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tjon901 « Good mid level Viper model. »
Published on 08/17/11 at 11:11With 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.
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.