MJ Guitar Engineering Mirage Rally

I bought my used Mirage Rally from the MJ website (www.mjguitar.com). They have a great trade-in/trade-up program that the first owner had taken advantage of. His loss was my gain. The guitar features a maple top over chambered alder body. The guitar is red lacquered with scraped binding revealing the nicely figured top wood. The neck is beautiful birdseye maple with an ebony fretboard. Headstock is the standard Mirage "tuning fork" style with carbon fiber overlay and locking Gotoh tuners. Tailpiece is a Wilkinson trem. Pickups are Duncan Alnico IIs mounted in an unusual center-mounted "pickguard" that is actually just a mounting plate for the PUs that doesn't extend to give actual pick-scratch protection. A five-position blade switch allows for selection of each individual PU or, as best as I can determine, out of phase combinations of the ctr/bridge and ctr/neck PUs. Fit and finish is all but flawless. The guitar weighs about 7lbs.

My style ranges from dark grungy rock to T-Rexish boogie to jangly neo-Wave. I use this guitar primarily for clean and slightly crunched bluesy sounds, and it excels at either. The Alnico IIs are not powerful enough to provide good high-gain scream, but that's not what I wanted this guitar for. Think of it more as a sort of superstrat with far better tone. The out of phase settings are particularly useful, and all settings are brilliantly articulate. The chambered body is resonant and provides rich overtones.

I currently am playing through an SMF 15-Watter, which is a great little 2-channel Class-A combo amplifier. It seems to make the most of the brilliant articulation of this guitar, producing chime-like tones on the clean settings, yet maintaining clarity even when the gain is cranked up. I also am using a THD Univalve through a 1x12 Bogner closed-back cabinet, but have only scratched the surface of the tonal possibilities of that set-up. I was able to get some great surf and '60s tones checking it out through a Fender VibroVerb with its 15" speaker. There may be one of those in my future as well.

The folks at MJ set the guitar up prior to sending it out, and it arrived perfectly intonated. The action is as good as any guitar I've ever played. There are no noticeable dead spots on the neck and no fret buzzes. The tremelo is perfectly balanced, meaning that you can wail away on it without having to worry about retuning. The thing holds its tune as well as locked nut systems despite the fact that it uses an open composite nut. This is probably due to the straight pull tuner configuration and the locking Gotohs. There was no excess glue at any of the joints and the painted finish was pretty much flawless. The shop warned me that there had been slight "finish shrinkage", but all that I could notice is that in a few places the paint seemed to have conformed to the underlying wood to the extent that the grain pattern was slightly visible. I don't see that as a flaw in any way, as it is quite aesthetically pleasing. There was no cracking or checking of the finish whatsoever.

This guitar is rock-solid and uses top-notch hardware. The construction is such that, despite the light weight (due to tone chambering), it has a solid feel as though the entire thing was forged from a single piece of material. Not only is it solid and dead reliable, I don't even worry about breaking strings, this again being most likely a function of the straight-pull setup.

I have required no support, but I did buy another Mirage from MJ, and I find their staff to be extremely helpful and responsive. The company has that small, family operation feel to it (in all the right ways and none of the wrong ones).

I've been playing for **ahem** decades, and I've owned and played everything from Gibsons to Gretches to Fenders to oddballs like Travis Beans, and this is as nice a guitar as I've laid my hands on. Mark Johnson runs a top-rate operation. I'd say that the fit, finish, and playability of his instruments stacks up against any of the best custom and semi-custom builders out there. I'd take a Mirage over any PRS I've ever played. I'd say that they are also on par with, if not a cut above, Anderson and the best offering from the custom shops of the big names. I'd say that the overall quality is up there with the likes of MnNaught, but for a lot less money.

The one thing that may be off-putting for some folks is the unique body shape, which is a sort of modified Strat shape with a deeply contoured top featuring sharp ridges in the centers of the cutaways after the fashion of the Warrior instruments. I personally find it to be a tasteful and unique design, but traditionalists may balk at the unfamiliar contours.

As I mentioned, I was so impressed with this used instrument that I went back and paid about twice as much for another new one. I'll probably add another one or two before all is said and done unless I can find someone else whose products are a better value. That may not happen.

Very unique guitar. See it at http://www.mjguitar.com/ This guitar list at right around $3000.00. MJ guitars are custom hand built by Mark Johnson himself. Play by known players such as Collective Soul's Ed Roland, Third Eye Blind's Kevin Cadogan etc.... This is the Mirage Rally version. Hand built in Northern California. Mine is a 1998 model. Semi hollow body (light weight), Poplar body, Hand carved maple top, Beautiful maple flamy neck, Rosewood finger board, Wilkinson tremolo, very unique headstock build with Gotoh tuners. Tele pickup in the neck and middle positions. Humbucker in the bridge position. One tone knob/one volume with 5 way selector switch.

Dreamy. When you find a guitar this custom you usually get what you pay for, with the Mirage this is true. Very impressive sound. Since the guitar is semi hollow the sound resonates wonderfully. I play anything from James Taylor to Collective Soul to Sheryl Crow to Creed. Very versatile guitar. Very rich, very full. Worth the expensive price tag. I use a Mesa Trem-o-verb and occasionally use some varieties of Boss and Danelectro pedals. Very dark and full sounding guitar.

The finish is the most unique and flashy I have ever seen on a guitar. It is the gold rainbow sparkle. When lights hit this thing its like nothing you can imagine. Awesome! Wood binding graces the edge of this guitar which is a nice touch. Very tight construction. Nice construction. Feels very solid. The only problem I have with the guitar is that changing strings are a pain. Unless I'm an idiot and can't figure it out, you have to take the back plate off to change them. Seems goofy to me. They should have just put the standard hole in the back plate to make this accessible. Otherwise, beautiful guitar with a very impressive design, tone and build. I'd give it a 10 if it wasn't for the string changing problem.

Obviously it will withstand live playing since so many big people are starting to use these guitars. The hardware and materials used seem top notch. Very smooth and impressive finish. Comes with locking strap locks which is very clever. Any guitar that is 3 grand should come with strap locks. Would someone please tell that to Paul Reed Smith. My Paul Reed needs strap locks but I don't want to screw around with a guitar that expensive. Anyway, I would gig without a back up with this guitar.

AWESOME. This is a small company. If you call they are the nicest people. You could probably get Mark on the phone in a matter of a minute. Every time I've dealt with them or needed info. they are very helpful and are truly interested in what I have to say. The best.

This guitar is really a dream come true. I have always wanted an MJ but I just never had $3000 to do it with. One thing I can say is if you do have the money look at these guitars, they are worth it. I got lucky, VERY lucky. The guy that sold it to me won it in a contest and was selling it to buy computer equipment. He didn't know about the value of this guitar(resale)or didn't care. He didn't know how to play. Compared to my PRS this guitar is more modern, more unique and just as sound superior. If something happened to it I would be out of luck because I know I'll never find another one used and I don't have 3,000 dollars.