I remember when this guitar came out Dave said it was like his weapon for going into battle or something. This guitar sure is something with its strange shape. It didnt last long because not long after Dave was off to Dean guitars. This guitar was made to celebrate Megadeths 20th anniversary. The guitar has a mahogany body with a mahogany neck and a neck through design. The fretboard is rosewood with X X inlays. It has 24 jumbo frets on its rosewood fretboard. It has a set of Seymour Duncan pickups with a Jazz in the neck and a JB in the bridge. It has locking tuners and a locking bridge like most good ESP guitars. It also has straplocks. The controls are 2 volume and 1 tone control with a 3 way switch. UTILIZATION Sometimes the craziest looking guitars have the best balance. The balance on this guitar is pretty good. One thing I do not like is the control placement. With the top horn and lower horn the controls end up being like a mile apart. I would have placed the pickup selector down by the rest of the controls. The locking tuners keep you in tune and the locking bridge prevents the bridge from falling out during string changes and messing up your intonation. Straplocks are nice and flush mounted straplocks are even better on a guitar like this where the strap is on the back of the guitar. With flush mounted straplocks you dont have the locking mechanism poking you while you play. SOUNDS This guitar came out before Dave Mustaines signature active pickups came out. This is the set Dave used for many years before getting his own pickups. This is probably the 2nd most popular set of Seymour Duncan pickups. The JB and the Jazz is a good set if you are playing heavier music. The JB is a great bridge pickup when combined with the right wood guitar. In a mahogany guitar like this it is perfect. The low end is tight but not djent tight. It has a nice about of sag to it. It has good midrange and high end to it. It cuts really well and does not get muddy. The Jazz in the neck is clear and tight. The Jazz is like a more modern sounding 59 pickup. It is as smooth as the 59 but it has a bit more top end so it so it does not get as muddy as the 59 when you are playing with high gain. OVERALL OPINION I do not think these ugitars sold very well. The shape is just too unusual. This is one of the problems with signature guitars. Sometimes the artists wants something so unique there is really no point in selling it to the public. Only die hard Mustaine fans are going to be interested in a guitar like this. Other than the shape it is a pretty typical guitar with a mahogany body and Seymour Duncan pickups. That stuff makes it good but there are other good guitars out there with that hardware that dont come in a super crazy shape like this.
This is one of the few variants ESP got to make of Dave Mustaines signature guitar before he left to go to Dean. A lot of people were switching guitar makers back then. Mustaine went from Jackson to ESP to Dean all in a couple years. It seems now that he is sticking with Dean. I liked his ESP models better than the current Dean models. The Dean models are just copies of these with some strange cutaways on them. This guitar is basically a Jackson King V with an ESP tag on it. It has a mahogany body with a neck through mahogany neck. The neck has an ebony fretboard with 24 jumbo frets. It has dot inlays apart from the large 8 ball inlay on the first fret. The later ESP signature models and the current Dean models feature Daves Signature Livewire Seymour Duncan pickups but this is an early model with a set of passive Duncans in it. It has a JB in the bridge and a Jazz in the neck which is a classic combination. The pickups are controlled by a set of volume controls with a master tone and a 3 way switch. It has locking tuners up top and a locking bridge at the bottom. The SE stands for special edition and it has a cool finish. Its like a sunburst mixed with a quilt top its pretty cool. UTILIZATION These guitars play pretty well. They have a old school sort of Jackson Charvel neck shape to them which is cool. The V design lends it self to pretty decent upper fret access. Even with the wide body on this guitar you can get at the upper frets pretty well. The ebony fretboard with jumbo frets is great and lets you get a really easy action. This helps since the guitar has a Gibson scale lenght neck so the upper frets can get a bit crowded. SOUNDS The pickups in this set give this guitar ultimate versatility. The guitar really has a Gibson like tone with the shorter scale and the classic Duncan pickups. The Jazz in the neck is like a slightly brighter Duncan 59. The 59 is a classic neck pickup with a super smooth open sound. The Jazz just adds a little high end to that sound for a little more clarity for fast solos. The JB in the bridge is a real rock and roll pickup. It can do just about anything. It has a tight low and but a pretty smooth top end. You can do chugging riffs to classic rock with this pickup and it wont miss a beat. I have never played Daves Livewire pickup set. It is one of the early active Duncan sets and no one made a big deal about them back in the day. If they are anything like the Duncan Blackouts they will sound similar to EMG's but with a ton more low end. OVERALL OPINION Being the Special Edition version of the Mustaine signature you get more cool points for having one of these. This is up there with the old custom shop Jackson King V's in terms of quality. You get great tone from the Duncans and great playability from the ESP build and setup. When Dave left for Dean ESP took his name off these guitars and just made it a normal model. This shows how good the model was and how popular it was. If you are looking for a nice ESP V and the normal version isnt bling bling enough for you the Special Edition has the special finish which im sure some people think make the guitar sound better.
A few years ago it seemed like all the famous Jackson players seemed to jump ship and go to ESP guitars. I guess they didnt like the fact that Fender had purchased Jackson. This is Daves first ESP signature guitar. It is pretty much an ESP copy of his old Jackson King V. It features a mahogany body in the familiar shape. It has neck through construction that features a 3 piece mahogany neck. The neck has an ebony fretboard with 24 jumbo frets. The neck and headstock are fully bound. The inlays are dot inlays but on the first fret there is a large 8 ball inlay. Early versions came with passive Seymour Duncans but later ones came with Seymour Duncan Dave Mustaing Signature Livewires. This model I am testing is an earlier one. This model has JB and Jazz pickups installed. The controls are two volume controls and 1 tone control. Up top it has Sperzel locking tuners and a tonepros locking bridge. UTILIZATION These guitars have Daves custom neck profile which feels a lot different than most ESP's. I guess coming from Jackson he liked those necks and wanted that on his ESP's. It feels like an old Jackson Charvel which is kinda cool. V's tend to have good upper fret access but this guitar has such a broad shape the upper frets are pretty deep into the body. It does not get in the way much. These guitars also have a Gibson neck scale so the upper frets can get a bit crowded. The locking tuners and locking bridge are great. Even non tremolo guitars should come with locking tuners. The locking bridge on the tune-o-matic is great as well because it keeps your bridge from falling off when you are changing strings. SOUNDS With the mahogany body and 24.75 scale this guitar has a very Gibson like tone, and the classic Seymour Duncan set helps amplify this. The Jazz in the neck is a great all around neck pickup for modern neck pickup use. It is like the 59 but with a bit more bite and highend. The 59 is so smooth it can get muddy at times but the Jazz is almost as smooth as the 59 but with more high end to give you more clarity on your shredding leads. The JB in the bridge is like a hot rodded PAf pickup. It is way hotter than an old paf but it retains the openness and tight low end that you want in a bridge pickup. The JB can do anything from classic rock to metal. It is one of the best designs Seymour Duncan has ever put out. I do not know much about the Livewire pickups some later models have. If they are similar to the Duncan Blackouts their other active pickups they will have a ton of low and with a high end grind to them. OVERALL OPINION This guitar is a pretty good alternative to a Jackson King V. It is a good signature guitar because it doesnt have Daves name all over the place. It is pretty subtle which is pretty nice when it comes to a signature guitar. I think when Dave left ESP they just made it a normal model which is good because it is a great simple guitar. If you are looking for a Flying V shaped guitar with great ESP quality and Duncan pickups. This is your one stop shopping.
