Manson guitars have been part of the British scene for quite a few years now producing handcrafted acoustics and electrics of virtually every design thought possible (and some that were thought impossible). The key to their ever increasing success simply seems to be progression, and their constant refining of every aspect, however small, of guitar design.

While the main percentage of the Mansons' work comes from 'one offs' (which invariably turn into two or three offs once their customers are hooked) they have now enlisted the services of Musimex to market a condensed range of electrics to a far wider area. As Hugh Manson admitted, 'our strength lies in making guitars but not in selling them — that side of it takes up too much time!'

There are essentially then four models in the 'series' — the Kestrel and Falcon guitar plus the Kestrel and Explorer bass. Each model comes with a wide range of options on colour, timber, pickups and electronics, fretted and fretless etc. To say that if the Mansons can't build it can't be built is probably more than accurate.

However, these instruments aren't cheap and a conscious decision has been made to go for the top end of the market and leave the economy end to the mass production companies. The thing you'll never find with a Manson guitar, though, is that you've been overcharged — if one of their guitars costs £700 you know you're paying for exactly that amount of skill, experience and quality timber and components. If every guitar review was as much pleasure as this one is to do, I'd be a much happier man!

Falcon Guitar

At £760 we're not talking about a cheap instrument but you must remember that these Manson guitars are not just your run of the mill axes. Anyone who is interested in making electric guitars should have a close look at these — the construction is frankly faultless. The Falcon uses a straight-through neck design of Mahogany with sides of Sycamore. Front and back on this sample are flame Maple — the golden brown clear finish really enhancing the grain of the Maple. A thin veneer of black dyed Sycamore is used as a 'sandwich' between the component body blocks adding a subtle touch of class to the guitar's appearance.

The body shape won't, of course, be to everyone's liking, with the offset top horns which come to a sharp point, the upper horn finishing in line with the 12th fret. There is no body contouring but the edges of the body are radiused, although personally I'd like to see a back contour for added comfort.

Because of the straight-through neck design the heel is virtually dispensed with and all the lines of the body and neck flow very nicely into one another. The Mansons have always favoured a slightly triangular feel to the neck profile, combined with a wide flat cambered fingerboard. In depth, the neck is thin and really comfortable. Of course any new guitar takes a while to get used to but I can't really see this neck design having many enemies.

The familiar stubby Manson headstock has a flame Maple facing to match the body with a very small gold Manson logo which could do with a black edging to make it stand out a bit more. The back edges of the headstock flow into a volute under the nut in quite a classical mannerand it occurred to me that th is guitar is altogether too beautiful to play Rack'n'Rool with!

Mind you, playing on this ebony fretboard is a piece of cake. The flat camber, wide flat frets and low action make for an action that is fast with a capital 'F'. Each of the 24 frets has been highly polished for that extra ease when bending but it must be said that there were a couple of sharp fret ends. Small mother of pearl dots are used for the face markings while the side markings are even smaller dots which don't show up too well as they have been covered with the gold brown lacquer. Still, if you want to pay £760 for a guitar and you don't know your way around a fretboard I suggest you may need a chat with your doctor!

The high gloss finish on this guitar is a combination of two different lacquers plus a lot of skill and hard work. A polyurethane high-build lacquer is applied as a base coat, which is very hard when dry and will not sink. Then, coats of cellulose lacquer are applied, coloured or otherwise combining the advantages of the cellulose, ie, aging, with the solid base of the chemical drying polyrethane. The end result is fab!

Hardware

Gold plated Schaller M6 machine heads are featured here but because of the lock-nut and micro tuners on the Kahler tremolo assembly their use is somewhat restricted. In fact, if I hadn't broken a string while doing my best to impersonate Van Halen I might probably not have touched them at all. The Kahler tremolo has been well documented in a previous issue of this mag so I won't repeat that report here. However it's important to point out the Hugh Manson has modified this (and most others fitted to Manson guitars) Kahler to improve its performance. A problem with any tremolo system that has a balanced tension between string and spring is that when you bend a string up with your finger the other strings go flat. This isn't a problem on single note bends but it is if you're holding down and sounding another string when you execute the bend. To improve on this Hugh has inserted a piece of rubber in the back of the trem cavity making the overall action stiffer and reducing a certain amount of upward trem bend. However, this does solve the said problem considerably and most people agree with him too.

In fact this modification could be carried out on any Strat-type trem as well. Hugh recommends using rubber from one of those Super Balls that we all used to cause havoc in the playground with. Although a standard brass top nut is fitted here Manson also offer a roller nut for people who don't want to use the locking-nut on the guitar. This reduces friction at the nut to such an extent that even lock-out fanatics are not bothering to lock their nuts, or more accurately strings, anymore.

Pickups and Electronics

This Falcon is quite straightforward on the electrics side with two Schaller humbuckers (type unknown) as opposed to the more typical, specially designed, Kent Armstrong pickups that accompany Manson guitars. These units have chrome covers which contrast with the gold everywhere else. The control configuration is simply master volume and master tone, three position pickup selector plus phase switch and coil-tap switch operating on both pickups. The jack socket is mounted on the front of the guitar below the controls. Removal of the backplate reveals a very tidy bit of wiring and a cavity screened with conductive paint. The black plastic cover plate has a piece of aluminium foil to complete the screening.

Sounds and Playability

The weight and balance of the Falcon are good which makes you confident even before you plug the guitar in. The overall characteristic of the pickups is quite bright, especially with the coil-tap in single coil mode. The back pickup has a good edge to it although I felt the neck pickup a little too harsh. Certainly the clarity and sustain were excellent. The more I played it the more I liked it; there were no problems at all with action or fretting, the double octave neck opening up some wide possibilities. Manson have obviously tried to offer a circuit that is versatile and simple and although you lose the possibilities of mixing the volumes and full or tapped modes with both pickups on, the quality of the sound overall made up for any lack of versatility.

The Kahler trem unit, of course, was superb in action; mind you, for the price it should be. The modification to the unit already mentioned improved things a great deal and those country bends actually worked for once on a trem guitar. The slightly stiffer action was also an improvement — I'm used to a Strat trem which I'd always felt was pretty smooth compared to most, but going back to it after this one is going to be difficult. Tuning? I didn't need to bother!

Hugh also has news of some new strings that he's designed in conjunction with Rotosound especially for heavy trem use (they weren't fitted here but I'm assured they improve upon the string breaking problem at the ball end of the string.)

Kestrel Bass

Constructed in the same manner as the six-string the Kestrel has class stamped all over it. This full scale two octave fretless bass combines simplicity with elegance. It uses a Mahogany straight-through neck with a centre lamination of Maple and the same slightly triangular feel as the Falcon. The amazing thing about the neck on this bass is that it's really thin and so easy to play. The action has been set very low to enhance that characteristic 'whine', so popular today with the fretless, and once you start to play it you just don't want to stop.

The body has Ash sides with bird's eye Maple front and back, again with the black dyed Sycamore laminations. The shape is similar to that of the Falcon although the top horn has been extended to improve the balance of the bass as well as contributing to the style. Again the straight-through design makes the heel shaping very comfortable — overall the construction is faultless. The fingerboard on this sample is Ebony with aflat camber and side dot markers indicating dot positions as is usual on a fretless.

The finish on this bass is achieved in the same manner as the guitar with the combination of the polyurethane and cellulose lacquers but instead of being a high gloss the topcoat has been cut back and wax polished to achieve a very fine satin finish.

Hardware

All Schaller again on this bass — M4 machine heads, a 3-D4 bridge with the four saddles adjustable for height, intonation and string spacing. Judging by the amount of people using these 3-D bridges today it looks as though Schaller are onto a good thing. The nut on this sample is brass which has been perfectly cut although it would have looked better if it had been chromed to match with the machines and bridge.

Pickup and Electronics

This area of the guitar couldn't be more simple — a single Kent Armstrong pickup with eight adjustable poles mounted into the body with three screws for height and tilt adjustment. The unit is enclosed in resin which has a wood grain effect to the finish. Controls are simply volume and tone with smart black aluminium knobs. The jack socket is mounted on the side of the bass enhancing the simplicity of the appearance. Once again the control cavity is covered with a black plastic plate, the interior of the cavity is well screened with conductive paint and foil.

Sound and Playability

I couldn't put the balance of the bass to a proper test as someone has 'borrowed' the bottom strap button, but by holding the bass by the top button it was easy to see that the balance would be correct with the weight distributed at the body end of the instrument.

The sound was stunning: bags and bags of sustain with a really rich tone. At the top end of the tone control all the high harmonics rang out crystal clear while at the lower end of the tone the sound became obviously lacking in top but not muddy — for such a simple set up I was amazed at the subtleties of sounds that could be produced especially when combining these with differing playing techniques. The fretless bass is always much more expressive than a fretted but this Manson responded to the slightest hand movement making vibrato, bends and slides so easy. The strings fitted on this sample were of a low gauge which contributed greatly to the playability, but I think this was probably the best fretless bass I've come across so far, especially when you consider the simplicity of the pickup and control system. The double octave neck works especially well on a fretless, of course, and I was left feeling really miffed that I couldn't get some of these unusual sounds down on demo (they always want the good guitars back!)

Conclusions

There isn't a lot more that I can say really; after all, we don't want the Mansons getting too bigheaded, although I think a slight swelling would be definitely allowed.

Basically both these instruments are first class in every area — not everyone will like every aspect of them I'm sure, but that's another facet of the Manson's success — adaptability — so long as you can describe what you want they can make it for you.

As an ending note when I spoke to Hugh about the specifications on the guitar he said, "Oh it's a shame you've got that one — the other two I sent to Musimex were a lot better!"

It's okay, this one will do nicely thank you very much!

MANSON FALCON SIX STRING G - RRP: £760 with case
MANSON KESTREL BASS - RRP: £545 with case