JAMES HETFIELD New Sig !! => The Vulture !

Updated
JAMES HETFIELD New Sig !! => The Vulture !

Breaking news from NAMM Show guys !! 

Here's the new V from ESP, The VULTURE :

More pics to come I hope, feel free to feed the post with !

 

G.

Big Daddy B

U gonna watch the show tonight 348?

Guiguitarz

I am, and it's 5:30am here 

Big Daddy B

Watching here too but same time zone 

Big Daddy B

The Nos is signed. Contest giveaway? 

Guiguitarz
Big Daddy B wrote:

The Nos is signed. Contest giveaway? 

 

Yep ! Well seen Big D. , Check out our eBay feeds 

ESP 348

I think I just missed it? Lol

I am going into work tonight, I have been sleeping today.

ESP 348

Yep, missed it. Watching a replay of it now before I head off to work. Lol

It was 2-3 hours ago, would have been 2 pm here local time if I was awake to watch it.

http://webcast.livemetallica.com/

ESP 348

At what point does Kirk stopping using the Mummy to avoid ruining it any further?

Look at the wear on the back pickup now!

He should retire it or start using one of his other ones. Took over 10 years to get this Mummy to this point, use another one and wear that one out over the next 10+ years.

It's got some great 'patina' on this Mummy now. Would be great to try and look after it from now on.


Breadfan32

I was surprised when he purposely banged it off the stage after one of his doodles between songs.  

ESP 348
Breadfan32 wrote:

I was surprised when he purposely banged it off the stage after one of his doodles between songs.  

 

Did he?? Lol, I must have missed that.

AK

Wow even the Nosferatu that Kirk is playing seems to be an LTD. I thought his version would be an ESP.

Guiguitarz

He played a hand-signed LTD version with the year writting down on it, He surely putted it into a contest or something during the show.

As I said to Big D. above, we'll should check out on eBay next fews days ...

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Nathan S.

He does have an ESP, must have just been playing the LTD to promote the new model.

ESP 348

You don't have to worry about putting wear on a guitar when you've got squillions. I bet ESP will send him a new one for free.

 

That's the thing, he already has a few Mummy guitars, but this was the first one and sounds "special", so I thought he would like to care for it a little better than it appears he does.

rlhjr34

I literally gasped out loud when I saw him not treat it quite so "Special." LOL I couldn't believe it. 

ESP 348
rlhjr34 wrote:

I literally gasped out loud when I saw him not treat it quite so "Special." LOL I couldn't believe it. 

 

Lol, crazy!

ESP 348
Nathan S. wrote:

He does have an ESP, must have just been playing the LTD to promote the new model.

 

+1

rlhjr34

Well, that new Vulture sure did look amazing playing "Battery" last night. I'm not usually a V kind of guy, but this one, resonates with me. Maybe it's the headstock nod to the Snakebyte? Something about it just makes it stand out more than a typical V for me. 

Mark P.

Kirk has his spare Mummy guitars to look pretty, he plays his favorite one because it feels and sounds the best. As a side note, did anyone notice the pickup change on his red Les Paul? Last year that guitar had regular gold EMG pickups. Now the bridge pickup has a gold-plated EMG with adjustable pole pieces like an EMG-HZ, but it doesn't have the HZ logo. Perhaps a new EMG signature he is testing out? I don't see any EMG products that have the standard non-HZ logo and screw polepieces like this mystery pickup and yet all of his other guitars appeared to have their standard pickups in them. You can see a close up of it on the Metallica tour site from this show. 

Mark P.

I thought so at first, but this mystery pickup has actual screw polepieces, the Het set and 57/66 has flat non-screw polepieces. The only pickups EMG has with these type of polepieces are the HZ series which say EMG-HZ on the covers. The mystery pickup on Kirk's LP just say EMG with the standard logo, not to mention the passive HZ series is not a pop-in replacement for the active pickups he normally uses AND it appears to still have the EMG 60 in the neck that has been in that guitar.

ESP 348

Interesting stuff Mark, I will take a look for it now.

Mark P.

Here is the shot from last night... getting off topic here but I am pretty sure those are screws in the polepieces. A shame that EMG doesn't have their own dedicated forum but I figured a lot of people here are also very knowledgeable about Metallica gear. Back on the original topic, I really liked the Vulture. It is growing on me quickly!

ESP 348

I think you're right Mark, thanks for the pic.

He might be testing some new pickups, who knows.

Don't worry about going OT around here, it's what we do.

Cheers again for the pic, much appreciated.

AK

Or it  has Seymour Duncans (Sh1 Sh4 perhaps? Like the Skolnick signatures)

Mark P.

The EMG logo is visible in the pic, and they are EMG pole pieces, other companies use larger screws for theirs.

Shockers
ESP 348 wrote:

That pic of James is great.

This one of Kirk is gammin!

Perfect timing for Kirk to play it live on stage to help push sales early.

 

Gammin... You a Territorian??

 

Mark P.

I watched it again and I think I like the way the Vulture looks over the Snakebyte. Still, the Eclipse/Truckster is my favorite ESP shape.

Guiguitarz

And what about the custom tailpiece on the James' Vulture ?!

I heard that the one at NAMM was actually James' one....? Someone on that ?

It seems like he putted a "Vulture shaped" tailpiece on his axe, looks cool.

Mark P.

Hard to tell what it is, looks like it was put OVER the tailpiece though, not replacing it. I will add that the Vulture, sadly, seems to be the last nail in the coffin for James and Gibson guitars, at least live. He had some really cool ones and after Gibson dropped the Iron Cross ball back in 2009 they slowly started going away, the last of them being the Flying V's in the spot that the Vulture now occupied last night. At least he still uses his custom ESP Explorer and the Ken Lawrence.

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