SC-Junior Black : Excellent instrument

This is a very nice guitar; it’s also incredible value for money.

It looks stunning. The beautiful, high-gloss, black finish is complemented by the rusty, red, tortoiseshell scratch plate. Two, gold-coloured pots look great against the black of the body.

This SCJ is very light and balances well on a strap. It’s a breeze to play standing up.

The pick-up is extremely good. It rolls from one end of the tone spectrum to the other passing through all of the subtle nuances on the way. From a bright, biting treble to a nasal, jazz honk – it’s all there.

When mine arrived I needed to adjust the bridge as it (and the saddles) had all been set-to-zero. It didn’t take long and, once done, the intonation was spot on from end to end.

The beauty of the bridge is that it combines the wrap-around style with adjustable saddles for each string – that’s something that you don’t get on the top-of-the range model. And, in my opinion, that’s always been a huge disincentive when having to pay lot’s of cash.

The other advantage of this system is that it dispenses with the need for a tailpiece. This means that more of the lovely bodywork is visible and not hidden beneath strings. If you’ve got a beautiful body – flaunt it.

I changed the tuners after a few weeks because I felt they could be improved. To be fair, the Wilkinson’s that it came with aren’t too bad but, this is just a matter of personal preference, of course.

I really enjoy playing this instrument. Finding sounds with just one volume and one tone control is – for me – more challenging and rewarding than flicking toggle-switches and twirling knobs.

At the time of writing I have the Vintage Sunburst version of this on order and I have no doubt that it’ll be just as good as this one.