\u201cI would say that on every album Muse has made since this guitar was built it has been featured on about 50 per cent of every song we\u2019ve ever recorded,\u201d Bellamy explained to Manson MD Adrian Ashton. \u201cIt\u2019s the number one, most go-to recording guitar for me. I did use it on stage a lot as well, and it took a bit of a beating! And I won\u2019t say it was the only one, but it was pretty much the only one that was always getting recorded consistently on Muse albums.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Manson-Matthew-Bellamy-Signature-Black-Edition-007-1-credit-Adam-Gasson@1400x1050.jpg\")
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The 007, also known as \u201cBlack Ed\u201d, is perhaps Bellamy\u2019s most iconic and famous instrument, seen and heard across Muse\u2019s most notable releases. Image: Adam Gasson for Guitar.com<\/p>\n
Plug In, Baby<\/p>\n
Back in the early 2000s, Bellamy came to Manson founder Hugh Manson with a plan. He\u2019d already been getting Hugh Manson to install various pedal<\/a> circuits into the T-style guitars Bellamy had been using, enabling him to tweak his sound on the fly without having to mess with a pedalboard. But now he wanted to squeeze the much more involved gubbins of a DigiTech<\/a> Whammy<\/a> pedal into one of the customised T-type guitars Bellamy had been using in Muse.<\/p>\n Rather than load the guitar with a bunch of heavy electronics and batteries, Manson suggested that a more elegant solution would be to: install a touch-sensitive strip that could control the pedal via MIDI, and achieve the same results. The idea spurred Matt Bellamy to take the idea further \u2013 just how much could you squeeze into one conventionally-proportioned instrument? A lot, it transpires.<\/p>\n The finished guitar ended up with a Fernandez<\/a> Sustainer pickup to offer crazy infinitely sustaining notes, a killswitch for stuttering effects<\/a>, a Z.Vex<\/a> Fuzz Factory for distortion<\/a> and perhaps most uniquely of all, a Z.Vex Wah Probe. The Wah Probe is a bizarre, unique creation that uses a theremin-like copper plate to alter the sound of the effect depending on where your finger sits. Naturally, Manson built the plate into the guitar\u2019s pickguard with a specific purpose.<\/p>\n \u201cWhenever we went to Japan, we used to always go and buy weird pedals, basically,\u201d Bellamy recalls. \u201cThat was just a thing that we did. A lot of [bassist Chris Wolstenholme]\u2019s synth pedals come from Japan. There were certain shops we used to know in Tokyo, and they had all the best collections and stuff. And I remember seeing a Z-Vex Wah Probe over there for the first time. I bought one and played it and said, \u2018Let\u2019s do this!\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cThe idea behind it was to try to get this theremin vibe going \u2013 with a sustainer holding the note, but just trying to get the note to have some movement.\u201d<\/p>\n And as if that wasn\u2019t enough, the fretboard also lights up with LEDs, kicking off Muse\u2019s longstanding practice of making their instruments just as part of the visual spectacle of a show as everything else.<\/p>\n 1 \/ 11<\/p>\n The guitar\u2019s controls have seen a lot of use over the years. Image: Adam Gasson for Guitar.com<\/p>\n Back In Black<\/p>\n Fitting it wasn\u2019t a problem, said Hugh, but the resulting guitar would weigh a huge amount purely because of the number of batteries you\u2019d have to squeeze in there to run the tech. The resulting guitar sported a touch-sensitive MIDI control strip above the pickups to control said Whammy, but Matt wasn\u2019t done there. Manson had already been building various other pedals into Matt\u2019s guitars, and with 007 he kicked it into high gear. The guitar features internal circuitry and controls for a Z.Vex Wah Probe (the theremin-like control plate takes the place of a scratchplate on the bottom horn), a Z.Vex Fuzz Factory, and an MXR<\/a> Phase 90<\/a>, as well as the addition of a Fernandes Sustainer pickup above the Seymour Duncan<\/a> hot P-90 neck pickup. Oh, and the fretboard also lights up with LEDs, kicking off Muse\u2019s longstanding practice of making their instruments just as part of the visual spectacle of a show as everything else.<\/p>\n Bellamy first began using this unique and remarkable instrument Black Ed in 2001, and it quickly became his go-to guitar. As you can see from Guitar.com\u2019s photos, the guitar had taken some serious punishment over its time as a stage instrument, and around 2011 Matt decided to retire it from the stage for practical reasons. \u201cIt has a very specific tone, but it was a bit heavy for me on stage,\u201d he reveals. \u201cSome of my latest guitars, I\u2019ve had them made deliberately from lighter woods, sometimes with hollowed-out bodies to be extra light. And that\u2019s one of the reasons why I stopped touring with it so much: because it was heavy. But it had the best tone of all the guitars.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Manson-Matthew-Bellamy-Signature-Black-Edition-007-9-credit-Adam-Gasson@1400x1050.jpg\")
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A better solution, Hugh suggested, would be to install a MIDI controller in the guitar. MIDI is the standardised means of digital communication for music technology, and Hugh reasoned that Matt could use it to control an outboard Whammy just as effectively.<\/p>\n