ESP USA Horizon-II Guitar, Seymour Duncan Sentient & Pegasus, Green Blue Marble

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. The beauty of the beautiful Green Blue Marble finish on this Horizon-II is a sight to behold, and contrasts nicely with the dark hardware and ebony fretboard.

This is a classic Superstrat at its core, with a 25.5" scale length that provides great acoustic brightness and clarity, pairing well with the mahogany body. 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 Sentient & Pegasus pickups. These pickups are contemporary through and through, and were Seymour's attempt to create a passive pickup that had the articulation and output required for progressive rock & metal. And suffice to say, he succeeded. The Sentient is low output similar to the '59 and Jazz Duncan pickups, and sound fantastically clean but the low-end tightness is optimized for drop tunings and high gain. The Pegasus, being Alnico V, has all the shimmer and sparkle of an alnico pickup but with the clarity for high-gain chug. Both sound great in this guitar!

This is a guitar that's built to rock and to make you sound better while doing so. It is primed and ready to let loose!

Details

Crafted at our ESP USA facility in Southern California, the USA Horizon-II gives you a premium-quality version of the ESP Horizon with a wide variety of personalization options. It pairs a carved-topped mahogany body with a set-thru three-piece maple neck at 25.5” scale, thin U-shaped for comfort and speed, and includes an ebony fingerboard with 24 extra-jumbo Jescar stainless steel frets and abalone offset block inlays. Its neck and headstock are all fully bound. Like other ESP USA models, the USA Horizon-II is available with optional flamed maple and quilted maple tops and your choice of dozens of gloss and satin translucent finishes to allow the figured wood grain to be highlighted (and plain maple caps for solid color finishes).

We only use the finest components with ESP USA guitar models, and the USA Horizon-II features Sperzel Trim-Lok tuners, a TonePros locking TOM bridge with a string-thru-body design for excellent sustain and resonance, Dunlop strap locks, and a graphite nut. This one comes with Seymour Duncan pickups. The USA Horizon-II includes a high-quality ESP USA form-fitting hardshell case.

Features

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.

Carved Top w/ Natural Masked Binding: Over a half-inch of beautifully figured maple is carved to our ESP USA Horizon contours, allowing for the natural masked binding to highlight the exquisite top.

Set Thru Neck Joint: ESP USA models that include a set-thru neck joint offer the benefits of classic set-neck construction, but with a modern look and feel that allows for smooth, fast and comfortable access to the guitar’s upper registers.

SEYMOUR DUNCAN PICKUPS

The Pegasus/Sentient medium output humbucker pickup set offers progressive players the ultimate palette of modern metal tones. The Pegasus bridge was originally designed for extended range instruments. However, 6 string players immediately demanded we offer a version to call their own. It incorporates an alnico 5 bar magnet and custom winding specs. The goal was to deliver a warm, balanced, responsive, and lush tone for progressive metal. It’s a harmonically rich pickup with a prominent midrange and a focused low end. The high resonant peak makes for a sparkly top end and an incredible “bloom” on chords in high-gain situations. The responsive and accurate pick attack ensures that you will cut through any live mix and will have tight-tracking transients in a studio environment. Because the Pegasus is a moderate output pickup, it works as well for clean tones as it does for distorted tones.

The Sentient neck delivers a balanced, versatile tone that fits right between the ’59 model and the Jazz neck pickup. You’ll get pristine cleans and fluid leads under high gain. The Sentient is a very articulate vintage output pickup with great dynamic response and a wide harmonic range. It works great for low tunings in all humbucker-equipped guitars.