Personal

LTD Viper 50 by ESP

I have recently decided I needed a new axe, most of my studio guitars are fine but I wanted something with a nice low action for live playing and something I could keep at home for personal playing as well as taking to work with me.

I could have ordered the guitar through the studio shop but it was some what of an impulse purchase so I popped over to Roadhouse music in Boston and they hooked me up with the LTD Viper 50.

The Brief…

I wanted a cheap, (sub £300) guitar with a fixed bridge, dual humbuckers and a nice responsive feel. I am amazed with what I got, Roadhouse gave me a good price, as cheap as any on the internet and even out of the box the set-up was good. None the less I set the truss rod and intonation back at the studio and now the guitar is awesome. The neck is so quick and responsive it makes the guitar easy to play, the pickups are OK but lack the depth of my favoured Seymour Duncan PAF 59 Humbuckers so I think I will upgrade them when I get around to it.

I would be happy to use the stock pickups for live and studio use as they have a certain charm and have a good balance with the bridge pickup nicely breaking up a good valve amp on demand. The machine heads are very smooth and sensibly geared however the head is a little small but for the price I am not even nearly concerned.

The finish is a little patchy and a close inspection reveals a few inperfections but again the guitar is great value for money and will live with much more expensive competition.

My rating 8/10

Other options -

Ephiphone SG (7/10)

Yamaha Pacifica (7.5/10)

Various others.

Is something needling you?

Thoose of you who have met me will know I had a motorcycle accident way back in 2007, well I have pretty much had a lot of pain in my knee ever since. Recently however I have got some Physio therapy courtesy of Spalding Physiotherapy. I have been poked and pulled blasted with sonar in some kind of crazy harmonic resonance experiment, and today I was stabbed!

I didn’t even know they offered accupuncture or what to expect of all this hippy stuff!

Thankfully however it was not as painful as perhaps you might imagine, it hurts far less than say an injection and the sensation after the initial piercing is like a gentle tingling.

I was a little unimpressed with the level of pain relief it offered initially but apparently the first session does little and I must admit the old knee does feel a little better. I am due to have some more treatment next week so I’ll keep you updated with the results! Now where did I leave that incense???