The ESP Guitar Company

with locking tuners you put the string thru the tuning peg and just turn the locking mech. it's hella easy lol . so after you sting up the guitar the strings are locked and then you use the tuners like you would any other non-floyd guitar .

also you might look into a treml-no , kinda kool

btw...

HIII FOR THE WIN !

If you just want "something" that tunes easily, go for one of these Gibson Robot shits.

If you want a REAL GUITAR however, just take anything that doesn't have a floyd and locking tuners. Eclipses are fawesome, easy to use, and they look and sound fuckin cool !

The Vintage Black Eclipse-II is soooo gorgeous, you have great taste IMO ^^.

Eclipse, nope, won't be hard to tune at all. Locking tuners just means that the tuner locks the string in place so that you don't have to do windings around the post. Supposedly, increased tuning stability. Biggest advantage, tho, are easier string changes.

The H-1001 also has locking tuners, but from another variety. The Korean H-1001 won't probably be as high quality as the Japanese Eclipse, but it's still likely to be a very damn solid guitar.

The H-351NT is definitely the weakest as far as specs go. I don't know where they produce this nowadays, TBH. Probably not Korea, tho, so my guess is quality is a little less than the H-1001 too. Still probably a solid guitar.

Before looking at the guitar options, what is your price range and spec wise with non-trem guitars?

Used ESP M-I perhaps. It should have a smaller neck than the Edwards HIII's. They are probably a couple bucks outside your range. It has only one pickup at the bridge which is pretty much all you need for metal at a budget. I bought my because of the entry price plus the extra thin-u ebony neck (small hands) and non-trem factor. I am tempted to sell mine since I might be relocating to a new city.

I think the Edwards might be good but at $900 CAD budget you cannot buy one new from Japan after everything. Used ones you probably can. Since you are going to play metal. Just swap out the most likely passive bridge pickup to EMG and only use that. I think active and passive bridge/neck pickups can be used together but I am not entirely sure. So I would consider at this point rendering neck pickup useless and only the bridge functions.

As for LTD, I would go for the LTD EC-1000 VB. The guitar is a good choice but again I don't think $900 CAD for a new one is going to happen after everything. I think there is a rumour for a full thickness EC (though still rosewood fingerboard) at NAMM. I am not sure. Might be worthwhile to wait and see. I am currently on a Les Paul custom gas so that Full Thickness might be able to cure it. I would avoid LTD horizon since people like them would likely prefer the Floyd Rose version over the Neck Through Non-Trem.

Axemusic is good. I can vouch for it after buying a guitar from the store.

I do, however, hate how they packed the guitar and the optional insurance fee on the free shipping was crap.

Nice.

I will probably go to Axemusic sometime this month as I am visiting the city right now.

A maple neck through???

Just looking at your spec, you might just build a guitar yourself. I don't know if you find a guitar that has EMGs, small neck and of maple, fix bridge with alder and under $900. Get parts to build a strat/tele bolt-on sure to brighten the sound up.

i don't see what the problem is. just get another hiii

I am not sure what Omi uses. Maybe her blog would say.

I know Miko purposely switched from the stock EMGs to SD Alnico II Pro APH-1 set to use more of the cranked up amp distortion just as the pickups intended to do.

Only used ESP Horizon NT could cost less than a 1k CAD, even that I have never since once or at that price in the Canadian market.

That is the reason why I brought the M-I as I was initially thinking the NT. I got repelled by the price tag plus there are similar LTD models.

If you find out what Omi uses for her pickups, please be sure to tell me. I think she just uses the stock SD ones on her H-III though I have no evidence on that.

I cannot comment on such guitar aside the 12 fret inlay looks lame, since I don't know anything about Schecter. The spec of the guitar seems to match what you need though.

looks cheap though =/

If you are going for cheap, why not a LTD? I have seen more Schecter in store than LTD. In fact, I have never seen any ESP/LTD in store ever in Canada. Maybe it is worthy to get one at a budget that fits you.

There are NT Alder body guitars but they are not available in US market. Check the ESP export catalogue. I know there is one in the form of a Horizon.