The ESP LTD line of electric guitars offers a dizzying array of quality axes in a huge variety of body styles and options, from humbucking Pauls to vintage-style super-Strats and wicked metal monsters, all from one of the premier guitar companies on the planet. The ESP Company began in 1975, when Japanese businessman Hisatake Shibuya opened a shop called Electric Sound Products in Tokyo, dedicated to supplying quality replacement parts for guitars, and soon began crafting guitars under the ESP and Navigator brand names for the Japanese market. In the early 1980s, ESP began importing replacement parts to the US and building custom instruments for artists like Ron Wood of the Rolling Stones and Bruce Kulick of KISS. By the mid-80s, ESP was providing the necks, bodies and other parts for Kramer Guitars, Schecter Guitar Research, and other brands, and began releasing guitars in the US under its own name. When shred-master George Lynch discovered ESP guitars while on tour in Japan, he commissioned his now-famous custom ESP Kamikaze axe, which became the company’s first signature model, and helped establish its reputation in the US for quality guitars that were fast-playing and sounded ferocious, but could deliver clean, shimmering tones as well.
ESP guitars continued to grow in popularity, and in the mid-90s ESP established the LTD brand, to provide more affordable, production-made versions of their hand-crafted Japanese guitars to a wider market. These LTD axes, produced in factories in Korea and Indonesia, have today become legendary for their build quality, exceptional tone, and the wide variety of guitar styles and signature axes available. For instance, the super-Strat style LTD M-Series features a number of models, including the M-10, a super-affordable basswood-bodied guitar with bolt-on neck and dual humbuckers; and the M-300, a neck-through, 24-fret beauty with mahogany body and flame maple top, loaded with twin EMG humbuckers and Floyd Rose whammy, with other models differing in factors like body tonewood, fingerboard material, and an HSS humbucker/dual single-coil pickup configuration. The MH Series offers a similar range of models in the super-Strat style, but with carved maple tops. Looking for a Les Paul-type guitar, but with more edge? Check out the LTD EC series, including the EC-100QM, an affordable yet gorgeous stunner with quilted maple top and 24 extra-jumbo frets, or the Deluxe EC-1000, with a set mahogany neck, flame maple top and either a pair of EMG active humbuckers or Seymour Duncan passive JB/59 pickups, depending on finish. Other styles include the Viper, with an offset SG-type body, the V-Series, with a body style that looks like a nuclear-powered Flying V, the EX-Series, featuring a super-extreme Explorer body style on steroids, and the sinisterly pointed X-body AX-series. Add to these some killer signature axes by the most fearsome guitarists around, like the LTD James Hetfield Snakebyte and Truckster models, and the LTD SC-608B Stephen Carpenter Baritone, and you’ve got a world of high-quality guitars available for your weapon of choice, whether you want sparkling clean tone to deliver graceful melodies, or you need a vicious, finely-honed axe to inflict some serious metal mayhem! Check out the incredible range of ESP LTD guitars today!
