And There You Have It

[Dave W]

I beg to differ. If you have an artist with such idiosyncratic tuning,

Bill Kelliher (born March 23, 1971) is a musician from Atlanta, Georgia, best known as rhythm ... one whole step, C G C F A D), and another tuning similar to D standard, but with the sixth string tuned down to A (A G C F A D), on the Explorer.


then you either get it right or don't bother. The kids who buy his signature Explorer want it to sound like him.
What he writes does indeed remind me of what Hetfield said about Metallica's slated collaboration with Gibson not working, ESP OTOH has a reputation of bending over backwards to please their endorsers.

Mastodon has quite a reputation and popularity, they are sort of in a no-man's-land of 2nd generation proggish nu-metal, but have their ardent followers and always get good reviews in the scene mags.

I had never heard of him or the band. It's obvious from the article that he had a non-standard tuning, but normally signature guitars leave the factory in standard tuning with the usual string gauges, no matter if the signature artist uses a different tuning; e.g. Fender's SRV Strat comes in standard tuning strung with10s, not tuned to Eb with 13s. That's exactly what I'd expect Gibson to do unless he had a signed agreement with them to do otherwise. I'm guessing that he didn't, and that he was a pain in the ass.

If a buyer expects to be able to drop a step or two and still be able to use Gibson's usual 09-46 strings to drop a step or two, he needs an education. You buy the proper gauge strings and pay a tech to set it up if you don't know how.

Maybe ESP agreed to do it differently. If he's happy with them, that's great.

[uwe]

I once bought an Iceman signature bass consciously strung B E A D (the Sharlee D'Angelo one - fron Scandinavian heavy metallers Arch Enemy) and they had tuned it to E A D G at the factory notwithstanding the outsize strings!    Man, that bass was hard to play coming out of the case    until I realized what had gone wrong! (I changed it to an E A D G set.) Said a lot about Ibanez structural quality that the neck took it without bowing.

Where a player uses such an extreme tuning, not using the correct gauges and not tuning the instrument that way is kind of self-defeating. The guy is a dedicated downtuned rhythm guitarist, he basically plays a baritone Explorer with weird power chords, hard to see who would buy his signature model and play the Free Bird solo with it. It's like someone buying a Lemmy Ric and complaining that it is not really good for slap technique.

[gearHed289]

I once bought an Iceman signature bass consciously strung B E A D (the Sharlee D'Angelo one - fron Scandinavian heavy metallers Arch Enemy) and they had tuned it to E A D G at the factory notwithstanding the outsize strings!

You can't get good help these days.  Doesn't seem like too much to ask.

[uwe]

It made for muscular playing. 

[Dave W]

I'm not up on ESP's signature guitars, but this one (from the latest GC flyer) looks like it's well worth the price. 

[Psycho Bass Guy]

The ESP signature instruments for Metallica have always been astronomically priced. Kirk's signature super Strat was over $5k and Het's Explorer was over $7k in 1991 BEFORE the Black Album made them huge. The ones in catalogs are their "LTD" line, which are made in other Asian mass production facilities outside of Japan.

[uwe]

ESP was never cheap, they don't consider themselves to be a budget or even mid-price brand, those proud sons of the rising sun!

[bassilisk]

Since we're talking about lots of shekels, here's something for your most extravagant desires.....

https://reverb.com/item/5059026-fender-custom-shop-2014-namm-prestige-hermitage-stratocaster-masterbuilt-by-yuriy-shishkov

[Dave W]

Since we're talking about lots of shekels, here's something for your most extravagant desires.....

https://reverb.com/item/5059026-fender-custom-shop-2014-namm-prestige-hermitage-stratocaster-masterbuilt-by-yuriy-shishkov

Thank goodness they're offering free shipping, otherwise I wouldn't be able to afford it.

[gearHed289]

Since we're talking about lots of shekels, here's something for your most extravagant desires.....

https://reverb.com/item/5059026-fender-custom-shop-2014-namm-prestige-hermitage-stratocaster-masterbuilt-by-yuriy-shishkov

Dang, no whammy bar. Pass!

[Basvarken]

Meh, not my color.

[66Atlas]

Needs a tort pick guard and some relic-ing.

[slinkp]

Metal guitarists really have strikingly different taste than classic rock / blues guys, don't they?  Ebony/maple neck plus active EMGs ... I bet that thing is incredibly bright.

[westen44]

Metal guitarists (and vocalists) can also have quite a different interpretation of country. 

[Dave W]

Metal guitarists (and vocalists) can also have quite a different interpretation of country. 

At least it's a real country song, unlike the wannabe-frat boy party rock that passes for country today.