Manson Mirror

Mirror (original)
Manufacturer	Manson Guitars
Used	2004-12-19 — 2013-02-18
Body type	Solid
Neck joint	Bolt-on
Body covering	Mirrored perspex (acrylic)
Wood	Body: Currently Unknown Neck: Currently Unknown Fingerboard: rosewood
Bridge	Tune-O-Matic
Electronics	One volume, one tone, 3-way pickup selector
Pickup(s)	Neck: Rio Grande Covered Bastard P90 Bridge: Rio Grande Crunchbox P90
Special circuits	Z.Vex Fuzz Factory MXR Phase 90 Three-way toggle killswitch

Mirror (rebuilt)
Manufacturer	Manson Guitars
Used	2013-04-10 — 2024-12-13
Body type	Solid
Neck joint	Bolt-on
Body covering	Mirrored perspex (acrylic)
Wood	Body: Currently Unknown Neck: Currently Unknown Fingerboard: rosewood
Bridge	Tune-O-Matic
Electronics	One volume, one tone, 3-way pickup selector
Pickup(s)	Neck: Bare Knuckle Mississippi Queen P90 Bridge: Bare Knuckle Mississippi Queen P90
Special circuits	Z.Vex Fuzz Factory MXR Phase 90

Background

This guitar was built at the same time as the Rust Relic for the December '04 Earls Court concerts. Since then it has been regularly used to date.

Specs

The guitar features internal effects which are the Fuzz Factory and MXR Phase 90. Originally with P90 Rio Grande Covered Bastard on the neck and P90 Rio Grande Crunch Box on the bridge, it now has two Mississippi Queen P90s on the bridge and neck positions. The three-way toggle killswitch was retired during the rebuilding of the guitar in 2013. The guitar now also features a string tree on the headstock.

Touring

This guitar was one of Matt's main guitars at the beginning of the Black Holes era, being used for various songs. It was gradually used for less and less songs with Matt getting new guitars through the years, until The 2nd Law Tour in 2012 where it began being only used for Plug In Baby.

At the February 18th, 2013 London War Child gig, Matt smashed this guitar into Dom's bass drum, then a few times into his on-stage Dickinson amp, and finally across Dom and the drum kit. Pieces of the mirror cover can be seen breaking off during the impacts.

The guitar was repaired with a completely new body and was back in action at the April 10th, 2013 Toronto gig. The new body had to match the new weight targets that Matt specified for his Manson guitars built since 2012. In order to achieve that, the guitar had some holes drilled into the body, this way there's less wood in the guitar, making it lighter. Whilst the guitar was being repaired, Plug In Baby was removed from the setlists.

In 2015, Matt got another mirror guitar made, the Mirror 2.0. Since then, one mirror sits in the european rig and another one sits in the american/rest of the world rig. The guitars are mostly the same, with the only noticeable difference being the fuzz factory pots which are further apart on the 2.0. For the Drones World Tour, the Manson Mirror was mostly used for the Americas shows, but was also seen occassionally in Europe for the festival shows. Since 2017, the guitar swapped rigs : the Mirror was mostly used for european gigs while the Mirror 2.0 was used for the american and rest of the world shows.

In 2022 a new similar guitar, the Manson Chrome Fuzz, was delivered to Matt and used as a back up for the Mirror in the European rig. However, starting with the European leg of the Will of the People World Tour the Manson Chrome Fuzz started to take the #1 spot, leaving the Mirror as a back up, only used for the Plymouth and The Hague gigs. Surprisingly, it reappeared during the Abu Dhabi and Riyad shows in december 2024.