ESP LTD EC-1000 Evertune - See Thru Black Reviews

LTD's have always been one of my go to brands, and I've slowly been phasing out my older ones for newer ones with ss frets. This is my second evertune guitar and I've been liking them more and more. I only play for fun, but I don't have hours to play like I did 15 years ago. It's nice to pick up and record a few tracks without having to tune, or pick up and noodle for 10 mins in perfect tune, then get back to busy normal life things. It won't replace hardtails or Floyd's, but it's a nice addition to the stable. Only bummer with this guitar was the d string nut slot is too low, causing a buzz when playing that open string on the 1st fret. But cheap fix with a new nut. Would've been nice to have locking tuners when spending this much as well, but what can you do, it's not a deal killer. One note for the visual ocd type that I didn't catch until seeing the guitar in person, the bridge pickup is the wider spaced variation than the neck pickup. Guitar plays great sounds great. As usual Sweetwater is the best, Dan Robinson is my guy and always enjoy chatting with him with any order.

This is my first Evertune, as well as my first ESP, and I am blown away by this thing. Fit and finish are perfect, the SD pickups sounds amazing... crisp and clear, even when using for serious metal. The guitar was near perfect out of the box - the neck relief was dead on (.010"), intonation only a tiny bit off, and action just a little higher than I want. All of that is easily corrected by the best part of this guitar... the Evertune bridge! I was a little reluctant about getting one after reading numerous reviews, but I have to say, this thing is ridiculously easy to work with!! I've drop tuned the guitar (to B standard) and put on Mammoth Slinky's (.012 - .060) on it, and found that re-tuning the Evertune was the easiest thing in the world... even easier than conventional bridges, because action and intonation are so much easier to deal with, and tuning is so much more precise. As for playing, the Evertune is insane! It essentially eliminates pitch variation, so I've found that my sloppy chord playing now sounds perfect on this thing! Maybe it's just my big hands and others don't have this problem... but when I do chords, I often push one string or another a little harder, or bend one a bit sideways, resulting in a chord that doesn't sounds quite perfectly in tune. With the Evertune, those issues are gone. It's perfect no matter how badly I "man handle" my playing. Because of this, as well as everything else I've mentioned, this guitar has become incredibly inspirational for me, and I'm creating ideas on it like nothing I've done before. I will say though, it's very weird to not be able to bend notes. Because of that, this guitar won't be used for fancy solo work... but for literally anything and everything else, it's absolutely phenomenal!

Great guitar, looks nice and plays well. But the evertune is the reason I bought it, and it works as advertised. No more awkward tune ups on stage in between songs, and just sounds so musical with every chord perfectly in tune every time. Highly recommend.

I own 8 guitars, most more $$$ than this, and this is my favorite. It's the one I always grab. I nearly refuse to play anything that isn't Evertune anymore. People who bash Evertune either (a) haven't taken the time to understand the "sweet spot" mechanics, (b) just like the feeling of superiority they get from being a purist about tone or parts or whatever, or (c) have an evertune in a guitar not explicitly manufactured with one from the start. (That is, if you put an after-market evertune in a guitar, you can lose some sustain and maybe tone, as my stratocaster did.)

The only thing Evertune can't do is tremolo. Glad this isn't the glam-metal 80s or that would really suck.

Beyond the Evertune, ESP/LTD has outdone itself with a well-built, solid, easy-playing masterpiece. Shelling out 2-5x the money for Les Pauls, PRS or Fender custom shop is crazy, IMO, when you can buy this perfection today.

Also, I overtightened and broke my evertune bridge once and the ESP customer service was fantastic. Got it fixed, no problem, good as new.

Disclaimer, my version had EMGs, but I'm sure the seymour duncans are great.

Handle great and play amazing and sound amazing worth the money everyone.

There's so much that I appreciate about this guitar. From the way it stays in tune almost perfectly, to the killer sustain flying out of the EMG pickups, to the variety of tones achievable, to the overall beautiful finish and neck inlays, I really do enjoy holding, playing, or even just staring at this guitar. A quality instrument at a great price point. No regrets.

I waited 10 months to receive this guitar and suffice it to say it was absolutely worth it. I love everything about this guitar from the build quality to the feel and play ability to it"s stunning appearance. Certainly is not a guitar to bang out some Stevie Ray Vaughan but if you"re into metal or hard rock… Wow! Sweetwater is always a great place to deal with

Such an amazing guitar crafted with quality materials. Such a BEAUTIFUL GUITAR and SOUNDS AMAZING!! 100% happy with my purchase! Shoutout to Sales Engineer Phil Potts!

First off this is the nicest guitar Iv owned,i was originally in the market for a strat,but seen this and glad I did,the finish is beautiful.The fishman pickups are very clear and crisp sound for the clean kinda has a acoustic sound to it,and the distortion will blow you away it"s like getting a round house kick to the face from chuck Norris,I mainly play Power,thrash metal and this does Job,works great for worship music at church to.overall very happy and pleased about my purchase.

Most easy playing guitar ever, scale length is perfect, in amazing condition, and the fluence pickups take his guitar to another level. Very satisfied with my purchase

I ordered this guitar and took advantage of the custom set-up and pickup installation. I decided to have a Fishman Fluence Modern set installed and for the guitar to be set-up for drop C. The meticulous attention to detail that Sweetwater put into this guitar is top notch!

I own a 2006 ESP Eclipse Standard that has been a staple in my arsenal. Super reliable, plays so smooth, and looks great. This LTD Deluxe stands hand-in-hand with the ESP. I attribute that to Sweetwater's gear techs and the quality of guitar that ESP expects from their LTD 1000 models.

The Evertune bridge is new to me but has been a revelation. It is much easier to adjust than I had feared and keeps the guitar in tune. In other words, it does its job.

The Fluence Moderns are unbelievable. They can scream, get dirty, then clean up and play sparkling cleans. They have thoroughly impressed!

Very happy with this guitar, easily a favorite of mine. My Sweetwater sales rep, Kevin Spunde, has always been easy to work with. I highly recommend working with him!

First off, I must say that this is a 5 star instrument at this price point as-is. LTD's need a bit of setup direct from the factory, but it doesn't take much to get a great instrument out of them, especially if the default specs are right for you. If you're like me, and find yourself on the fence because of the stock config and/or setup, Sweetwater has unmatched capabilities on hand to make it the perfect instrument. This particular guitar nearly fit the bill for me, so I reached out to my sales engineer Andy to see if there was anything they could do at their facility to "up the game" so to speak on this particular guitar. What i did not know, is that Sweetwater has equipment and staff on hand that will literally build the perfect instrument for you, for a very modest fee.

I've been a Sweetwater customer for a very long time, and I know that everything they put their stamp on must be almost obsessively perfect, from every department. So i took a very safe bet and was certainly not let down. In the end, for about double the initial investment, was a top shelf instrument on par with some in my collection costing nearly 6 times as much - this was just with the plek'd fret leveling and bone nut upgrade alone. Completely gutting the electronics, I swapped out the passive Duncans for active Fishman Fluence pickups, adding their USB rechargable battery so there would be no need to route or jam in a 9v battery into the control cavity. The pot configuration i changed to dual volume push/pull pots for individual pickup voicing selection, and replaced the tone pot with a north/south coil tap toggle switch. Normally i do this work myself when i get a new instrument, but Sweetwater took this hassle off my hands for a more than reasonable fee. The install quality was much better than expected as well, rivaling my own which is rare especially for a company this size. But they have a long tradition of always pleasantly surprising me.

I would only add that the Evertune bridge is definitely no gimmick, the idea behind it and engineering are nothing short of revolutionary. It's not for everybody, but the same can be said for every bridge system. If you don't know much about this brilliant product, do yourself a favor and look it up. There's no reason not to have this over any other fixed bridge on the market, unless frequent and rapid tuning changes are one of your requirements. Perhaps for budget reasons. I don't otherwise understand people's resistance to owning an instrument that is always perfectly tuned and intonated every time you pick it up - with VERY minimal extra hassle and no electronics.

I Already own the honey burst with the Evertune and was blown away, I bought this as a back up, but now I think it's my fav. They are different in a traditional and modern way, just read the specs. Honey burst has a fatter neck w/22 frets Vs. see thru black has a thinner faster neck 24 frets. But I really LOVE them both. It will be a challenge to chose which one I'll play on stage as number 1. Yes I am selling off my teles and PRS and a les Paul Jr. to make these my main working guitars. They are that fun to play. On stage the anxiety of losing the crowd, having to tune between songs is a distant memory. Or striking that heavy open or barred chord just to have it sound sharp/flat, no more. Practice sessions and studio time, are more efficient with the Evertune system, it saves time and money. I Love these Duncan's straight into my Orange Rockerverb mkll. ESP you fricken rock! Evertune you're a game changer! Thank you Sweetwater and Stephen Oppinhiem for the great service as always!

I have been playing guitar 20 years and have multiple vintage and high end custom guitars. I reach for this guitar 95% of the time. It may not have the personality of a vintage guitar. But the EverTune system is a GAME CHANGER. Its like playing guitar for the first time. Do some research and see how many serious studios and professional musicians are putting EverTune into their guitars. The attention to detail and build quality on this instrument is flawless. Intonation and action were perfect out of the box. And it was in tune within 1 cent out of the box. Unreal.

LTD quality always speaks for itself but this guitar is great. It's a bit tricky getting used to the EverTune™ bridge but after the first couple of string changes you get used to it.

very easy to play came in mint condition and tuned very happy with this order

Let me say first that I love this guitar and have no regrets about buying it. I looks beautiful and I've had many compliments on its aesthetics. It very smooth to play. The fretboard is snappy and light to the touch. The weight distribution from head to body feels perfectly balanced when I play it sitting down or standing up. It sounds beautiful for clean and aggressive for metal. It's exactly what I wanted.

My one and only complaint about the guitar is the evertune bridge. Not because it doesn't work, in fact it works exactly as advertised. It's because it's a bit over complicated for me personally. This is not a bridge you want if you change turnings often. It takes forever to do that. Tune it how you want it and leave it alone until you really need to change it. I put it in drop D and one thing I noticed is the screw for the A string doesn't want to go any higher/tighter. It was just barely flat and I didn't want to break it, so I had to adjust the intonation screw slightly to get it in perfect tune. I'm sure that this is user/operator error and not the fault of the bridge, but I'm not finding very helpful information on how to solve the issue the "right way" from Evertune's site.

I'm told that Sweetwater offers free tech support so I will likely check that out. I am very happy with Sweetwater as a whole. Ben, made buying the guitar a great experience. I will use them again for any online purchases in the future. Much better customer service and guarantees than guitar center at the time I purchased. I have been recommending them ever since I bought it.

The feel and workmanship of this guitar are outstanding. Nicely balanced, not too heavy, great binding, inlay and fretwork. It's beautiful and it sounds GREAT. The Duncans are very nasty (in a great way) I give it a four only because of the Evertune Bridge. I dig it but for me this wouldn't work as a "main" guitar because the bridge fights with you if you want to bend a note. They do acknowledge this and I was aware of it when I bought it, but it's a weird thing to get used to. Tuning the guitar takes a bit of getting used to as well but once tuned it does stay in tune better than the average bridge. This guitar is great for rhythm playing but less suited to solo work for me because of the note bending issue.

I will preface this by stating that I have three EC-1000 models with EMG pickups, and of my sixteen guitars they are my absolute favorites. That said, this is the worst sounding guitar I own, hands down. I have an EC-400 AT and multiple other guitars with a JB in the bridge position and they all sound fine, albeit lacking gain, but this guitar is extremely and unacceptably muddy and bassy. With these pickups in it I can't stand the tone and have barely played it and the few other people who checked it out agree unanimously. I expected to not love the tone of this guitar knowing it comes with Duncans instead of EMGs like the solid black model does, but I did not expect it to sound this terrible.