I just got an email from Justin Baker who let me know that he won the custom Gears of War ESP guitar and Xbox360 from the contest that I posted about on on April 28th. In the contest hopeful winners needed to send ESP a picture of themselves air-fragging on their new Xbox.

Justin was kind enough to send me a picture of him and his prize. You can also look below to see Justin’s winning pose. If you want to see all of the entries you can visit the contest page on the ESP website.

The Prize

The Winning Entry

Justin came out of it with a brand new ESP LTD Standard AX-50 guitar and an Xbox360 shipped to him at his home in Canada.

Thanks for the tip Justin and congrats on your win!

ESP has announced a new limited edition Alexi Laiho signature guitar, the ALEXI-600 SE. The modifications in this SE edition are mostly visual. All of the hardware specifications are the same in the ALEXI-600 and the ALEXI-600 SE. What we have in the SE version is a new pink finish, pink inlays, and a COBHC logo painted on the back. The only design difference seems to be in the body shape. The bottom cutaway is slightly farther back to give you better access to the higher frets. In fact it looks like the body actually starts a whole two frets back at the 22nd fret instead of at the 20th. And I thought the original had great accessibility. At present it seems as though the guitar is going for just over $1000USD.

Here are the exact specs for the new guitar:

• Modified body shape for more access to higher frets
• Natural satin finish on neck
• Pink LTD logo and artist signature on headstock
• Pink “COBHC” design on back of body
• Pink pinstripes on back of body
• Neck-thru-body design (25.5” scale)
• Alder body
• 3-piece maple / ebony neck
• Floyd Rose locking nut / 42mm
• Thin U neck shape
• Pink sawtooth inlays
• 24 extra-jumbo frets
• Black hardware
• Grover tuners
• Floyd Rose bridge
• EMG HZ-4 bridge pickup
• No neck pickup
• 1 Volume control

I love the look of these guitars, but the missing neck pickup is a real downside as far as I am concerned. If you want to sound exactly like Alexi Laiho then this guitar would be great for you, but otherwise you are limiting your tone by not having that second pickup. Then again, if you play strictly metal, you might not even know the neck pickup exists.

ESP Guitars is holding a contest for the best “Air Gamer”. Yeah, you know how much people love to play air guitar? Well ESP wants you to send them pictures of yourself air-button-mashing on your brand new Xbox 360. Here is the description of the contest from the website:

Send us a photo of yourself while imagining you’ve already won “Gears of War” and are busy kicking the game’s ass. You know what “air guitar” looks like? We want to see you air gaming! Get your best game face on, hold your imaginary controller, and have someone snap a pic of you. Then come back here and use the form to submit your photo. We prefer getting JPG files, please. Preferably no larger than 640×480.

We’ll pick a winner, who we’ll feature here on the ESP site as the Best Metal Gamer for the world to see! Only one entry per person accepted. Must be 17 years old or older. All entries must be received by May 1, 2007… see below for more rules and regs, and good luck!

I’m not sure on the contest end date though. In the above paragraph it says May 1st, but then when you read the fine print below that on the ESP site it says May 31st. It’s probably a typo in the pagragraph above, but just to be safe you should get yours in by the 1st if you are really interested. It also doesnt seem to restrict this contest by location either. Some times they are limited to the US of A, but I don’t see any reference to that on this contest.

The guitar itself looks to be a ESP LTD Standard AX-50 with a Gears of War logo painted on it. The guitar is an entry level guitar and I’m pretty sure that the Xbox is worth more than it is. However, it’s free, and it’s an easy and fun contest to enter. If I get around to making a photo I’ll post it here!

Continue reading Win a Custom Gears of War Guitar and Xbox 360 from ESP

When Fender bought out Jackson Guitars Alexi was told it would take 1 year for them to build him a new signature guitar. When ESP told him it would only take them 3 months it was a no-brainer for him to switch. The Alexi Laiho signature is basically a Jackson RR Custom clone with some added visual flair.

The design of the guitar plays on the black pinstripe on white look that the Jackson RR1 Rhoads has, but with a more stylized look. The shark fin points on the body are straighter and slightly curved as opposed to the true edges on the RR.
Continue reading ESP Alexi Laiho Signature Guitar

As we all know ESP is pretty much the guitar when it comes to metal. The company has 17 different signature models and most of them are for metal guitarists. The first thing that catches my eye about the Ninja is it has this classic flying-v look with an edge. The guitar was introduced like many others at 2006’s NAMM show. It comes in black and has chrome hardware and chrome pick guard.

Some of the features of the guitar include a set neck, 2 volume controls, a 3-way pickup switch, and Seymour Duncan pickups with a JB at the bridge and a 59 at the neck. For the shredder in us all the headstock sports Sperzel locking tuners and 22 XJ frets. To add that extra signature look the rosewood fingerboard has X shaped ninja star inlays.
Continue reading ESP Ninja 600 Michael Amott Signature Guitar Review