UNDER THE HOOD
No Sustaniac or fuzz box here!
The very simple circuit has minimal components: an A500kohms push-push volume/Mojo switch, a standard Japanese-made kill-button and a Switchcraft output jack.There’s no screening in the cavities, though the aluminium ’plate acts as a shield.And don’t forget that both positions of the Mojo switch are humbucking.Without a tone control or treble bleed, there are also no additional capacitors and resistors, either.
Removing the neck allows us to see the clean routed cavities and just how tightly the neck fits. There’s barely any finish in the neck pocket and no need for a neck shim.
As Manson’s Adrian Ashton tells us, the Dirty Rascal humbucker started out as a request from Graham Coxon: “Listening to his sounds, old and new, we thought the PF-1 [Matt Bellamy Signature humbucker] would be a little bit too heavy, a little bit too much gain,” he says.“But we also do the Benchmark, a bit more like a slightly hot-rod PAF. So with the Dirty Rascal we were aiming for something between the two – a Benchmark Plus if you like.”
Designer Simon Thorn confirms the‘hot take on a PAF’ concept: “It’s machine-wound and the coils are matched. We use 42 AWG plain enamel, an Alnico V cast magnet and it’s vacuum potted.”Measured at output, we read the DCR at 9.32kohms (series) and 2.37k (parallel).
There might just be a single open-coil Manson Dirty Rascal humbucker, but alongside a kill-button for those staccato effects, it’s the single volume control that’s key here. It’s actually a push-push switched pot that Manson calls its Mojo switch, which, when down, links the humbucker’s coils in series as normal. Push it up, though, and the coils are wired in parallel, producing a cleaner, lighter and more single-coil sound that is still hum-cancelling.
Warming up our test amps with a 1957 Gibson Les Paul Junior puts us in the mind of that benchmark tone. And with a bit of a ‘beat that’ challenge, we plugged in the Verona Junior (and then the MA Junior). Yes, they’re different, but they really capture the raucous power of the Gibson. It’s a little brighter full up with a little less body, but it’s a Junior all right: the archetypal snotty-nosed punk (or at least the Dirty Rascal!) of the electric guitar family.
But we’re not reviewing an old Gibson, and although we only have a volume here (no tone control), the circuit is very well tuned. Pulling back the volume just lightens things and loses a little high-end sharpness but leaves plenty of clout for some ballsy rhythm ’n’ riffing duties. Pushed up, however, the Mojo switch changes the character, becoming lighter, definitely more single-coil-like or perhaps Filter’Tron