)-topped 700, which pitch-shifts individual strings to provide alternate tunings. The 700 emulates over a dozen rare and desirable acoustic instruments, including an acoustic Indian sitar, rather than the Coral electric sitar modeled in the electric Variaxes. Line 6 produced a rare and final model dubbed the 900, of which only 50 were produced and distributed by Line 6. The 900s were made in Japan rather than Korea as the 700s were. The 900s had a solid body with a semi hollow acoustic style facade sound hole, maple neck, and rosewood fingerboard was adorned with diamond shaped mother of pearl inlay instead of the cross design the 700s had, it also had an abalone inlay "V" at the 12th fret. The most publicly recognized Variax Acoustic 900 was used by recording artist James Taylor, while singing the American National Anthem at the opening ceremony of the NBA Finals of