ESP Alexi-600

Whoa, Jack's gone all metal today, aha, nah, Jack is just reviewing a guilty pleasure, a guitar I've always liked, maybe something to do with the player of whom is its creator, Alexi Laiho. The Alexi-600 is Alexi's signature model. I'm a huge fan of Alexi, and so is Kirk Hammet! He gets slated by some for in the modern age being part of a scene, playing a lot of corporate metal to sell records. This I somewhat agree with, but the first two Children of Bodom albums, Something Wild and Hatebreeder were genuine guitar greatness, shredtastic. This is back when they were still playing melodic metal, it was technical and fast and incredibly catchy, the Tokyo Warhearts live album is a must listen if you haven't already, it just shows how good they are, and how accurate Alexi is himself. Modern albums lost some of this melody and technicality, as fast running solos got replaced with heavy muted chords and outlandish whammy tricks, taking away from the true brilliance of early Children of Bodom. But despite the change, one thing remained the same, the quality of Alexi's sound. Why? Well because he's been playing an ESP for the past 7 years, his signature Alexi-600 model. ESP's reputation is unquestionable, they make fantastic guitars, that have brought in guitarists ranging from all ends of the guitar world, from Ron Wood of the Stones to Nergal of Behemoth.



So lets dive into Alexi's 600 signature model. This will be quite brief, as there isn't all that much to explain, which is possibly the beauty of this guitar. It has just one pickup, a humbucker in the bridge position. So its not got the greatest versatility? You don't need it, this guitar was only really designed for one genre, and that is metal. So what is the best possible pickup for this guitar? An EMG of course, specifically an EMG-HZ, one of the best and most popular pickups on the market, due to its undoubted quality. It's so heavy, yet so clean, it's truly marvellous. Having just the one humbucker pickup gives this guitar a real feel of class and precision, it doesn't need anything else, its got all it needs in just that one pickup, and this leaves the body looking quite empty, which is awesome. The humbucker being in the bridge position gives it the heaviest sound available. The Alexi-600 also has a licensed Floyd Rose 1000 Series tremolo. Floyd Rose are the original, and only make quality tremolo systems, this is no exception, a sound and resolute trem system that gives you great range and strength. I love floating trem's, they look really technical, and I love Floyd Rose trem's the most, because they're such good quality. The guitar has just the one knob, for volume, but I don't see why you'd ever want that lower than 11, this guitar was built for power and deafening volumes.

The design of the Alexi-600 does a lot for me, its simplicity gives it respectability. I like the yellow or the purple, but given the choice would take the yellow. It's a great V shape, it's classy, it's not trying to be too metal, it's how things should be. Its simplistic layout just makes it real quality, it doesn't need all the mod-cons to be a superb guitar, just a pickup. The guitar also has unique custom sharktooth fret inlays, wound into a ebony fretboard, which just amplifies quality. There is a cutout for access to the lower frets, which looks great and really works the part. The neck is made of maple, and it has that brilliant ESP headstock, that you have to be careful with when using, it's lethal, and metal! It has a locking nut, which adds to the tuning sturdiness. It also has grover tuners, the top machine heads.

This guitar is fantastic, I'll probably never own one due to not being a metal player in a band, but maybe one day I'll make the switch, and this will be topping my list of metal guitars. So what do you think of Bodom, Alexi and his signature Alexi-600 model? Played one? Please do leave comments. Thanks.

ESP EC-1000FM

Doesn't it just look spectacular? I love the silver trim around the body, neck and headstock, it makes it look beautiful. I'd have it in the see-thru blue personally, but the purple is pretty stunning as well, I'd love to have it in any colour. This is a guitar I seriously considered buying when I bought my Ibanez S470, unfortunately, its cost in comparison let it down (My Ibanez was £380, this retails at about £800), for a poor man like myself of course, with guitars you get what you pay for, if I had the extra cash, I probably would've gone with this. It's like a modern twist on a classic design. The body shape is very familiar, looks like the styling of a Les Paul, can't go wrong with that. I love those fret markers, the glitter silver, just like the trim, it all fits together like a puzzle. The signature ESP Guitar name on the 12th fret as well, I love that. "What guitar is that guy playing? It doesn't say on the headstock..." "Check the twelfth."

The other bits look great too, the knobs in the silver, which match the bridge and the tuning pegs. That finish is great too, the quilted maple, like I said, in the blue, that finish is awesome. Lets get some facts down about this guitar, so you can get some insight.

The EC-1000FM has 24 Jumbo frets, the neck is made out of mahogany and so is the body, because this one a neck-thru, giving it that extra sustain and feeling of strength. The fingerboard is rosewood, as is so common, I personally prefer a maple neck, but because it is a lighter colour, it often looks odd with certain guitars, so I find, especially a black metal guitar. A black Stratocaster with a maple neck looks great (Probably because Clapton has been rocking that for the past 40 years) but I think that something like a black Jackson Dinky, with a maple neck just looks ridiculous, you got that black because you wanted to look metal, and then you've got this bright neck sticking out of it. My preference of maple necks doesn't really have great reasoning behind it, I just prefer the feel of them, they feel like they play slightly quicker. Where the neck hasn't had a bit of rosewood fitted on the frets, it feels more pure, like you're really shredding the neck. You can see the body has been slightly curved so you can easily reach the 24th fret, ESP call this a thin U-Neck contour. It looks good though, I've seen some guitars compromise the look for the access, and I guess that's fair, since it should about the playing and music, not the look, but when you can get both to work for you, it's fantastic.

The EC-1000FM comes as standard with a EMG 81 in the bridge position and a EMG 60 in the neck position. If you're reading this, I assume you play guitar, and therefore understand the quality of EMG pickups, right up there at the top with DiMarzio's and Seymour Duncan's. These two pickups will give you a fantastic sound, and is probably part of the reason this guitar cost a lot more than my Ibanez, this is using EMG's, my S470 came fitted with Ibanez's own brand of pickups, the Infinity series of pickups, which aren't all that good in comparison to the big guns. They of course can be changed, I just haven't got round to it, and still haven't really got the money to buy some DiMarzio's. DiMarzio pickups are my personal preference, there's gotta be a reason all those top virtuoso's use them, Vai, Gilbert, Petrucci, Satch and Malmsteen are all using DiMarzio pickups. I think it's due to the range of pickups available from DiMazrzio, there's pickups for all styles of music, with great sound. You really know what you're getting with DiMarzio's. The EC-1000 also comes with locking tuners, which is great for tuning stability, and is therefore great in live situations. How your guitar will perform live is vital, even if you're not a musician in a band, consider it, because you never know. I bought my Ibanez when I wasn't in a band, I now find myself playing a lot of indie music with a band, and me playing my Ibanez looks kinda odd in a scene dominated by Telecasters and other Fenders. When you buy a guitar, consider all factors, because I now have this guitar that isn't suited for my style of music, don't make my mistake. Luckily the versatility on the S470 means that it sounds right for the music, it just really doesn't look right. Consider playing Sweet Child O' Mine on a B.C. Rich Warlock, it just isn't right is it? When you've got a shred looking guitar, and you're playing lots of barre chords, it just doesn't feel or look right.

So after all that, this guitar retails at about £800, which is a fair bit, but you get a very good guitar for it. It's an ESP, they have a very high reputation for developing brilliant guitars, hence the number of superb musicians who have signature ESP guitars, one of which is Kirk Hammet, one of the most successful guitarists in metal music, if not thee most successful? He wouldn't play second rate guitars, or want to be associated with them, and that's why he plays ESP's.

So, as you can see, I think this guitar is great, the article has ended up pretty lengthy, I think I got everything in there, and I hope it's of assistance to you. So I'll finish this post in the normal fashion by asking for any of your opinion on this guitar, and your personal reviews on the this guitar, or any from the whole EC-1000 range.