Matt Black Stealth Whammy

Manson Matt Black FR

Matt Black FR
Manufacturer	Manson Guitars
Used	2017-05-18—
Body type	Solid
Neck joint	Bolt-on
Body covering	Matte Black paint
Wood	Body: Mahogany Neck: Maple Fingerboard: Rosewood (22 frets)
Bridge	Floyd Rose Tremolo System
Electronics	3-way toggle pickup selector, one volume
Pickup(s)	Neck: Sustainiac Bridge: Manson MBK-2 (uncovered) / PsychoPAF
Special circuits	2-way toggle YES/NO switch reverses kill switch functionality mini kill switch

Background

This guitar is almost identical to the Manson Chrome FR, except this guitar is in matte black colour and features an uncovered MBK-2 pickup. Like it’s Chrome twin, there is likely 2 models of this guitar for Rig A & Rig B. Both guitars feature the old Manson logo.

The YES/NO switch sits in place of the tone control knob. This was previously thought to be an on/off switch to control the rumoured integrated whammy control on the Patented MID1 Manson, this pitch shift effect was instead achieved by using the Floyd Rose with the Sustainiac on Harmonic mode The YES/NO switch simply reverses the kill switch functionality. This means the guitar is 'muted' and flicking the killswitch on the top horn activates the guitar signal when switched to "NO". This is bypassed and the killswitch functions as normal when set to "YES".

These guitar body shapes mark a departure from previous Mansons Matt used that feature a Floyd Rose system, as they do not have the rounded "Lozenge" shape, as seen on the likes of the Chrome Bomber and the Stealth Bomber models.

Touring

The Matt Black FR has been used live since May 2017 and was labeled Matt's guitar tech as "1". It is used almost exclusively for Psycho, but has on rare occasions been used for other songs that require drop-D tuning and the use of a whammy bar (such as Assassin at the two Apollo gigs in May 2022, and We Are Fucking Fucked at two of the mexicans shows in January 2023). As of 2025, Matt's guitar tech has it labeled as "Drop D Bender".