ESP MH-50 Guitar Review

It's a genuine challenge to find a good quality metal guitar for under three hundred dollars in today's guitar market. Companies are drifting away from giving more options and features to the low budget consumer in favor of making expensive models and signature instruments. The ESP brand is hoping to combat this notion with the ESP MH-50 electric guitar. Let's take a closer look to see if it meets what is expected.

Features: The body of the ESP MH-50 is made of basswood. It's not an extremely high quality build, but it does supply solid tone and sustain while keeping production cost low. There is just one finish available with the guitar, and that is ebony, with a black fretboard and even headstock. The neck is bolted onto the body of the ESP MH-50, and is made of maple wood. It has a rosewood fretboard with twenty four extra jumbo frets and pearloid dot inlays. The hardware on the MH-50, including the tuning heads, locking tremolo bridge, and whammy bar, is all chrome. In fact, the bridge is a licensed Floyd Rose - something you won't find on most guitars in this price range. Electronically, the guitar has two ESP brand humbucker pickups, one volume and one tone control knob, and a three way selector switch.

Playability: No matter what price range, ESP's strengths certainly lie in the playability department. Their guitars cater especially well to metal musicians. For instance, the neck is very thin, and the frets are large to compensate for complicated movements on the high end (solos). Also, the basswood body of the ESP MH-50 is light and has deep cutaways for excellent high fret access. The only problem you may come across is a poor factory setup. Intonation may be off and a few frets might buzz, but some slight adjustments will fix this completely.

Sound: Surprisingly, the house brand ESP humbuckers get the job done well on the distortion end. Most more expensive ESP's come with EMG active pickups, but, honestly, any player looking for a guitar in this price range will most likely be satisfied with the sound of the ESP MH-50.

Overall: For the beginning or intermediate metal musician, the ESP MH-50 is an excellent choice in guitar. For the most part, you get what you pay for with factory setup, foreign make, and hardware. But its overall quality is better than the sum of its parts. You can find the ESP MH-50 in music stores for about $300.