ESP LTD MH-1000FR vs ESP LTD H-351NT STBK

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Wedding Crasher

Hi. A small backstory. When i graduated highschool, i wanted to get an electric in order to play the genres i like , which is metal and hard rock. Unfortunately, my dad refused to get me even a cheap electric as a graduation gift, and ended up buying me a 100$ acoustic ( he insisted that i start on an acoustic even though he doesn't know jack shit about music, he wouldn't even let me buy an electric from my own savings). After 1 year of playing i got demotivated and quit as i wasn't able to play the music i wanted. Fast forward 5 years, I have my full time job living abroad, and able to buy any guitar i wanted. Which brings me to the main issue here:

I'am planning to buy my dream guitar, the ESP LTD MH-1000FR. But my friend told me that tuning is gonna be a pain in the ass due to the floyd rose. And there's no music store in my radius ( maybe even in the whole country) to help me tune or restring my guitar in case i got a floyd rose. So i checked the website I'm buying from (thomann) and found the closest available ltd model to be the ESP LTD H-351NT STBK. However i read several places that its chinese made with lower quality and besides i don't like the headstock shape. The MH1000 looks much much more elegant. Will a floyd rose be really hard for a beginner? even if i followed guides online?

Oh and one more thing . I wanna buy a preamp which works with one of those guitars.

 

Boss GT-001

Boss ME-80

Line6 Pod HD500X(worth the 500 euros?)

Vox ToneLab EX

Boss GT-100

Digitech RP 1000

Zoom G5

Laney IRT-Pulse

Boss ME-25

I want something that sounds awesome.I don't want anything too much software related (besides recording), which is i just plug in and start jamming without the use of a laptop. I dont have a local store around to try them out in person thats why iam shopping for them online.

Thanks

shupe13

First off buy the guitar you want the most. I'm guessing the 1000? Floyds are simple to use, set up, etc IF you know what you're doing! 

Youtube can be your best friend.

Wedding Crasher

Iam gonna buy everthing at the same time justto save on shipping :/

Pushead

I agree with Shupe, buy the guitar you really want.  The main downside to a Floyd equipped guitar is that it's a pain to quickly change tunings.
For the preamp, I'd listen to clips on YouTube to find the one that sounds best to you.  From my personal experience the Line6 HD500 is probably the better of that group, but I've never spent quality time with any of those.  All of them will have some level of dialing through menus and tweaking if you'd like to change things, but they should all have presets that will get you started.

You will need an amplifier to use with all of those preamps if you want to hear it out loud.  I think you could use headphones with most of them, though.

Matt in Seattle

If you want a trem, get a trem.  Don't let these people who are afraid of Floyds play the role of your father on this guitar purchase, preventing you from getting what you want.

If you get anything less than an MH-1000 you will get the Floyd Rose Special which is made of cheaper metal.
The MH-1000 has the Pro 1000 series or whatever it is called, which is made in Korea out of good metal.

I just bought a 2008 MH-400 off of ebay for $360- and it does have the crappy Floyd, but I'm not having any trouble with it.
I haven't changed strings yet, but very good advice I read online is to replace one string at a time and do not remove all the strings at once.
Also, do not over tighten any of the screws (such as the ones that hold the strings in). Don't overdo it.

Also, you CAN get a hardtail MH-1000 model with the headstock that you (and I) like.  You don't have to get an H model to get a hard tail.

The only problem with ESP guitars is the sterile, soul-less EMG pickups (particularly if using Celestion Vintage 30 speakers).
HOWEVER, this is just MY personal preference based on the gear I am using- and soldano amps and Vintage 30 speakers are pretty bright.

But ESP caters to the "metal" market so that's what we get.  And Extra Jumbo frets.  Make sure you try out an ESP to make sure the big wide frets don't annoy you when playing up above the 15th fret where they get crammed so close together...

I thought I would hate them after playing a few in stores, but, no other guitar had the contoured heel and the 42mm nut width I wanted so I bought it, knowing I could change the frets.  
After a week or two of playing it, they don't actually bother me now, surprisingly.

Sorry, I can't contribute anything helpful about the effects units/preamps- the only time I tried modeling amps was in 1999 when I was new to guitar- and they were dreadful back then.  I got my soldano astroverb in 2002 and haven't needed anything else (other than a Fender Blues Jr. for my clean amp).

And if you do want to occasionally play in different tunings (like Drop D) just buy a $300 guitar to use solely for that (I'm using a Hamer SATF I bought off of hellomusic a couple years ago for $178... there is one new one on ebay for $300- but it is that uncomfortable PRS body contour)- or buy something for your floyd called a D-tuna.

Pushead

^Says don't let people scare you about Floyd trems then posts 2 paragraphs scaring you about different models of Floyd trems.

Keith M.

Change the strings 'one at a time' and properly stretch them before moving to the next one.
Then you should be good to go.

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