SET IT OFF

There’s more to offset electrics than Leo’s designs. These options go beyond the origins of asymmetry

PJD ST JOHN STANDARD FROM £1,299

Starting at just £1,299, the St John Standard from PJD represents great value from a UK builder. Ordering is easy, too, thanks to a configurator on the PJD website where you can choose your neck (maple/roasted flamed maple), fingerboard (rosewood, maple) and headstock (natural/painted), plus pickups (P-90/humbuckers), tuners (Gotoh vintage/locking) and finish. Talking of which, PJD will apply a ‘spray-over’, with a three-tone ’burst applied under your top finish, which is then revealed with some light ageing. www.pjdguitars.com

HAYNES DEMEANOUR FROM £2,600

At first glance, the Demeanour from Haynes might look ‘vintage’, but dig deeper and it’s anything but. American alder for the body and a one-piece mahogany neck – including graphite reinforcement – set the foundation for the compound radius ebony (or rosewood) fingerboard (229mm to 356mm/9.5 to 14 inches). It’s available in a base choice of seven metallic finishes, and the pickups, which are made in-house by Haynes, can be customised with soapbar-style singles, humbuckers or a mix of the two. www.haynesguitars.com

ATKIN MINDHORN £3,499

The Mindhorn from Atkin brings us an obeche body, cut into an offset shape of its own: there’s the shallow waist-pinch of a Mustang, the pointed horn of an SG, and we’re getting Jazzmaster vibes from the other side. You can pick from a menu of customisation options, including Atkin’s house-wound pickups (MH90 single coils or humbuckers), clay dot or abalone block inlays, and tune-o-matic/top-mounted hardtails. Each version comes in a number of nitro-sealed finishes. https://atkinguitars.com

PRS VELA SEMI-HOLLOW £2,049

Show up to your indie gig with a PRS and you risk getting swung at by a skinny arm clutching a vintage Harmony brochure. Unless it’s the Vela. This is PRS’s anti-PRS design, except it still carries the high-level craft and build we’ve come to expect. The violin-like aesthetic is enhanced with traditional f-holes, while electronically it squeezes every last drop of tone out of the HS (DS-01 and Type D single coil) configuration, thanks to the three-way switch and coil‑splitting push-pull controls. www.prsguitars.com

NIK HUBER PIET FROM £2,676

If you want the distinctive resonance of a Jazzmaster floating bridge without the offset body shape, then, according to Nik Huber, this Mastery MV vibratoloaded Piet (an optional upgrade from the base price) “ain’t your dad’s pawn shop offset”. Mashing up features from the Jazzmaster, Telecaster and Les Paul, there’s a lot to love, including the simple but impeccably executed design, matched by the sound of the Gold Foil Häussel P-90 and Broad-N pickups. It’s a slight outlier here visually, but we can’t argue with the end result. https://nikhuber-guitars.com

SETH BACCUS ARGONAUT CLASSIC £3,999

The Argonaut looks a bit like the classic offset shape but with the corners squared off. It starts with a lightweight obeche body, the roasted maple neck comes in C or soft-V profiles, and there are three scale options: Jag-style Short (610mm/24 inches), Strat-style Standard (648mm/25.5 inches) and Baritone (728mm/28.65-inch). The choices continue with the bridge and pickups (shown here with Mojo Gold Foil Dual Coils). Our review described this model as “setting a new level for offset design” – and we stand by it. www.sethbaccus.com