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mooseherman « Decent guitar for the novice metalhead »
Published on 05/19/11 at 12:25This is a guitar made by ESP, one of their LTD Models, which is basically a cheaper version of their regular guitars. These guitars are made in Indonesia and Korea, and as such are generally not of the same quality as American Made instruments. They are essentially better made for beginners. It has an agathis body, a maple neck with a rosewood fretboard, and two half-decent humbucking pickups which are made by ESP. The bridge is a tune-o-matic.
UTILIZATION
This guitar isn't the best playing one I've tried, but for a beginner guitar suited for metal, it's not bad. It has big frets and the neck will allow a player to get some cool riffs happening. If single-note machine-gun style riffs are your forte, this will be a good fit for you. Don't expect to be able to cross genres, though, as this guitar doesn't really allow you to do that. It doesn't make it easy to play barre or even jazz chords. Solos are easy to play as long as they are of the rip-roaring variety.
SOUNDS
This guitar should really, only be played with a heavy distortion setting. The humbuckers don't really have much ambiance when played clean at all. But when rocking an insanely heavy distortion or fuzz, this guitar shines, as it has a low-noise signal that can really rock hard. The low end especially cuts through nicely. This really, as I've repeatedly stated, is only good for metal. I can't imagine any other type of player really enjoying this type of guitar. Even among ESPs, this one doesn't really sound that great, but for the price I think you get just about what you'd expect. I think if you bought this and replaced the pickups, you'd have a really nice-sounding guitar on your hands, if not a great-playing one.
OVERALL OPINION
Overall, this guitar is a nice metal beginner's guitar but nothing special. If you are a metal player looking for some serious quality, ESP offers much nicer models that are quite impressive even to somebody like myself who admittedly isn't the world's biggest metal fan. But if you want something just to play along to your favorite Slayer records with, and don't have many ambitions beyond that, then I think this could work nicely for you.
UTILIZATION
This guitar isn't the best playing one I've tried, but for a beginner guitar suited for metal, it's not bad. It has big frets and the neck will allow a player to get some cool riffs happening. If single-note machine-gun style riffs are your forte, this will be a good fit for you. Don't expect to be able to cross genres, though, as this guitar doesn't really allow you to do that. It doesn't make it easy to play barre or even jazz chords. Solos are easy to play as long as they are of the rip-roaring variety.
SOUNDS
This guitar should really, only be played with a heavy distortion setting. The humbuckers don't really have much ambiance when played clean at all. But when rocking an insanely heavy distortion or fuzz, this guitar shines, as it has a low-noise signal that can really rock hard. The low end especially cuts through nicely. This really, as I've repeatedly stated, is only good for metal. I can't imagine any other type of player really enjoying this type of guitar. Even among ESPs, this one doesn't really sound that great, but for the price I think you get just about what you'd expect. I think if you bought this and replaced the pickups, you'd have a really nice-sounding guitar on your hands, if not a great-playing one.
OVERALL OPINION
Overall, this guitar is a nice metal beginner's guitar but nothing special. If you are a metal player looking for some serious quality, ESP offers much nicer models that are quite impressive even to somebody like myself who admittedly isn't the world's biggest metal fan. But if you want something just to play along to your favorite Slayer records with, and don't have many ambitions beyond that, then I think this could work nicely for you.