Misha Mansoor and Jackson have unveiled the latest evolution of his Juggernaut signature guitar series and the Periphery riffer-in-chief has taken the concept to its logical conclusion with an 8-string monster equipped with an EverTune bridge.
A limited edition drop, the Pro Plus Series Misha Mansoor Juggernaut ET8 arrives in a Nardo Gray finish, and makes history in being the first Jackson 8-string to be equipped with an Evertune, the bridge that does not go out of tune.
Mansoor has teased that something like this might be in the offing. For some time now, he has played a Custom Shop 8-string electric guitar with an Evertune. Speaking to MusicRadar this time last year, he explained the thinking behind it.
“Oh! We are not supposed to know about that or talk about that!” he said. “No comment! [Laughs] That was the only thing I didn’t have, an EverTune eight-string. It’s just a very useful tool to have. I have a Custom Shop one that I use live. It allows me to dig into the guitar a bit more... It does allow me to have a little more fun onstage.”
It also allows Mansoor to get really bang-on intonation and tuning in the studio, and when playing in a band with three guitarists, that matters.
“It is [about] picking the right guitar for the part,” he explained. “If you feel like it’s more important for that part to be really in tune, we can reach for the EverTune. If the tuning stability doesn’t matter quite as much and we want the tone, we go for the regular bridge in the studio. Sometimes we do both and A/B them to see if one sounds better than the other.”
The 8-string Juggernaut might take you way down into those lower registers but it is still recognisably a Juggernaut. It has the same aerodynamic silhouette, with a 4x4 arrowhead headstock. It has a 27” scale, a solid poplar body and bolt-on caramelised maple neck. Mansoor likes his fingerboards flat. This ebony fingerboard as a 20” radius, and seats 24 stainless steel frets.
We’ve got all the Pro Plus pro touches such as the rolled edges on the fingerboard, the oiled finish on the neck and the Luminlay side dot markers, plus the heel-mounted truss rod adjustment wheel for making set-up changes on the fly. Mansoor says it has been a long time coming.
“I’m so excited to finally have an eight-string signature model, and it’s a special one, too,” he says. “We have been working on the design for a while now, and I think the Evertune was the final piece of the puzzle. Periphery uses eight strings quite a bit, and both live and in the studio, the Evertune has made it so I can focus more on my performance and tone and let the bridge handle the tuning stability.”
You also have a lot of onboard tone-shaping capabilities. As per previous Juggernauts, we have a pair of Mansoor’s signature Jackson humbuckers, both left uncovered, and here they are hooked up to a five-position blade selector switch, volume and tone, with a push/pull on the tone pot for alternate voicings.
The Juggernaut ET8 ships with Jackson-branded locking tuners and Dunlop dual-locking buttons so your guitar strap won’t let it fall and hit the ground, and it is available now, priced £1,699/$1,899.
For more details, head over to Jackson.
