ESP Unveils Two New Bass Guitars
August 8, 2008 by Chazders · Leave a Comment
ESP is known for producing guitars tailored to look and sound. Many musicians including Metallica and Bullet for My Valentine‘s guitarist, Michael Paget love using ESP guitars for the great heavy edged riffs.
The B-1004 4 string and the D-5 5 string both resemble each other as sleek professional guitars until you get down to the fine details and price. To help bass players decide which guitar may be more suitable for them, here is a brief overview describing the sound both guitars are capable of creating in the studio or on the road.
Weighing in at nine pounds with a scale of 34” is the B-1004 with a solid natural oak colored skin manufactured in Korea. The wood used to construct the bass guitar is a mixture of walnut, mahogany, and maple woods complimented nicely with an ebony fingerboard and black satin Ultranite tuners and a Hipshot bridge.
More importantly, the bass produces a clear resonance sound with a flexible tone, thanks to active pickups and it’s 3-band-EQ. With the guitar’s thoroughly laced active pickups and the body being designed from solid wood, the guitar is able to produce a dark thick tone with a quick catchy zing. It may be harder to produce an anti-climatic chorus hook using this guitar as it seems to produce sounds that relate closer to steady melodic dark tempos.
Overall, the guitar is capable of producing smooth background deeply throated growls continuously, but may not be the best for a band looking to catch listeners with funk popping style (think Michael “Flea” Balzary’s Red Hot Chili Peppers). This extremely attractive bass guitar is highly usable and will be a great investment for a bassist, but it is going to take an accomplished bassist to justify this purchase, as its selling price is set at approximately $1,600. If you have the money, the B-1004 is definitely worth taking a second look.
The second new release by ESP, the ESP D-5, is more affordable it is priced at $639 which is not a deal breaker for musicians who have yet to reach rock star status. Weighing in at approximately the same weight as the B-1004, the D-5 weighs 9 pounds, 8 ounces and also has a 34-inch scale. The design is identical to the shape of the B-1004 with a darker stained natural wood appearance and black graphite nuts and plugs. The ESP D-5’s fingerboard is made of rosewood which nicely compliments the five-piece mahogany and maple body.
The sound is not as full as the B-1004, but it does have a better character sound that would pick up nicely to create a hook right in between two other guitars’ steady tempos. ESP D-5 is easily capable of creating that catchy offbeat chorus line treble transition.
The reason the cost is much lower for the D-5 is because it is manufactured in Indonesia using less expensive and less customized equipment. The parts of the D-5 are standard issued pickups and the wood is not as expensive or durable as the B-1004’s. The design and equipment is excellent compared to most of the guitars that musicians with the same budget would be considering to buy. In this regard, the D-5 is a promising model worth purchasing. In fact, without knowing the price tag, after giving the guitar a solo run, it would be easy to price the guitar at a much higher level due to the quality of sound it produces consistently.
Basically what ESP accomplished with the D-5 for the price is a real achievement. Many efforts have been made to make a lot of bass for a little investment, and few have been successful as the D-5.
Gear-Vault Classifieds is an eBay alternative. You’re invited to sell your music equipment with us, for FREE!
ESP Deluxe Series: The ESP-ECIALLY Made Guitars
Electric Sound Products (ESP) Company was created in the year 1975 by Hisatake Shibuya, a resident as well as a businessman from Tokyo, Japan. Shibuya started as a manufacturer and a producer for the replacement parts of guitars. This firm was very well known for the high-quality parts. After a year of gaining such reputation, ESP started to engage with the designing and creation of guitars. ESP entered the Japanese market, later expanded and took their chances into the global market of guitar industry. Entering the US market in the year 1983, ESP Company started designing for local artists in New York from 1984 to 1985 where they had already introduced about 400 Series as their primary introduction of products in the US market.
Among the local artists were Ronnie Wood of the Rolling Stones, Page Hamilton of Helmet, Bruce Kulick of KISS, Vernon Reid of Living Colour and Vinnie Vincent. Creating and producing guitars for these artists was there effective way of becoming more popular with bands from other countries. At the same time, ESP Company also started to make the necks and bodies of Kramer. During a tour in Tokyo in the year 1986, George Lynch found out about ESP guitars when he walked into one of the shops, looked around for a replacement part and later, he found out that ESP Company is able to customize guitars.
Lynch asked the company to create his favorite ESP Kamikaze. After one year, Kirk Hammett of Metallica, found ESP Company too. Hammett asked ESP to make him ESP KH-2 model which later became one of the signature series in 1989. ESP Company, in 2002, became top ranked because of its very competitive marketing strategy..
The Deluxe Series is a line of electric guitars. There were a lot of famous guitar players for this particular model such as Erik Payne of Andrew W.K., Glen Drover of Megadeth, Snake of Skinlab, Brian Eschbach of The Black Dahlia Murder, Kenny Dunham of Brand New Sin, Bob Carpenter of A Life Once Lost, Jason Hook of Hilary Duff, Jensen of The Haunted, Jason Bozzi of Dry Kill Logic, Jeff Kendrick of DevilDriver, Ben Weinman of The Dillinger Escape Plan, and Jamin Hunt of Sworn Enemy. The Deluxe Series has guitar models that originated from the famous product line of ESP such as M guitars, MH, Horizon and Eclipse.
With only four guitar models during the year 2003 and when Deluxe reached 2004, they began to make a lot of variations from these models. These are more affordable compared to the ESP guitars. Materials are of cheaper quality but the designs are magnificent providing satisfaction to its customers. These series of guitar models meant for rock/metal music can be considered very good investments.
Gear-Vault Classifieds is an eBay alternative. Come sell with us.
