The ESP Guitar Company

As most ESP fans are aware, for many years we almost exclusively used only three brands of pickups in our guitars: our own ESP Designed pickups, Seymour Duncan for our higher-end passive pickup models, and EMG for our best active pickup models. Pickups are probably the most subjective aspects of an electric guitar or bass; what's perfect for one musician might be awful for another one. If you think about it, pickups are the microphone of a guitar or bass, and just like microphones, what might be great on one voice in one style or genre might not work at all for another singer in a different style. In this regard, there is no right or wrong when it comes to pickup selection. There's only what's right or wrong for you.

That's why we were very interested when Fishman Music introduced a new series of electric guitar pickups that seemed to take a different approach to the design of the pickup itself. We'd worked with Fishman previously, using their electronics on a number of our guitars and basses like the LTD TL Series. They've been a leader for acoustic preamp and pickup design for many years. Even so, we knew that for consideration in use in our electric models, their new pickup would have to really blow us away.

Enter the Fluence
"Blow us away" is exactly what Fishman did with the Fluence pickup series. Without delving into too much detail, pickups have been designed using similar techniques going back to the 1930s. Fishman took a completely different approach by not using a wire-wound design. The result is a super-quiet pickup that doesn't have the sacrifice in tone or dynamics that are common with other active pickups.

Equally impressive is the fact that Fluence pickups are true multi-voice. It's different than coil tapping or switching; you can get a wide range of different voices using one set of pickups.

It Started with the Artists
ESP has always been a company that listened carefully to the needs of our family of endorsed artists. After all, who knows the tones that people want better than the world's most influential players? When a number of our Signature Series musicians like Stephen Carpenter (Deftones), Brian "Head" Welch (Korn), Will Adler (Lamb of God), Mille Petrozza (Kreator) and others came to us to see if we'd use Fluence pickups in their signature guitars, we knew it was time to take a closer look at these pickups. For 2018, we started offering Fluence pickups in a number of our standard non-Signature models as well.

EC-1000 Fluence (Tiger Eye) and EC-1000S Fluence
Our LTD EC-1000 Series seemed to be a great place to start offering Fluence pickups. They are among our most popular guitars, and people are already well acquainted with the versions of EC-1000s that offer Seymour Duncan and EMG pickups.

The EC-1000 Fluence Tiger Eye is a stunning guitar before you even get to hear its outstanding tone, with its classic single-cutaway shape and a great-looking flamed maple top in Tiger Eye finish. But once you plug it in, the star of the show will be the array of tones available from its Fishman Fluence Modern Humbucker set, which includes the alnico version in the neck and the ceramic version in the bridge. The pickups' multiple voicing is accessed with a push-pull control on the tone knob.

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With the EC-1000S Fluence, you get a more diabolical look with a gloss Black finish, black hardware, and black pickup covers on its set of Fishman Fluence Modern Humbuckers. Both of these models offer set-thru construction for smooth and fast access to the highest frets.

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Both of these excellent new models are available now at your authorized ESP dealer. Contact them today and find out more about two great guitars that make use of these innovative, great-sounding Fluence pickups!