LTD SG-Shaped Guitars

With the Viper 400 model you get probably the lowest price guitar that comes with fully active EMG pickups. This guitar is an LTD ESP which means it is made outside of Japan. This lets them sell it for a much lower price than normal ESP guitars but the specs are pretty much the same. You get great features on this guitar. You get a mahogany body in the offset SG/Viper shape. The neck is a set neck which is also mahogany. The fretboard is rosewood with 24 jumbo frets. The guitar is a hardtail with a tune-o-matic brdige. The pickups are a set of fully active EMG's which is insane at this price. The guitar has an 81 in the bridge and an 85 in the neck. THe controls are simple with a master volume and master tone with a 3 way switch. UTILIZATION With the offset SG shape you can really reach all the frets. With the 24.75 Gibson scale the upper frets can get a bit crowded but the jumbo frets help with this. The jumbo frets also let you have a low action and you can really bend forever. The Grover tuners and the tune-o-matic stay in tune well. The Earvana Compensated nut means you have better intonation all the way up the neck so complex chords anywhere on the neck will sound in tune. The body is nicely contoured so it will fit nicely against you while you are playing and it is also pretty light. The finish has kind of a satin feel to it so it is pretty smooth. This smoothness extends to the back of the neck where it is most important. The neck is nice and thin and with this satin feel is very fast. SOUNDS It is pretty unheard of for a guitar priced like this to come with such nice pickups. Usually a guitar priced like this would come with some garbage in house pickups. There are thousand dollar Ibanez guitars that still come with junky Ibanez pickups. ESP is really helping you out by throwing in a set of active EMG pickups. This saves the cost of upgrading them. The 81 in the bridge has been an iconic metal pickup for decades. It has a high end crunch and distortion that gives it clarity no matter how much gain you are using or how low you tune. The 85 in the neck is a great pickup too. It has a more fuller sound than the 81 so in the neck position you can get fat lead tones. The 85 is also good too in the bridge. With EMG's quick connect system you can easily swap these pickups position without soldering anything. The 85 in the bridge produces a super thick tone and cleans up better than the 81. OVERALL OPINION I see these guitars for sale used all over the place for about 300 dollars. This is crazy when you consider the pickups alone in the guitar are worth about 200 dollars. This guitar does not feel like a 100 guitar with 200 dollar pickups either. This guitar feels like a 400 dollar guitar with 200 dollar pickups. This guitar is very very good for the price and I would recommend it to anyone who is looking for a well priced metal guitar.

This is a Korean made guitar. The design of the Viper is a twist on Gibson's classic SG design. ESP's take on this symmetrical double cutaway shape is a little bit "twisted", with the left or upper horn and left side of the body being shifted upward. Basically the viper is like an SG with an asymmetrical front profile and different slope. The guitar has the following specs: 24 frets, extra jumbo Tune-O-Matic bridge with stop tailpiece, three-piece mahogany neck set into the body, rosewood fretboard with flag inlays and model name inlaid at 12th fret, Eclipse shaped headstock, (which is also a variation of Gibson's headstock shape) and white binding along the neck and headstock. 24 3/4" scale The feel of this guitar was far superior to the old SG standard I used to play. The SG felt like it would break if I looked at it wrong. The SG also felt very light and almost plastic-like and hollow. The Viper in comparison feels hefty and substantial. Awesome! UTILIZATION This guitar played phenomenally well right out of the case. Setup, action and intonation were absolutely perfect from the factory. This guitar was set up better than any other new guitar I've ever played. Nothing had to be changed! SOUNDS This guitar is equipped with EMG HZ1 passive pickups. They have a very dry, quick attack and a unique sound among other passives that I've played. I eventually replaced these with active EMGs (an 81 in the bridge and a custom alnico 60 in the neck) Thinking back, I actually prefer the passive stock EMGs. I don't like the clean tones from active pickups and I play a lot of clean passages in my songs and in the cover music my band plays. The Viper 301 is a solid axe! It's heavy and that weight transfers into a hefty rock tone that cuts and has depth. The guitar never got too bright in the bridge pickup position, nor did it get muddy on the neck pup. It is extremely easy to play as well, due to the short "Gibson-scale" (24 3/4") The only thing that would improve the tone of this guitar would be the ability to coil-tap the pickups, but that could be modified if so desired. OVERALL OPINION The one thing I have to complain about is the neck-heavy weight distribution of the guitar, which is partially due to the strap button location on the side of the horn. ESP didn't put the button on the tip of the horn where it belongs. Once I moved it there the guitar's weight was much more evenly balanced and I didn't feel like I had to constantly hold up the neck while playing. But that's the ONLY flaw with this guitar, and I noticed that later versions of the Viper had the strap button on the tip of the horn, so problem solved! The ESP LTD Viper 301 (and the later versions) is an amazing instrument that takes a classic shape and improves it with modern features and a modern streamlined look that any rocker or metal-head will love! The action, fit and finish is perfect right out of the case and the price is right! I can't recommend this guitar highly enough, for any budget.