Build your own Muse Matt Bellamy-style guitar

In this month's issue of our sister magazine Total Guitar (TG197, on sale 29 December), they show you how to mod your guitar Matt Bellamy-style by adding key bits of his kit to your axe.

Inspired by the Manson MB-1 signature model, their Spear NSG superguitar (above) includes a Fernandes FSK-101 Sustainer System, a Bare Knuckle Nailbomb pickup, a kill switch and a Korg Kaoss Pad. Here's how it sounds:

1. Kaoss-controlled swell

Here TG ran a clean strummed guitar part (using the neck pickup in standard mode) directly through the Korg Kaoss Pad 3's effects. They used the KP3's pad to control the intensity of the swell. Finally, they blended the effect with the original clean strummed guitar part.

2. Strummed bridge pickup

This is a straightforward strummed part using the Bareknuckle bridge pickup. They kept the Kaoss-controlled swell in the mix, too.

3. Kill-switched powerchords

This is another bridge pickup example, once again performed over the original Kaoss-controlled swell. On the final E5 powerchord they flicked the kill switch with a triplet rhythm.

4. Sustain and harmonic mode

For this example TG switched the Sustainer pickup between sustain and harmonic mode. Only the very first note was picked. In fact, the entire melody was created by simply sliding along one string while the Sustainer pickup kept it ringing out.

5. Kaoss-controlled pitchshifter

This example is the same guitar part as the previous one, but this time they used the Korg Kaoss Pad 3 to control a pitchshifter effect in Native Instruments' Guitar Rig 4 via MIDI.

For a chance to win TG's Hot Rodded Spear, complete with all the mods used in the feature, click here.