Esp ltd guitar setup

This series is their most affordable and is an excellent choice for beginners. Alternatively, you can look at their H-Series or their M-Series for mid-range priced guitars. They are of excellent quality and might be a better fit for intermediate players or someone looking to invest a little more from the get-go.

You can finally access their top-tier models, which are nothing short of professional and with excellent detail, build quality and aesthetics. This proves that LTD has excellent quality and can be a top contender to any other guitar manufacturer.

I must mention that their most affordable, the B, is a bit pricier than their low-budget guitars. On the other side of the spectrum, we have the B It is their highest quality 4-string bass and it is a complete professional bass. They also have that same model but with a multi-scale design. This essentially means the frets will have a longer scale on the bottom strings. This optimizes string tension and enhances tone and intonation. ESP LTD basses are an excellent option for any bass player out there who is looking dor versatility, a great tone, and great build-quality.

There are plenty of guitars ESP builds intending to be the perfect instrument for heavier genres. However, like any great guitar manufacturing company, ESP has great versatility and their guitars can fit any style whatsoever. A similar thing happens with Squier, which people consider to be only fit for blues and old-school genres. I will go on record and state they are versatile enough to perform in various softer genres. To begin with, we have the man, the myth, the legend, James Hetfield from Metallica as well as Kirk Hammet.

As I mentioned though, you get the oddball here and there. You might know him from that little band named The Rolling Stones.

This is based on their materials, aesthetics, and overall build quality. However, LTD guitars have an excellent reputation and are a great option for any guitarist.

This is particularly favorable for metal players since ESP has recognized its niche audience and has tailored its models toward their needs. Adam is the founder and author of Tone Topics and dedicated to providing the best guitar content for like-minded gear nerds.

Please enjoy all the content on the site and support us by sharing these posts with other people. It would really help us out! Are you mystified by the retro and quirky guitars from Danelectro? These 50s and 60s rock n roll machines certainly look cool. But what are their standout qualities? And why should you own Choosing the right guitar for your ideal tone, playing style, and typical genre is difficult. Not so with semi-hollow body guitars.

These hollowed versions are super versatile, but how As a player who performs live a lot and sometimes bends a neck for a little vibrato or whammy effect not a practice I recommended, by the way , I'm reassured by an instrument that feels solid and battle-ready.

Casual inspection makes it easy to explain the solid feel of the instrument. The fret ends are nicely rounded and the satin finish on the back of the J-Bass-sized neck is exceptionally comfortable. The test bass also arrived with a perfect setup that required no tweaking before I tested it—not a common occurrence. Even with that much treble cut, the LTD provided great sustain and a tone with solid lows, musical mids, and present highs that could work for many applications without much processing.

This is a great starting point for any instrument, regardless of price. With a little tone attenuation, the bass provides plenty of traditional P-style honk and woodiness. Fingerstyle moves in this configuration never sounded muddy or without character.

Instantly the sound of my finger pops were quite a lot brighter than I anticipated—with shades of a modern MTD-on-a-budget tone. And while the jatoba fretboard is ostensibly a stand-in for rosewood, it seemed to lend more of a bright maple tonality in slapping situations. Palm-muted picking, meanwhile, revealed a cool low-mid thump that some similar instruments easily lose when played with a pick. And a quick recording of this approach demonstrated that this bass sits just about perfectly in this context without taking up too much sonic space.

Just a little time with the LTD AP makes it clear what a solid, all-around bass it is—although there is room for small improvements. It could also benefit from a slightly less bright EQ circuit and a little more range for high-end cut. But unless you are a strictly vintage-oriented player, this might not be an issue for you.

More than anything, I am impressed with the build, quality control, and finish on this LTD, which makes me more than a little curious about other offerings from the line. This AP is clearly capable of delivering more than metal tones—and offers great value. Nice price. Great range in simple controls.

Sweet preamp sounds. Great capacity for high-end detail. Keeley Compressor Mini robertkeeley. I fall in and out of love with compressors all the time. From one night to another, I might be down on my knees, thanking my comp for saving my life and my sloppy picking performance. The morning after is always awkward. It may not be the most extreme compressor in the world or the most versatile. But it walks the razor-thin line between transparent and potent with aplomb and sounds alive without being overbearing or oppressive.

Thankfully, he has a knack for knowing how to set those parameters just right. Keeley also designed the circuit to be especially lively for a comp with so few controls. For one thing, the Compressor Mini uses parallel compression, which allows dry signal to pass before summing at the output, adding detail and presence to softer playing while louder transients are squished more aggressively.

The pedal sounds more balanced and alive for its inclusion. The Compressor Mini, however, is almost startlingly quiet. Even at the highest preamp gain and threshold levels, the Keeley adds little perceptible hiss. The low noise floor makes it easier to use the level control aggressively, and at minimum threshold levels, the Keeley is a great near-clean boost. And there are lots of near-clean boost colors that add meat to jangly tones without sullying the chime.

Rickenbacker and Telecaster players take note! Humbucker players, too, will enjoy the extra headroom in the level control. Most settings north of noon lend a fat but tasteful bump in the low-mid zone that make the preamp sound extra sweet, muscular, and growly.

The compression effect itself is a delight. And in spite of the extra top end generated by the tone-recovery circuit and parallel compression scheme, you still hear perceptible squish. The extra weight and warm sustain that even modest level and compression threshold levels add to thin first-string output is significant. And it does a cracking job of highlighting string detail in complex chords. For lots of players in many musical situations, such qualities will be well worth any tradeoff in dynamics.

The preamp alone sounds lovely and generates killer boost tones. In traditional pedal-compression settings, like country picking and Byrds-style jangle, it excels. And its low noise floor makes it an ideal pairing for high-gain pedals in need of smoothing or busy pedalboards with lots of noisy gain stages.

At just 20 bucks less than the Compressor Plus, some players may want to pop for the bigger, more feature-rich alternative. Intimate-feeling playing experience. Nice neck. Easy to play. Body shape well suited to austere appointments. Gibson's history is rich with acoustic instruments built to be accessibly priced.

The company's beloved and underrated B series guitars from the '60s, for instance, used laminate mahogany sides to make them more attainable. Even the legendary J began as a relatively affordable model—cleverly using that beautiful sunburst finish to conceal less-than-perfect spruce pieces that were in short supply around World War II. For most of recent history, Gibson's acoustics occupied more rarified upmarket territory—largely leaving the mid-price business to their Asia-built Epiphone Masterbilt instruments, Taylor and Martin's Mexico-built entry-level flattops, and a revolving cast of overseas manufacturers.

It's easy to understand Gibson's reticence to enter the mid-price acoustic game with a Gibson-branded guitar. It's a brutally competitive market: Asia-built instruments leverage lower manufacturing overhead to ape more expensive American inspirations, while legacy American brands offer less luxuriously ornamented guitars built with alternative and laminate woods—often in facilities in Mexico.

With the Generation Collection of acoustics, Gibson chose a middle path to the mid-price market. Rather than move production to Mexico or overseas, or use laminates or wood composite materials, the Generation guitars are built with solid woods in the same Bozeman, Montana, facility that makes the company's top-shelf flattops. That means the guitars are pretty austere and more expensive than a lot of the mid-price competition.

Yet the G and G offer a compelling playing experience, and each model is built with a side port which Gibson calls the Player Port that enables a subtly more intimate means of relating to each guitar's dynamic potential. For this review we looked at the two models that bookend the Generation Collection: the G and G For many players, this author included, the Gibson L is a magical little instrument. Not only does it conjure images of Bob Dylan shattering folk convention circa '65 with his very similar Nick Lucas model, but it's one of those flattops that, when built right, occupies a sweet spot between power and sensitivity.

They are fantastic fingerstyle instruments, and the Generation Collection incarnation of the L, the G, is particularly well suited for that task. The slim, compact lines are flattered by the lack of binding, giving the guitar an earthy, elemental essence that suits its folky associations. The solid walnut back and sides are beautiful pieces of lumber with abundant swirl and figuring that lend the otherwise plain-Jane styling a lot of personality.

The solid spruce top, meanwhile, is straight-grained, high-quality wood. The neck is carved from a single piece of mahogany-like utile, and the headstock which is fashioned from two additional "wing" sections of utile is capped with walnut.

The striped ebony, with its orange-red streak that runs from the soundhole to the 5th fret, lends a subtle sense of flash to the guitar's otherwise spartan visage, and the fretwork is largely flawless. Though the G has a lovely natural glow, the nitrocellulose satin finish seems exceedingly thin. That's no bad thing if you like your tone as wooden and unadulterated as possible, but if you're the kind of fastidious player that likes to keep your instrument in perfect shape you may long for a more robust finish.

The G also shows some signs of economizing on the guitar's interior, which is more visible for the presence of the player port. A sizable errant glue smear was plain to see just inside the player port and several sections of bracing could have benefitted from another pass with sandpaper. These aren't imperfections that affect sound or playability in any way. But they are details you'd like to see looked after more carefully when you're shelling out a grand for an instrument.

One of the really lovely things about playing a guitar with the compact dimensions of the G is the way it feels like an extension of yourself. Big guitars can sound beastly, but the G lends a natural, effortless feel to the playing experience.

The neck, which feels like a cross between a D and C profile, walks the line between slim and substantial gracefully. I might have preferred a touch more girth, but there's no arguing with the ease of playability. The sense of being at one with the guitar is enhanced slightly by the player port. This design feature was, according to Gibson, a primary impetus behind building this line the company uncovered blueprints from proposing a J with a relocated sound port.

Sound ports have been features on boutique instruments for decades. Just as on many of those guitars, the effect of the sound port is subtle on the G But if you tune the guitar to an open chord and play the guitar while covering and uncovering the port, you'll hear a real difference—primarily in the way the low end blooms and the treble tones ring.

And by the way, the G sounds especially lovely in detuned settings, exhibiting bass richness that's uncommon in a guitar this size in this price range. The G does not come with a pickup, but as we found when testing the pickup-equipped G, the port works effectively as a supplementary monitoring solution in quiet performance situations.

How it fits into the aesthetic whole is subjective. And how it affects performance will vary from player to player, but, at least in my experience, it lent an extra sense of detail in fingerpicking situations.

Gibson's list of iconic designs is lengthy to say the least. But while it may not be as famous as some of its other acoustic and electric kin, the J is one of the most beautiful and impressive Gibsons of all. The Generation Collection version, the G, does many things that a good jumbo should.

It compels a player to dig deep into chugging, choogling rhythm moves and it's loud. Man, is it ever loud. In the case of the G, though, that loud can sound just a touch one-dimensional at times. How you relate to strong midrange may determine how much you love or just like the G in a strumming context.