Guitar Stuff » ESP

Custom Gears of War ESP LTD AX50 and Xbox360 Won

Matt — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 02:31:59 +0000

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!

New Limited Edition Alexi Laiho Signature Guitar ALEXI-600 SE

Matt — Sun, 20 May 2007 15:27:38 +0000

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.

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

Matt — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 18:01:25 +0000

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!

ESP Alexi Laiho Signature Guitar

Matt — Fri, 31 Mar 2006 13:20:38 +0000

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.

Like the more expensive Jackson RR models the Alexi ESP is designed with neck-through-body construction for maximum sustain. The body is made of alder and the neck is made with maple with an ebony fingerboard. The 24 XJ frets are decorated with custom saw tooth inlays.

For a $4000 suggested retail guitar I am a little shocked by this: the guitar only has one EMG HZ-4 Pickup in the bridge position and one volume control. For the minimalists it may be great but to me that just seems like a rip. Alexi being another avid tremolo user his guitar has an original Floyd Rose tremolo bridge.

Feature Summary

Alder Body/Maple Neck/Ebony Fingerboard
Neck-thru-body construction
4 XJ Frets/Saw blade Pearl Inlays
1 EMG-HZ H-4 Pickup in the Bridge
Original Floyd Rose Tremolo

This is probably the least impressive guitar I have looked at this week. It is basically a Jackson RR1 with one less pickup. Besides its rad paint job it doesn’t have much going for it.

That raps up my 7 day look at metal guitars. You can check out all of the previous posts here:

ESP Ninja 600 Michael Amott Signature Guitar Review

Matt — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 13:15:30 +0000

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.

In addition to the standard version there is also a lower end LTD model. From the specs on the ESP website the LTD only looses the Schaller Straplocks and the Gotoh tune-o-matic is replaced with a generic tune-o-matic bridge. However, there must be more to have a $2600 USD price difference.

To sum up the features of the ESP Ninja 600 Michael Amott Signature

Set-neck construction
24.75” scale
Mahogany body
3-piece mahogany neck with a rosewood fingerboard
22 XJ frets with custom “x” inlays
Seymour duncan JB (b) / 59 (n) pickups
2 volume, controls w/3-way toggle
Chrome hardware
Sperzel locking tuners
Bone nut
Schaller straplocks
Gotoh tune-o-matic bridge w/stop tailpiece

Check out the ESP Ninja Michael Amott Signature at the ESP website.

Read the other posts in this series: