Product: ESP 901
Price Paid: 1800 (Deutsche Mark)
Submitted
08/16/2000
at
10:30am
by
Sonja
Email: Sonja at Schellenberg<dot>com
Features
:
8
The 901 was manufactured in Japan, but afaik was a special model
for Germany or at least Europe. It has a strat like body but a whole
lot smaller than a "real" strat. The body is made from nicely figured
ash and finished with a see-thru color (mine is red). The neck is
made of maple with a rosewood fingerboard. The fingerboard and
the headstock have a light creme binding. The headstock has the same
color like the body. It's a Gibson scale guitar with 24 frets.
It has a Floyd Rose by Kahler, which means that you need a 9/64"
allen wrench to change strings. This size of allen wrench is hard to get here in Germany if you loose it...
It has a humbucker at the bridge and a single coil shaped humbucker ar the neck. You can select serial or parallel operation with a toggle switch. The other toggle switch is for selecting the pickups. The guitar has only one knob and this one is for volume. However it is
a push/pull type and you can engage a little condensor to the circuit
which dampens the treble. Just like a tone pot, but not variable.
For my ears this circuit just made the sound too dull and after some years the push/pull stopped working and I changed the pot to a normal
one.
For me this one has just the right features. Not too much. Just the ones I need.
Sound
:
8
The pickups are very good. The overall sound is aggressive but
still warm enough to play blues etc. My personal style is rather
hard rock oriented. The neck pickup switched to single coil operation
leads to a very nice clean sound or singing lead tone.
Action, Fit, & Finish
:
9
Honestly I can't remember how it was set up when I bought it.
I don't think it was too bad, but it's long ago now...
The craftsmanship of this guitar is superb. the see-thru finish
is very beautiful. Unfortunately the lacquer is a too little
scratch resistant.
Reliability/Durability
:
9
I'm playing this as my mian guitar since I bought it in '93.
It has seen live and studio and rehearsal and all kinds of
transports. Except for some chips in the lacquer the guitar
is still fine.
Customer Support
:
6
When I bought the guitar at the ESP shop in Duesseldorf all
the company members where very supportive and it was a pleasure
dealing with them. It's a shame that they closed the shop.
Last year I wanted to find out which brand the bridge humbucker
was and asked a rep at the Frankfurt music fair and got very
stupid answers to my question.
Overall Rating
:
9
The guitar is out of production for several years. If it was stolen I would probably try to find another one. OTOH there are a lot of similar guitars out there which are fine either.
What I like about the guitar is that it is simple to use but still
very versatile. It sounds greats und looks good. The shape of the headstock is not really my taste, but I can live with that.
