J. IRVING-GILES: Hi. I'm J. Irving-Giles here with Gearwire.Com, and today I've got for you the ESP FX-400. It's a guitar with a spalted maple top, which you don't see too much. Spalting is basically wood coloration caused by fungi, usually found on dead trees which is something if you're into metal, an excuse not to get a black guitar. There's something evil and dark about dead trees I guess. Maybe you'll agree but there's really no denying that this guitar is kind of fitted for metal here. You can tell by the shape it's got enough corners to kill someone with, and just out of the box on this one, the action is super low for fast play.

It's got a five-piece set neck. It's got mahogany and maple in the neck and a rosewood fretboard. It's got a mahogany body under the spalted maple top, and as you can see for the pickups here, it's got an EMG 81 in the bridge and EMG 60 in the neck and that means it requires a battery. So, just if you're thinking bout this guitar, stock up on 9 volts.

All right, and today I'm going to be playing this through a Bogner Alchemist. I'll be playing on two channels. One just a regular clean channel, and then the second through the second channel, the high-gain channel, with just a few switches on. We've got the punch switch, which I think just adds some good tone to this guitar, really fits it well. I tried playing it through a Fender, and as you can see it's kind of a mismatch; it kind of had too thin of a tone.

So, another thing about this guitar, you're obviously going to want to match it to an amp that puts out some really high gain tone. All right, and let's get to the plan.

To start it off, I'm going to play with the amp on clean, and the pickup selector in between.

[J. IRVING-GILES PLAYING THE ESP FX-400, BOTH PICKUPS ENGAGED, THROUGH THE BOGNER ALCHEMIST'S CLEAN CHANNEL]

All right, and take it down to the bridge.

[J. IRVING-GILES PLAYING THE ESP FX-400, BRIDGE PICKUP ENGAGED, THROUGH THE BOGNER ALCHEMIST'S CLEAN CHANNEL]

And up to the neck.

[J. IRVING-GILES PLAYING THE ESP FX-400, NECK PICKUP ENGAGED, THROUGH THE BOGNER ALCHEMIST'S CLEAN CHANNEL]

All right, and then let's put it back to the middle, kick on the distortion.

[J. IRVING-GILES PLAYING THE ESP FX-400, BOTH PICKUPS ENGAGED, THROUGH THE BOGNER ALCHEMIST'S DISTORTION CHANNEL]

All right, on the bridge pickup.

[J. IRVING-GILES PLAYING THE ESP FX-400, BRIDGE PICKUP ENGAGED, THROUGH THE BOGNER ALCHEMIST'S DISTORTION CHANNEL]

All right, then up again to the neck pickup.

[J. IRVING-GILES PLAYING THE ESP FX-400, NECKPICKUP ENGAGED, THROUGH THE BOGNER ALCHEMIST'S DISTORTION CHANNEL]

All right, so just one of the things I noticed about this guitar, specifically through this amp, and on high-gain amps is that when you're switching the pickups, it doesn't make as wide of a difference as you'd see on a just more versatile guitars that cover a wide range of tone. But if you're looking to do one thing and that pretty much rock faces off, then this guitar will do it both tonally and just with the looks on stage with, let's face it, is very important. I've been J. Irving-Giles and will continue to be J. Irving-Giles and you've been watching Gearwire.Com.