| As any serious ax shopper knows, it's possible to find a decent-playing and decent-sounding electric guitar for around $500, but if you want to mosh on the upper crust of modern guitar-making technology, prepare to open your wallet and say "ahhh" The four "F"s- finish, feel, and fun factor - are directly linked to the ol' moola meter, and $1,200 and up is the range where superior fretwork, playability, construction, and tone are likely to be the rule instead of the exception. We recently received two new solids from ESP and MJ Guitars. Costly and differing greatly in design philosophy, both are made for players willing to dig deep for the extra level of craftsmanship and coolness that separates "customs" from garden-variety guitars. |
| Sporting a deeply sculpted solid maple top that imparts a futuristic, "crafted by Klingons" appearance, the MJ Mirage Standard ($2,495) is actually a fairly traditional double-cutaway guitar with dual humbuckers, a tune-o-matic bridge and stop tail piece, a chambered alder body, and a glued-in maple neck with a 22-fret (24 5/8"-scale) rosewood fingerboard. The forked headstock features three-on-a-side Gotoh tuners (angled inward for tuning ease) and a graphite-laminated face. A small chromed-steel plate keeps the fork ends precisely aligned and doubles as a convenient hanger, and the truss rod's hex head is instantly accessible through the headstock crotch. The Standard's subtle cosmetics include a trio of elliptical mother-of-pearl position markers at the fifth and twelfth frets (supplemented by fingerboard side dots) and an exposed-wood binding edge where the top joins the body. |
| The neck on this nicely built ax is perfectly shaped, sanded and gloss finished. Its 6150 jumbo frets are well installed with only slight roughness at the ends, and the silicon / graphite-impregnated nut is expertly cut and shaped. The top's flowing contours are absolutely blemish free, the pickup routs are clean and precise, and the six-coat urethane finish is mirror polished with no orange peel, dents, dips, or scratches. The Mirage packs a Duncan '59 humbucker in the neck position and a Duncan JB at the bridge. Both sport chrome-plated covers and are height adjustable. The pickups feed a 3 position selector, 2 volumes and a tone control. The bridge humbucker's volume knob is positioned closest to the strings for easy access. The control cavity and cover plate are shielded with metallic paint,. Since the body is hollowed out in areas, the cover screws only have about 1/8" of wood to thread into. Metal inserts and machines screws probably should be used to prevent stripping. The output jack is contained in a heavy aluminum shell and recessed into thebody just above the rearstrap button. The plug inserts at a downward angle, making it easy to wrap your cord through the strap for strain relief. Clever. |
| Thanks to its chambered body, the Standard is light and excellently balanced. The 12" -radius neck, wide rounded frets, and a scale length tat's 1/8" shorter that a Les Paul's yield a looser playing feel that begs for bending. This warm and buttery-sounding guitar's sweet acoustic voice imparts an openness and crispness to clean cords and a little extra ring and shimmer in the distorted modes. Tested through a number of different tube amps - including a '70s Fender Bassman 100, a Fender Twin, and a Dr. Z Invasion combo - the Mirage sounded big and full and displayed excellent feedback characteristics. |
| The Duncan pickups are a good match here: Through a fuzzbox with the guitar's tone control set at minimum, the front pickups yields a cool, flutey, Cream-era Clapton vibe, while the rear JB's fatness and dynamics work well for a multitude of Les Paul-like distortion flavors. Everything from gutsy, harmonic-saturated blues stings to Santana-like wails are just a mater of dialing up front-end distortion and rolling down the treble at the amp. The middle position provides tone shades aplenty by simply tweaking the neck and bridge pickup volumes. |
| All considered, MJ's Mirage Standard is a good choice for those who gravitate toward a Gibson sound and feel, but want styling that tells the world (or at least a bar full of Al-Anon poster people), "I'm me." We applaud MJ for their effort to build on a time-tested formula while offering something new in contemporary design. |
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