ESP Guitars, which celebrates its 45th anniversary this year, has updated its LTD '87 Series of shred-ready electric guitars and the high-performance P-style Surveyor Bass in Rainbow Crackle finish.
It really couldn't get much more 80s and to paraphrase the famous anti-drugs campaign of the era, Rainbow Crackle is like a visual representation of your brain on shred. With a full spectrum of colour – hi-viz yellows, hot pinks, red, green and blue lightning – on black, this is not the sort of thing one would rock up at Newport Folk Festival with.
Spec-wise, the LTD '87 Series rolls the clock back to some of the most seminal designs in the ESP lineup. The new Rainbow Crackle finishes are now available on the M-1 Custom '87 and Mirage Deluxe '87 and Eclipse '87 electric guitars – the latter offered with the choice of a Tonepros Locking tune-o-matic bridge or a double-locking Floyd Rose 1000 vibrato.
The Eclipse has a neck-through build on a T-style mahogany body. Its three-piece maple neck is topped with a Macassar ebony fingerboard and it has a Gibson-esque 24.75" scale. A Seymour Duncan JB humbucker occupies the bridge position and is complemented by a Seymour Duncan '59 humbucker at the neck. A push-pull function adds to the versatility, offering some single-coil tones on tap.
Both the Mirage Deluxe and M-1 Custom models assume a souped-up S-style profile, with alder bodies, maple necks and and Macassar ebony fingerboards, and come equipped with double-locking Floyd Rose 1000 vibratos and locking tuners.
But there are some crucial differences, with the Mirage Deluxe having a bolt-on construction, a Seymour Duncan Distortion humbucker at the bridge and a Seymour Duncan Hot Rails at the neck. The M-1 Custom, meanwhile, has a neck-through build and a single Seymour Duncan Distortion at the bridge position, and a noticeable contoured scoop on the lower cutaway. All the humbuckers have a push-pull coil-split function.
Finally, the Surveyor '87 is a P-style bass with a 34" scale length, an alder body, bolt-on maple neck and a Macassar ebony fingerboard, and it is equipped with Seymour Duncan's P/J set.
Of course, if Rainbow Crackle is a little loud for your tastes – perhaps you even lived through 1987 the first time around and don't fancy repeating it – there are a number of retro finishes that are a little more demure, with Candy Apple Red, Turquoise, Black, Pearl White and Dark Metallic Blue all options.
The Surveyor 87' bass is priced £/$899 street, the M-1 Custom '87, Mirage Deluxe and Eclipse with no tremolo are priced £/$999, while the Floyd-equipped Eclipse retails at £/$1099.
See ESP for more details.
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