LTD HEX-7 Nergal

Nergal is the frontman for the popular blackened death metal band Behemoth. He has a signature ESP 7 string guitar and this is the LTD version of that guitar. LTD is ESP's budget line. The guitars offer much of the same specs but are built outside of Japan so usually cost about half the price of the Japanese ones. The guitar has a mahogany body with a neck through construction. The neck is maple with an ebony fretboard. The fretboard has no inlays apart from a gothic eagle inlay on the 12th fret. There are 24 jumbo frets on the fretboard. The neck is nice and thin and up top there are locking tuners. There is a locking bridge down at the bottom. The pickups are a set of 7 string EMG pickups. There is an EMG 81-7 in the bridge and a 707 in the neck. The guitar is black with a subtle eagle graphic on it. The controls are basic with a master volume and a 3 way.

UTILIZATION

This guitar does not feel like it is a 7 string. It has a nice feel to it. The neck through construction means that there is no heel to get in the way and you have easy access all the way up the fretboard. The ebony freboard is super smooth and feels good under your fingers. The jumbo frets mean you can really bend as much as you want without fretting out. The locking tuners and locking bridge are something every guitar should have. The locking tuners keep you in tune no matter what and the locking bridge keeps your bridge from falling out when you are changing strings. This guitar has EMG pickups that require a battery so ESP provides a battery compartment so you can easily change out the battery without having to take the guitar apart.

SOUNDS

This guitar has a nice sharp tone. Because it is neck through with a maple neck you get more of a maple tone than a mahogany tone. With the shape of this guitar being a V there is almost as much maple on the guitar as there is mahogany and being neck through everything is mounted on the maple. This sharp bright maple tone means you have great clarity in the lower registers which is what you want. This is helped out with the active EMG pickups. The 81-7 in the bridge is just like what its name implies. It is a 7 string version of the classic 81 pickup. It has a razor sharp tone with a good high end grind that keeps your riffs super sharp and clear. The 707 is not as obvious with its name but it is pretty much an 85 in the form of a 7 string. It has a smoother sound than the 81-7 but it is still super clear. Its smoother sounds are great for high gain leads in the neck position and it is also pretty decent for clean tones. If you want even more clean tones you can do the 18v mod and run the pickups on two batteries instead of one. This gives you more headroom and makes the tone more organic overall.

OVERALL OPINION

This is a good signature model. The signature aspects of the guitar are no so obvious that everyone knows you are playing someone elses guitar. The guitar is also a solid guitar on its own. It doesnt take a genius to make a guitar like this. If you are looking for a radical V shaped 7 string here it is. It has someone elses name on it but it is not super blatant and gaudy. This is a good solid guitar that can be enjoyed by anyone who likes a good 7 string.