ESP Original Horizon-III

The Horizon three guitars from ESP guitar company are primarily manufactured and marketed for the Japanese markets. You don't see these guitars in any other market very much. They're very cool guitars and they're really a fun and exciting looking as well. It's basically a super strat guitar but it has a few minor features and tweaks to make it its own unique thing. It has a cutaway horn on the bottom of the body which allows for easy soloing up in the higher frets. You also get a master volume coil split switch on the master volume control knob. It comes with a standard Seymour Duncan pick ups as well as a neck through body. So this guitar sustaines very well even know it has a Floyd Rose attached to the body. Generally Floyd rose bridges will not sustain as much as a bridge that is not a tremolo system. But since this is the neck through body you're getting get that added sustained back.

UTILIZATION

BODY Alder
NECK Hard Maple 3P
GRIP SHAPE Thin U
FINGERBOARD Ebony , 24frets w/White Binding
RADIUS 305R
SCALE 25.5 inch (648mm)
NUT (width) Lock Nut (42mm/R2)
FRET #213
INLAY Pearoid Offset Block
JOINT Neck-thru-body
TUNER GOTOH SG360-07
BRIDGE Floyd Rose
PICKUPS (Neck) Seymour Duncan SH-2n
(Bridge) Seymour Duncan TB-4
PARTS COLOR Black Nickel
CONTROL Master Volume(w/ Coil Split SW)
Master Tone
Mini Toggle PU Selector
PRICE Black, Deep Candy Apple Red
367,500yen (Include TAX)
Pearl White Gold
399,000yen (Include TAX)
SET STRING GS-USA XL (.009-.042)
Hard Case

SOUNDS


The tone of this guitar is very exciting because it features alder wood and a hard maple neck. This is a great combination would that allows a nice solid mid range and good low in tone. With a Seymour Duncan pick ups already installed this is a great gigging and recording guitar for any professional musician. These are great sounding guitars and pretty much anything you put them in that they really excel in the high gain territories. So if you have a nice high gain amplifier such as in Marshal or Mesa boogie amplifier than it's really good to bring out the nice harmonics within that amp.


OVERALL OPINION

These guitars are hard to come by in the Europe and US markets so you will have to buy it online in the Japanese online retailers. So I suggest trying out some of the guitar online retailers that are over in Japan if you want on this guitar. Overall they're a great guitar and a great sounding instrument and vary fun to play.

This is the crazier version of the Horizon that ESP mainly keeps for the overseas market. You don't see these often in the states for some reason. The first thing I should mention is that I'm not a super huge fan of this shape when compared to the normal Horizon. That's why this category is slightly down compared to my other Horizon reviews. The guitar features alder wings with a figured maple top, maple neck-thru construction with an ebony fretboard, 24 extra jumbo frets, side square inlays with a 12th fret name inlay, a hard tail bridge, two humbuckers, one volume, one tone and a three way switch.

UTILIZATION

This is as good as any other ESP Standard Series that I've played. The fretwork is out of this world in terms of how low you can get the action without any serious fretting out. I was able to get some sick action, and even big bends weren't fretting out. The inlay work is very nice with very minimal fillers. The binding is also very nice. The figured maple top on this really pops when compared to other guitars, and I really like that. I'm not a huge fan of hard tail bridges, but I believe they offer this with a floyd rose, too.

SOUNDS

The guitar had a JB and 59 combo installed in it. The JB in the bridge is great for pretty much anything you can think of. I was switching between blues and death metal just by channel switching the amp. The JB is really a great all around pickup. However, it was a touch bright in the treble on this guitar. The 59 in the neck is awesome for those warm leads. It has just enough cut to maintain its presence, but it also has a nice low end to allow you to get that fat, warm tone that I always strive to get.

OVERALL OPINION

These can be very hard to find if you live in the US. They're very rare for whatever reason. A lot of people really like this shape, but I actually prefer the normal Horizon shape. Both are great guitars, and both sound great. If you like this body shape, jump on one of these as they're top notch players.