This latest release from Manson Guitar Works comes in two body shapes with uncompromised playability and sound at an aggressive price. Prepare to be impressed!
What’s this? Is Manson Guitar Works celebrating the 70th anniversary of the Gibson Les Paul Junior? No, clearly not, but that ‘Junior’ moniker is applied to many single-pickup guitars and that’s the proposition here. The new Manson Junior comes in the brand’s classic modern T-style MA shape and the new Verona outline we have here, obviously based on the Stratocaster and a request from Manson majority shareholder Matt Bellamy. The Ashburton-based Brit maker, who currently has nine staff and an output between 200 and 300 UK-built guitars annually, took a close look at every manufacturing process to hone it down to the base essentials without compromising quality in the least.
Like many makers, particularly those in the UK, Manson is using lightweight obeche for the Junior’s solid bodies –and it’s a first for aManson production guitar. Equally on trend is the satin open-pore finish, which is offered in five colours. We also get topline Gotoh hardware: the popular all-steel through-string block saddle bridge and those smoothly shaped 510 tuners with height-adjustable posts, which are set with staggered heights here to remove the need for one or two string trees.
All the electrics, including the output jack, are mounted on a rugged blackcoated aluminium scratchplate, while the impressive Fender-scale, slab-sawn, satinfinished maple neck is screwed to the body on a standard square heel platform. We only get side dots (no face markers) on the unbound rosewood fingerboard, but the fretwork and edge rolling is exceptional, as is the neck shape. It might be a streamlined ‘basic’ design, not least after Manson only recently unveiled the £14k GEO Mask Edition, but the execution is faultless.
The Dirty Rascal is just as at home with classic r ock duties as it is with mor e pr ogr essive and heavily gained styles
Feel & Sounds
We’d argue ‘feel and sound’ are the essence of this guitar. First off, the body wood choice ensures it’s far from overweight at 3.31kg (7.28lb), although you can expect some variance; an MA Junior that we also had for our sound test was super light at just 2.58kg (5.68lb). In combination with the clearly very thin finish, the Verona rings like a bell strummed acoustically, a feature that’s always been a part of any Manson electric guitar we’ve played.
The neck shaping
