SeriesLTD Baritone

This is a baritone version of the Viper 400. With this guitar you can get the deep tones of a 7 string with the familiar feel of a 6 string. Also being a 6 string it gives you more pickup and hardware options. This guitar is an LTD which is the budget line of ESP guitars. They are made outside of Japan so they are a lot cheaper than the MIJ ESP guitars even though they have much of the same specs. This guitar has the cool ESP Viper shape which is like an offset SG. The guitar has a mahogany body with a 3 pieces set neck. The neck is maple with a rosewood fretboard. The neck has a 27 inch scale as well. The rosewood fretboard has 24 jumbo frets with standard dot inlays. The pickups are a standard set of EMG's with an 81 in the bridge and an 85 in the neck. The controls are a normal set with a tone knob and a volume knob with a 3 way toggle switch. UTILIZATION The easy playing nature of this guitar means you will forget its neck is 2 inches longer than normal. If you want to get into super low tunings but dont like the feel of 7 strings this guitar is for you. The thin flat neck means you can really play efforlessly on this guitar. The super smooth, bound, thin U-shaped, 3 Piece maple set neck with rosewood fingerboard on a mahogany sculpted body, provides good resonance and incredible sustain which is what you want on a guitar like this. This guitar has an Earvana compensated nut as well which helps improve intonation all the way up the neck which is even more important on a long scale guitar like this where any misses in intonation will be amplified. The Grover tuners and simple tune-o-matic bridge provide rock solid tuning stability as well. SOUNDS This guitar is a great alternative to a 7 string for many reasons. You get a lot of the tone of a 7 string with a guitar that does not feel much different. Since it is a 6 string you can use normal 6 string pickups which give you a ton more options. If this guitar was a 7 string it would have a set of EMG 7 string pickups which come in a unique size. This unique size means you cannot swap them out which any other pickups if you do not like them. With this guitar if you do not like the pickups you can swap them out with any other 6 string pickups, but there is no reason you would want to since these pickups are great. The EMG's on this guitar suit the tone and use of this guitar perfectly. With an extended scale guitar like this you need active pickups to keep the clarity with the low tunings. The 81 has a great high end crunchy tone which works well with low tunings. its natural brightness keeps the tone from becoming muddy with the low tunings. The 85 in the neck is slightly smoother than the 81 so it has great lead tones with nice high end but it is not harsh in hits high end sound. For an even better tone you can do the 18v mod which means you run the pickups on two batteries instead of one. This provides you with a more organic tone that still retains the clarity the active preamp provides. OVERALL OPINION If you are not sure you can like the feel of a 7 string but still want to rock the low requencies a guitar like this is a great choice. Baritones are becoming more and more popular for metal and amongst people who are stuck in their 6 string habits. With a baritone you get all the low end tone of a 7 string but you can still use all your 6 string hardware and electronics on it which is a huge plus. If you are looking for a nice metal baritone guitar that comes with great pickups right out of the box ESP has good options for you.