PJD Guitars St. John New Standard | Is this 2023’s best new offset guitar?! Review & Demo

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This is my in-depth look at the 2023 PJD Guitars St. John New Standard: a boutique, made-in-England offset that could just be a Fender Vintera II beater!

Check out PJD Guitars here:

I’ve demoed a PJD St. John Standard before… but this is the New Standard, and it certainly sets new standards for PJD. Firstly, it’s cheaper than its predecessor – this one comes in at £1,299, and you can get a Standard Plus version with a Bigsby B50 vibrato for £1,449.

Secondly, it’s been made even more comfortable to play: it has a lightweight obeche body – which has helped make this specific guitar just 2.7 kgs, or just under 6 lbs. – a front contour, a tummy cut, and a beautifully sleek sculpted neck joint for optimum upper fret access.

Otherwise, it's standard PJD goodness: Gotoh hardtail bridge and tuners, CTS pots and a Switchcraft switch and jack socket. You also get PJD’s own pickups in this guitar: a Parkins Cream P90 in the neck, and a Wadfather Zebra Coil Humbucker in the bridge. And finally, the neck is nitro finished maple with a maple board and a bone nut, 25.5” scale length, 22 frets, and a compound 10-12” fingerboard radius.

So, when I saw this guitar at 42 Gear Street Five, I instantly persuaded the guys at PJD to loan it to me for a bit… and these are the results! In the video, I put the guitar through its paces in as many different genres and styles as I can: that means everything from country, folk and indie, to pop, rock, punk, metal and more.

Here are some links to the various playing samples and info bits:

00:00 Hello!
00:11 Introduction to the PJD Guitars St. John New Standard
01:32 Specs and info
03:30 Today’s rig and plan

Clean Sounds
04:24 Clean tone reference chords on both pickups
04:40 Poppy barre chords
04:56 Country ballad arpeggios
05:09 Country strummed chords
05:28 Ringing open indie pop chords
05:41 Funk rhythms
05:55 Soul pop riff
06:12 Blues progression
06:23 Cowboy chords/tone control test
07:18 Ascending droning indie chords

Overdriven Sounds
07:31 Kings Of Leon inspired riff
07:46 Southern rock picked arpeggios
08:05 Droning indie octave chords riff
08:15 Upbeat indie barre chords
08:39 Volume control test
09:00 Upbeat barre chords
09:06 Indie rock octaves
09:31 Choppy barre chords
09:41 Stadium filling indie pop chords
09:58 The Strokes inspired riff
10:37 Airy art rock riff
10:56 AC/DC inspired classic rock riff
11:10 Quacky rock riff
11:19 Groovy classic rock riff
11:35 Hendrix inspired classic rock riff
11:52 Airbourne inspired rock riff
12:03 Classic rock riff

Heavy overdrive sounds
12:19 Classic hard rock riff
12:36 80s rock riff
12:56 ZZ Top inspired riff
13:07 Hard rock riff
13:24 Glam rock riff
13:40 Foo Fighters inspired modern rock riff
13:58 Chunky alt rock chords
14:11 Alternative rock riff
14:25 Pop punk riff
14:38 Pop punk melodic lead riff
14:54 Green Day inspired punk rock riff
15:07 Punk rock power chords
15:20 Less Than Jake inspired punk riff
15:31 Modern pop metal riff
15:42 Progressive rock riff (Drop D tuning)
15:58 Modern rock palm-muted chords (Drop D)
16:22 Rage Against The Machine inspired groovy riff (Drop D)

Heavy Distortion sounds (all in Drop D)
16:38 Metal chugging riff
16:55 Mastodon inspired metal riff with country twang
17:08 Thrash metal riff
17:18 Heavy metal lead sound
17:33 Rammstein inspired industrial metal riff
17:46 Hardcore punk riff
17:58 Metalcore riff
18:10 Classic heavy metal/sludge riff

18:49 My thoughts and how I discovered this guitar
19:39 First impressions
20:09 Weight
20:28 Build quality and hardware
21:14 Playability and neck
22:05 Sounds and pickups discussion
23:57 What other similar guitars are out there?
26:16 My conclusions on the St. John New Standard and why you should buy it


My setup was as follows: I ran the St. John into my Hughes & Kettner Black Spirit 200 head, also using my Greer Lightspeed and my Revv G3 pedals for overdrive and heavy distortion sounds. The amp went from the Red Box DI straight into my Focusrite Scarlett 2i4, which went into Logic Pro X. That's it. No post-processing on the sounds was done.

Here’s some links to those bits of gear:

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H&K Black Spirit 200 head:
Greer Lightspeed:
Revv G3:
Focusrite 4i4 (this is the newer equivalent of my 2i4, which they don’t make any more!):
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Enjoy!

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Backing music from the YouTube Audio Library: Duck In The Alley – TrackTribe.

#PJDGuitars #PJDGuitarsStJohn #OffsetGuitars #42GSFive #FenderVintera #FenderVinteraII

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@Pjdguitars.