Much as most Japanese guitar manufacturers have progressed beyond relentless copying of other makers' designs, so Hondo have begun to stretch their wings towards original ideas during the past year or so. Many of the cheaper Hondos are still very closely based on American guitars, but at the top of the range individualism is beginning to appear, which is no bad thing. The M1 Hondo is probably this maker's most individualistic instrument to date. It looks like some kind of wooden lightning bolt — an impression reinforced by the glowing metallic red finish (hence the 'MR' suffix). A blue painted band runs round the body which, despite its odd appearance, is surprisingly well balanced. The wood used in the body is unidentified, ditto the neck, but the fingerboard is rosewood, and it's not bad quality rosewood, either.

"DESPITE ITS ODD APPEARANCE, THE BODY IS WELL BALANCED"

On the hardware side, the M1 has six sealed machines of pretty good quality, a plastic nut and a Strat-like bridge, coupled to a tremolo system which also works on the tried and trusted original Fender principle. The M1 has just a single humbucking pickup, controlled by one volume pot. The absence of a tone control won't really be missed in practice, although it might seem as if it would be. Just ask yourself — how often do you bother adjusting your tone on stage? A substantial number of professional players rate simplicity above all and there's no doubt that, especially when you're using a guitar to overdrive your amp, you can control a lot of your sound just by using the volume control. Although a tone pot might not be missed, Hondo could well give some thought to fitting a simple coil tap switch for the future as that would be useful. With so little wood in the body, the Hondo is a lightweight instrument to handle and is eminently 'chuckable' during performance — despite the flashy shape, you can move well with it, which obviously suits its role as a heavy metal poser's guitar.

Fortunately, the Hondo sounds pretty aggressive too. The pickup has a decently high output and (particularly if the guitar is used with an amp provided with a variable input gain control) you can wind it up to sing well, although it doesn't have endless sustain — there just isn't enough wood density to provide it. On the other hand, the use of a glued neck joint undoubtedly gives the guitar a bit more 'hold on forever' than it would have had with a bolt-on type. Playability on our sample wasn't at all bad. The M1 has reasonably fat frets and ours weren't too badly finished, although there were a few which protruded at the neck edges — possibly an uncomfortable feature and something which we would have tackled with a little attention from a fine file. On a cheapish instrument like this, however, that's not something which we would worry about too much.

"THIS LIGHTWEIGHT HONDO IS EMINENTLY 'CHUCKABLE' ON STAGE"

Overall the neck was very fast and quite satisfyingly slim, again the sort of qualities which one looks for in an H.M. lead guitar. So far, so good.

Less satisfactory, however, was the tremolo system. The Hondo came with two of its springs removed (quite sensibly) but the action was fairly stiff and, worse still, the return to normal tuning after use was particularly bad on the G string. This was a puzzle initially, as instead of dropping in pitch, it raised itself. The problem turned out to lie in the design of the string clip for the D and G strings. This looks like a conventional string post but, in fact, there are small slots into which the strings fit and as the string tries to return to pitch post-tremolo, it sticks in the slot — hence raising its pitch. Possibly some graphite or string lubricant might have eased this but it's a nuisance and it would be better if the string post was replaced with a roller type to reduce the friction caused by the slots. A move upwards in string gauge (the M1 had light strings) would exacerbate the problem, in which case a lubricant probably wouldn't help at all — and the replacement of this post would possibly be advisable in the long run.

"THE M1 IS A STRONG SOUNDING GUITAR WITH A GOOD NECK, FLASH-HARRY LOOKS AND SEEMS TO BE FAIRLY WELL MADE"

Apart from this aspect, the M1 is a strong sounding guitar with a good neck, flash-Harry looks and seems (from our sample) to be fairly well made — tremolo problems notwithstanding. It seems odd to us that this tremolo flaw hasn't already been spotted by either the makers or their importers before (in fact it must be relatively unlikely) so it's quite possible that we had just received a sample with an under-sized slot. You might well find one in a shop which didn't have this problem, in which case it won't worry you. Potential customers who do find this could have the clip changed in no time at all and that's something which any decent retailer would do for you if you were thinking of buying one and this was all that was stopping you. In that case the M1 represents a pretty reasonable buy at the money if you like the aggressive looks and distinctly pokey sound.

HONDO M1MR (RRP £147 inc. VAT)

Further details from John Hornby Skewes and Co Ltd at (Contact Details).