ok wired it up tonight, still havnt finished cutting the nut properly and playing with the steup but it was close enough for me to tune it up and give it a quick play .... and quite shockingly, i could play it quite well.. well for me anyway!!
That was always going to be my benchmark to see if fanned frets was a good thing - if i could adjust to it anyone can. I spent a minute looking at the fretboard finding my way around and the next minute i was knocking out all the obvious riffs and chord sequences i always do with no real adjustment needed - infact i would go so far as saying certain things were sounding better, barre chords high up the neck were distinctly easier than i have ever found them before!!
going to play with the set-up and final details over the next few days but initial impressions are very promising!!
oh, i love the manhattan already! its so clear sounding. The overall tone so far is quite airy and resonant which comes from the large quantity of redwood i think. It certainly doesnt sound like a les paul but i havnt pinned down what it does sound like yet - it will probably be clearer to me once i have the set up perfect and the tuning is better
One thing i did notice is that the strings do not pull the others out of tune at all when tuning up - must be the individual bridges because even on normal fixed bridge guitars they tend to influence each other a bit
