“The whole guitar feels very alive in your hands. There’s punch and power, with a grainy detail to the big voice”: PJD Guitars St John Apprentice review

There’s no shortage of great-quality UK-made guitars, but for under a grand, PJD’s new Apprentice model is leading the charge in terms of quality and cost

PJD guitars St John Apprentice
(Image: © Future / Phil Barker)

Guitar World Verdict

These will be limited, only available direct from PJD, and on this evidence if you’ve got any kind of rock ’n’ roll heart then we’d strongly suggest you place your order. An antidote for the complex modern world, it certainly reminds us why we got into this whole lark in the first place. Superb stuff.

Pros

  • +

    Superb pared-down, high-level craft.

  • +

    Quality hardware.

  • +

    Light weight.

  • +

    Mainstream neck profile.

  • +

    First-class playability.

  • +

    Hot-vintage single humbucker.

Cons

  • -

    Junior fans might miss a tone control and that old-style circuit.

You can trust Guitar World Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing guitar products so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test.

Whatever the reasons, we could suggest there’s a bit of a trend emerging: the stripped-down, high-quality electric guitar that’s far from hard on your income. It was the theme of our last cover story and, working on that, we got wind of a new entry, PJD’s new Apprentice.

We say ‘new’ because the brand released some small runs of single-soapbar-pickup models back in 2022, with lightly reliced gloss nitro finishes, which were the first to introduce the gold decal logos now standard for all its models.

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