I’m starting the writing of this review having just finished my review of the PRS Myles Kennedy. I love what I do because I get a chance to test and play a wide number of guitars and for longer than half an hour in a guitar shop. I also get to see and hear first hand the variety and differences of instruments at all manner of different price points.

Why start here? Because the PRS Myles Kennedy left me completely underwhelmed not even taking into account its way over the top price point. Then I pick up this made in China, under $600 Super Strat from the LTD line of ESP Guitars and have a complete blast playing it. We are all different to be certain, but a label and a price tag may not mean what we think it means.

I must again thank the fine people at The Arts Music Store for making this instrument available for review. They are a great store, and you should be shopping there. I honestly would not have even thought of this review without the coaching and enthusiasm of my dear friend Cody Shaw. Thanks Cody! This guitar really impressed me!

The Guitar and First Impressions

What we have here is a pretty standard Super Strat concept. Made of poplar, this guitar is very lightweight. You could sling it for hours without back issues. The roasted maple neck is very comfortable and produced no signs of my arthritis in over two hours of playing. The fretwork is spectacular considering that I have played +$2000 guitars from major labels where the fretwork was not this good. Fender has made a big deal of the new and very excellent Player II Series having rosewood fretboards again. This LTD also has a rosewood fretboard, so spare us the marketing foo foo dust Fender, and just build what people want. You’ll note that ESP just delivers rosewood on this very inexpensive instrument without pages of mc marketing.

With the Strat standard 25.5” scale length, you adapt to the guitar quickly. There is also a Tele style body version available for those who prefer that body shape by the way. The fit and finish is excellent, the paint is great and the poplar burl top looks spectacular in the factory blue burst. There is no vibrato on this guitar, it is a fixed bridge, so you can hit it hard and it holds tune really well. There are 24 extra jumbo frets and while they are not stainless steel, I would not expect that at this price point. The neck radius is about 14 inches, so easy to barre chords and no choking on aggressive bends. The pickups sound just fine and you can get a decent clean sound from them, but if you want to go heavy distortion, they do a great job at that too. The pull up tone control offers a coil split that is decent, but not really Strat like. The pickup selector switch is a simple 3 position bridge / both / neck arrangement. You don’t need a cheat sheet to figure out what is happening. There is a fitted case available but it is a separate purchase.

There are folks who worry about the feel of the back of a neck. I am one of them as a sticky neck puts me right off. This one is completely smooth and quick. The carve is very comfortable and that the maple is roasted while a popular term really means that the maple has been effectively slow cooked to release over time any residual moisture. Maple is often seen as a very hard wood, and then perceived as unaffected by moisture but this presumption is inaccurate. Maple is indeed hard, but not nearly as hard as rosewood or ebony and like any wood used in a neck needs to be properly dried to reduce bends, twists and warps caused by environmental factors. Getting a roasted maple neck at this price point is a superb value.

The guitar came with D’Addario YB-XL-110 strings 10-46. I don’t know what YB means, but the ball ends are not colour coded, and the strings didn’t feel great. After a couple of hours my fingers felt grungy and as I had been playing in low light, when I turned the lights on, my fingers were black. I grabbed some automotive grease removing hand cleaner which was needed to get the black off and then spent a good 20 minutes cleaning the factory strings. After that they played better and the guitar sounded better. I don’t know what was on the strings, but my guidance to ESP LTD is to stop doing whatever you are doing. Shipping a guitar with dull and filthy strings is a good way to ensure that potential buyers move along. Install plain old XL-110s and perhaps drop to nines and the buyer at this level is going to be a lot happier. Shit strings piss me off, but as this has been my ONLY complaint, perhaps it will matter less to you than to me. Some people blame the shop, but it’s pretty difficult for a shop to clean or replace strings on every new instrument that comes into the store. I am confident that if I was buying this guitar, it would be properly prepped before I left with it. And in my case, it is my habit to restring every guitar shortly after purchase if not before it leaves a store.

I have heard that some people think that the pickups are lacking. I did not find that. You of course should test play the guitar in a real guitar shop if you can, but I tried it through a variety of real amps as well as my Quad Cortex and think that the pickups are just fine sounding when taking into consideration the design goals and target price.

Funny enough, the most difficult thing for me was getting used to the low E being the farthest tuner. Once past that, all was great. Really that’s odd because I don’t have that issue with my old Gibson Firebird. Hardly a real problem.

Specifications

I have screen captured the specs posted by the manufacturer for clarity.

Example Tones

For all the examples, I plugged the guitar directly into my Quad Cortex which then ran direct to an Apollo Twin X and were then recorded in UA’s LUNA DAW. No plugins were used and no post production was done. Not the way I would do production work, but as pure an example as you will find. The first section uses the bridge pickup into my profile of a Bogner Uberschall. The second section uses both pickups into a profile of Fender Blackface Princeton. The third section uses the neck pickup with the coil split into a profile called Single Coil Lovin’ by Rabea Massad that uses a VOX AC30 amplifier.

From the perspective solely of the recorded tones, I think that this is a fantastic guitar. It sounds great through different amplifiers (I did play it through a variety of old and new tube amps) as well as through amplifier simulation pedals (UA Dream) and of course through the Quad Cortex. While some who have not played this instrument poo poo the pickups, I do not agree because my actual experience says that they sound pretty darn good without taking into account the selling price of this instrument.

Wrapping Up

Let’s close the loop on this instrument. It’s a pretty clean and straightforward Super Strat design with two humbuckers a fixed bridge and simple controls. The fretwork is excellent, the fit and finish superb and it looks great. It sells for $599 CAD MAP. It delivers decent cleans and is very happy being pushed hard into an amp. It works well with a variety of different pedals. While the Quad Cortex that I used for recording costs about four times the price of the guitar, I never once felt like I was playing something cheap or disposable. It is different from the Ibanez S in the same price range, but easily as fine a guitar. Get one and put any funds left into an amp or pedals. I no longer have the Katana 100 G3 here but this guitar would pair with that amp beautifully. If you want to try one out, or buy one online, please go to The Arts Music Store. I know that these folks will take excellent care of you.

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