I received my ESP Eclipse II Silver Sparkle in February 14 of this year, as part of my Les Paul craze. Today, almost 5 months later, I posted it on the mail after selling it out.
It’s a bit sad, because it was a great guitar. Way more comfortable than my previous Gibson Les Paul Studio, which I had back in 2014. The neck felt very comfortable, but it helped me understanding how I prefer flatter neck radiuses. The ESP has a 12” fretboard, which felt a world of difference from my Suhr, which is close at 14”. The ebony fretboard was very smooth, but I missed the stainless steel frets. All that not mentioning the incredible looks of this guitar, shiny all around – one of the main reasons that made me buy it.
This ESP had an EMG 81 in the bridge, and an EMG 85 in the neck. I swapped them, and the guitar sounded much more balanced. The cleans were beautiful, but somewhat overcompressed, it was hard to tweak a proper clean tone for rhythm parts.
This ESP had the D string slot very low, the open D was buzzing. I played my sole gig with this guitar having the nut like that, improvising paper shims inside the nut slots. I replaced this nut with a new bone nut soon after.
In the sole gig I played with it, in March 23, it felt very heavy on my shoulder. Also, it made me do a lot of mistakes, probably because of the different position the Les Paul shape puts you in, and the rounder fretboard radius. Since then, I played no other gig. And I realized I’m not playing it anymore. Saddened, I decided to sell it. And it was gone today. And I must say, despite everything, I miss it.
Now, I hope my Les Paul craze go away.