StickNick dot Com - Music

That title was found in a thread on a Metal forum. Funny stuff.

While I'm still chugging away an part four of the musical past thingy I'm writing, I thought I'd take a bit of a break and go over the state of music present.

ESP - I should have known

Last Saturday I picked up Mez and we drove on down to Steve's Music. Thanks to my birthday, I had a pocket full of cash and gift certificates and was looking to buy a new, mid-range guitar. My then current instruments, while serving me well, were starting to show signs of what they are: low-end models.

The Jackson JS30DKT Dinky Hardtail, which was my main guitar until Saturday, has a light weight, a smooth, fast neck, stays in tune (for the most part - it still has to go in every now and again to have the intonation tweaked) but is pretty weak in the pickup department. It has bite, sure, but now that I'm close to finding "my sound" I find that the bite of the pickups lacks real balls. It's hard to dial in a nice, bottom end crunch on the stock CVR2s.

Next up is what I now refer to as my "backup's backup": the Epiphone Special II (in gloss black, thank fuck. That wood sunburst is fugly). This guitar has the balls the Jackson lacks. The neck pickup (which I usually always play on) has that nice, low end crunch I love. I'm also a big fan of the Les Paul shape and the Special II comes with a mahogany neck which adds a little to the overall sound. Past that, it has the flaws that comes along with a low end, sub $200 guitar: it's heavy, the neck is fatter than what I like (and am used to thanks to the Jackson), and it goes out of tune all the time.

I did think about upgrading the Special II with new pickups and some locking tuners, but figured that a new, mid-range guitar may be in order instead. Y'know, the whole silk suit on a pig thing.

At Steve's I tried out a few guitars. The one I had been drooling over online for about three months was the Epiphone Les Paul Gothic Studio. The online reviews I had been reading said this thing sounded just as good as the Gibson version, was solid, and looked fantastic. Steve's had one so I took it off the rack for a look-see and a tryout.

Turns out the flat black looked grey in real life. As well, it looked to be a greasy fingerprint magnet. Lacquered bodies can be wiped down pretty easily - the Epiphone looked like, once dirty, it would never be clean.

Trying it out pretty much told me that I would not be leaving the store with this guitar. I plugged it in to a Marshall MG100DFX (the amp I own and love), turned it on and was bombarded with a nasty hum. I swear, that shitty old Sears guitar I talked about in my Musical Past posts was quieter than the Gothic.

Playing it was a chore as well. It was very tinny on both pickups. No matter what settings I dialed into the amp, this guitar yielded little crunch and no balls. Finally, the neck was rather fat and didn't play as fast as the reviews had led me to believe. Maybe this was the first guitar for all the reviewers... either that or they were all upgrading from budget knock off brands like Jay Turser.

For the price that was being asked, there was no way I was getting the Epiphone Gothic.

Net up I tried out an Ibanez ART300 (in Black Cayman). While this thing was sexy as a motherfucker and came with active pickups there were two things that made me put this one aside: the sound and the neck. While the sound of the ART 300 was bassy (thanks to the liberal use of mahogany), I found the pickups lacked true crunch. The neck, well, it was a little better than the Epiphone, but still played pretty slowly.

As an aside, my true test of playability is to run though the solo of the unavowed's Crusades. The solo I wrote is simple at first glance; it's played all on the D string and walks back and forth between a handful of notes. That being said, it's hard to play at speed because the run covers pretty much the neck from the third to twelfth fret and it involves hammer-ons and pull offs on each fret played. So one swipe of the pick equals three notes. If I can blaze through the Crusades solo, faster than it should be played, without fucking it up, then the guitar I'm trying plays good. If I fuck it up because I can't move my hand fast enough up and down the neck, then I want nothing to do with it.

Both the Epiphone and the Ibanez failed this; it was easier on the Ibanez but still played slow enough that I had to watch the neck to make sure I was hitting the right notes.

The third guitar I tried was the ESP LTD EC 200QM (you'll have to scroll down on that page, it's the third from the bottom). Steve's didn't have the satin black shown on the ESP site, they had the red. And man, was it sexy.

From the moment I plugged in this guitar I had a feeling this was the one I was leaving the store with. It had a minor hum, but it was acceptable; nothing a Noise Suppressor can't take care of. I managed to dial in a nice, ballsy crunch without effort, and holy sweet fuck, it played FASSST.

The EC 200QM passed my Crusades test without effort. Fuck, I don't think the guitar (or it's player) even broke a sweat. I can honestly say I've never played that solo that fast and with so little effort.

Another selling point was that the tone knob has a Push-Pull Coil Tap - this separates the pickups themselves: keep the knob pushed in and it plays both coils in the humbuckers. Pull it up and it splits them so you're essentially playing a single coil. Nice.

I put the ESP to the side and tried out one more: An ESP EX-260 (second on the page). I still have a soft spot for the Explorer shape so I figured I'd give the EX a go to see if it fit.

It sure sounded fine (same body material and pickups as the EC) and played ok (I couldn't nail the Crusades solo quite as well as on the EC, but it was passable) yet I just couldn't get used to the shape. Maybe it's because ESP had to modify their Explorer shape thanks to a lawsuit from Gibson and it just doesn't feel very Explorer like. Maybe I'm just getting old. Whatever it is, I simply wasn't digging the feel of the EX.

An hour and a half later I walked up to the dude who was helping me out with the ESP in my hand. I told him I was buying this guitar and he said: "I thought that'd be the one you decided on."

Oh, really?

"Yeah, dropped D power chords? ESP man. ESP."

So now my Jackson has been demoted to "The Backup" and gets the good gig bag. The Epiphone Special II has been demoted to "The Backups Backup" and gets the shitty gig bag. The ESP LTD has earned the title of "The Main Axe" and gets the hardshell case.

I've played through two jams with the ESP LTD and let me tell you that it's awesome. It may not be top of the line, but it's close enough to put a boost in my playing. I'm still farting around with my sound but so far so good. I have a feeling that it'll serve me well for years to come.