The .:: SINGLECOIL Guitars ::. version of an ultra flexible Esquire style guitar in the magical colors of the Mnajdra (Maltese, spoken”Imnajdra”)  temples on the Maltese Islands – white like the sand, black as the stone and blue like the sea. The main goal was to create an easy playable guitar that looks as minimized as possible, but with a maximum of tonal flexibility. We ended up with the challenge to get as many different sounds as possible out of a single bridge pickup and it´s one of our most ordered guitars today. From country twang to jazz comping you can virtually cover any style with this guitar thanks to it´s complex and ultra flexible electronics, it´s the “one fits all” guitar in our production line.

If you want to find out more about the concept behind this guitar and its wiring, please read my column about it on Premier Guitar here and here.

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Here are the main specs of the Mnajdra guitar:

body:
– two piece alder or ash body, highly figured
– locally harvested, selected thermo-treated tone wood
– opaque, super-hard and ultrathin satin finish
– highly contoured for maximum playing comfort
– string through body design
– no finish at the contact points in the neck pocket
– super-tight fit neck pocket

neck:
– maple neck with double truss rod, highly figured with plum fingerboard
– locally harvested, selected thermo-treated tone wood
– 12″ radius
– 21 frets (Dunlop 6140) hardened and high polished
– three-dimensional headstock, body matching color
– vintage amber finished
– truss rod accessible from the headstock
– vintage white dots on the fretboard and side dots
– hand shaped bone nut
– Kluson 6L vintage tuners
– two roller string trees
– no finish at the contact points at the heel
– 10´s nickel plated TWANGTONE strings

hardware:
– Kluson 6L vintage tuner
– hand shaped bone nut
– two roller string trees
– four-hole metal neck plate
– string though body ferrules
– two locking-ready strap pins
– rectangular metal output jack plate
– hand shaped celluloid pickguard
– metal bridge with six individual saddles
– metal control plate
– Gallalith knobs

electronics:
– custom made DiMarzio humbucker
– mil.grade pots with 60:40 audio taper
– treble loss free master volume control
– mil.grade 3-way pickup selector switch
– mil.grade 3-way toggle switch
– mil.grade, extra strong output jack
– mil.spec silver-/teflon wire for maximum transparency
– selected NOS tone caps
– shielded wire for all output connections

wiring:
The mil.grade 3-way toggle switch provides tri-sound switching of the humbucker with both coils in series (= normal humbucker mode), both coils in parallel (= single coil like tone but hum-free) and one coil shunted to ground (= real single coil mode, not hum-free). The mil.grade 3-way pickup selector switch is wired as a kind of preset switch, providing three different basic tones: the pickup is routed directly to the output jack (as a kind of true-bypass mode) with the volume and tone control bypassed / the pickup is routed though the volume and tone control / the pickup is routed through the volume control, the tone control is bypassed and a capacitor is engaged for a kind of cocked Wah-tone with a vocal quality. All this options together with the treble loss free volume control and the very effective and even tone control will provide a galore of different possible tones out of only one single pickup.