OK, so this was last weekend's engagement. There was this strong urge to hear some menacing active pickups in action & I don't have too many around as I prefer passive pickups. The E-II HRF here is equipped with a pair of Seymour Duncan Blackout humbuckers & they just sound brutal in an appealing way.
Here they are up close. I actually bought this guitar because the active pickups are not EMGs. I've nothing against the EMG, the 57/66 are my firm favourites from this brand name.
A set of Acoustic Science strings which I still have lying around here. That name there is a little misleading; it's supposed to be a brand name, not the type of strings contained in the pack.
Just to share - the ESPs were equipped with Cleartone strings at the factory & this is proof. I liked them since I bought my first ESP & I still like them now. These days, the Cleartone name faces stiff competition from Elixir & D'Addario in terms of string life technology & a little under-rated in terms of exposure.
To end this entry, I just wanna say that this was my final ESP purchase, I stopped buying out of sheer disappointment. It had absolutely nothing to do with the quality on offer; these are still handled by the people who did their bit for the ESP Standard range & remain to be the pride of Japanese production. I'm just super let down by the fact that market segregation necessitated a label change & they chose to drop ESP from the headstock while still flagging this as an ESP product. I have more respect for the Edwards range as they are getting by in a stand-alone environment but still remain ESP to the core. If you have saved enough money to acquire an ESP, would you tell people, darn I'm finally gonna buy an E-II! Or would you rather go with, darn, I'm finally gonna buy an ESP! I have a spot spot for ESP as we have something personal in common but that had come to pass. We move on.
OK folks, it's the holiday eve - party responsibly, promise?
