ESP USA Eclipse Guitar, Alnico II Pros, Black Limba, Open-Grain Redwood Burl Top

Player's Perspective

It's always a treat to get a beautiful USA-made ESP into the shop. Built in ESP's USA factory right here in California, these instruments are top-of-the-line instruments on par with their renowned, artisan-made Japanese Custom Shop guitars. This one is very special, and well-outside the normal specs of a typical USA Eclipse.

Immediately catching your eye is that gorgeous open grain redwood burl top, and it's absolutely to die for! It's simply stunning and feels really nice, too! To complement that, the back and neck are made out of Black Limba, a body wood usually only found on custom shop instruments of this caliber. The figuring is nicely accentuated, and the dark, natural colors really tie the back and the front of the guitar together well. Black limba was used frequently in vintage instruments. It's harder to work with than mahogany, which is why it has become harder to find and is now highly sought after. 

You can experience how simply incredible this axe is before you even plug it in. Just like your favorite vintage 24.75" singlecut guitar, the neck and body resonate and sustain for days. The neck profile is very comfortable and just thick enough in all the right places, blending the best of vintage specification with ESP's contemporary design mentality. If you're a big bender, you're going to love the way this guitar plays. All kinds of legato can be pulled off with minimal effort and expressive vibrato is always at your fingertips.

This guitar features Seymour Duncan Alnico II Pro pickups. Taking the "PAF"-style humbucker a step further, these have a very vocal quality to them and absolutely sing both clean and distorted. They'll clean up nicely with a nice top-end shimmer, but can also handle gain very well, from blues, jazz, and R&B all the way up to the heaviest modern rock, something vintage humbuckers sometimes struggle to do. You may have heard them at work on Guns N' Roses records - legendary axeman Slash has been the #1 user of these pickups, and he happens to use them in a very similar instrument to this Eclipse. We think these 'pups sound pretty good there!

When high-end electronics meet superb construction and high-quality tonewoods, the result is something that's going to feel great, look great, and sound even better. That's ESP USA.

Details

Crafted at our ESP USA facility in Southern California, the USA Eclipse is the classic single-cutaway shape that’s been at the heart of many of music’s greatest moments. The USA Eclipse offers a full thickness (60mm / 2 3/8”), a beautiful black limba body with a rare redwood burl top to allow the figured wood grain and top pores to be highlighted. This guitar offers a smooth set-thru construction at a classic 24.75” scale, with a three-piece thin U-shaped black limba neck and an ebony fingerboard with 22 extra-jumbo Jescar stainless steel frets and mother-of-pearl split-flag inlays.

We chose the very best components available for the USA Eclipse, including Sperzel Trim-Lok tuners, TonePros locking TOM bridge and tailpiece, Schaller strap locks, and a bone nut. Pickups for this USA Eclipse include a set of world-class Seymour Duncan Alnico Pro II humbuckers, with a push-pull coil-split control on the tone knob. The USA Eclipse includes a high-quality ESP USA form-fitting hardshell case.

Graphite Neck Reinforcement Bars

Get maximum strength and stability from your guitar’s neck, with higher long-term reliability. All ESP USA models are made with two high-strength bars of carbon fiber.

Weight Relief Chambering

The ESP USA Eclipse offers a traditional full-thickness body but is strategically chambered so the weight of the guitar remains comfortable and noticeably lighter than most classic single-cut body style guitars.

Full Thickness Carved Top w/ Natural Masked Binding

Over a half-inch of beautifully figured open-grain mahogany is carved to our ESP USA Eclipse contours, allowing for the natural masked binding to highlight the exquisite top.