MS-60 VW Vintage Series : This guitar is a bargain if you ever fancied a Mustang/Jaguar for under £100

This guitar is a bargain if you ever fancied a Mustang/Jaguar for under £100.

It has most of the features of a Mustang but dispenses with the less than popular Mustang style bridge and tremolo and replaces them with, what to me is, an improved Jaguar tremolo/Tune-o-matic bridge combo.

The sound is bright and chimey; the Wilkinson pickups giving the scratchy brittleness of a tele bridge pickup combined with a very unique sound at the neck with an undertone of chimeyness coming from the vibrato and a bit of compression too.

The strings supplied are very light for a shortscale guitar and a change might change these sounds but I like them at the moment even if they are a bit floppy and I can bend several tones without worry.

One word of warning, the switches are 2-way rather than the 3-ways of a Mustang so you don't get the out of phase option. Replacements that will fit are available for a couple of pounds from ebay.

Whilst you're on the bay you might want to buy a Mustang control plate too. I bought one and cut down the original scratchplate to fit it. Some redrilling was necessary but the end result is definitely worth it. Just be aware that there is a full rout beneath the scratchplate so you won't want any gaps where the two join. And also make sure you will be drilling into wood and not air.

The neck is nice, though a slightly banana tinged yellow, and of course the headstock is not like an original but you'd have to be a berk to buy a Squier one for well over the price of this guitar. Just revel in your price-conscious rebelliousness.

Finally, the colour, I would say, is more of a mint white bordering on TV white rather than Vintage white advertised (which I always think of as creamy). I like it though and it goes well with the mother of pearl scratchplate.