Manson 7 String E Guitar

Article on the 7 String E Guitar in Total Guitar's July 2015 issue

7-String E Guitar
Manufacturer	Manson Guitars
Used	2001-??-?? – 2018-02-24
Body type	Solid
Neck joint	Thru-neck
Body covering	Sycamore (flamed)
Wood	Body: Mahogany (Archtop, Hollow-chambered) Neck: Maple Fingerboard: Rosewood
Bridge	Fixed
Electronics	Two volume, one tone, 3-way pickup selector switch
Pickup(s)	Custom 7-string Kent Armstrong
Special circuits	Mike Christian piezo saddles

Background

According to Matt in an interview with Australian Guitar Magazine 2010, this was the first guitar he bought from Manson's guitar shop. The guitar was bought second-hand.

Hugh Manson on the 7 string

"Matthew Bellamy bought that second-hand. I made it for a jazz musician as a 7-string guitar with no bridge pickup, just a neck pickup and a bridge transducer (7-string) which I had custom-made with Mike Christian saddles in it. It's an archtop, straight-though neck, hollow-chambered guitar. Matt came in to the shop and said, ‘I need a 7-string for a certain song’ and I said, ‘I've got this one here that a guy doesn't want.’ He tried it and said, ‘Yeah, that'll do’. It's a great sounding guitar and it's probably my favourite out of all of them."

A very similar guitar based heavily on the guitar, the Manson CE-7, was used during the Drones Tour in 2015 through 2017 for Citizen Erased. The guitars are near identical, with the only differences being the spacing between dot inlays on the fretboard and the CE-7 sporting a lighter paint-job.

Touring

The 7 String E Guitar was first used in 2001 and was used live exclusively for Citizen Erased all the way up until August 2011. It is tuned to AADDGBE.

For The 2nd Law tour, the guitar was relegated to backup for the Manson Black 7 String. Since Citizen Erased was dropped for most of the tour, the guitar saw no use until the Oslo Telenor Arena gig in July 2013, when it was used to perform Liquid State after the Black 7 String malfunctioned. It was used at three further shows that year, again for Citizen Erased.

Citizen Erased returned to being played quite regularly during 2015 and 2016. However, Matt mostly used the CE-7 duplicate guitar for the song, with the 7 String E Guitar only being used during a few shows during this period. The guitar made a return for the by-request shows in both London in 2017 and Paris in 2018. This however, were the last times to date the guitar has been used, as future performances of Citizen Erased saw Matt play the song on the Black 7 String or Black 7 String 2.0.

The guitar was also seen on display with other Manson guitars at the Manson Guitars stand during the Simulation Theory World Tour in the UK and France.