ESP Ltd B-50 Bass Guitar

Body - Basswood
Neck - Maple, bolt-on, 34" scale, thin U contour
Nut width - 40mm
Fingerboard - Rosewood, dot inlays, 24 X jumbo frets
Hardware - Chrome, ESP DB-4 bridge
Tuners - ESP tuners
Pickups - ESP LDJ (b) and LDP (n) with ATB-1 (Active Tone Boost)
Controls - 2*volume, 1*tone

A quality, budget priced Bass Guitar from ESP, the B50 has two separate active pickups for a variety of powerful bass sounds, quality black Nickel hardware and cool looks. A perfect combination!
ESP have a reputation for making great rock guitars, and although the B50 is conservative by their standards, it still has plenty to offer you metallers out there.
The headstock is a curvy, tapered shape, gloss black to the front with ESP's LTD logo in silver. The rear is a satin finished Maple, with the ESP logo, serial number and 4, 2-a-side, ESP branded mini bass machine heads, finished in a cool black Nickel.
The long Maple neck has the same satin finsh, giving good and smooth playabilty. It narrow, but pretty round, a C profile, nut width is 39mm.
The 24 fret Rosewood fingerboard is unbound, with small white dot inlays, and ESP's 12th fret Abolone block marker with the model number displayed.
Fretwork is, as ever, excellent, well polished and smooth, as is the board itself, very dark, a tight grain and well buffed up giving a slippery, waxy finish. Action height is about 3mm across the board at the 12th fret.
The neck is bolted onto the Basswood body, joining at the 19th fret on the bass side, 22nd on the treble, the deep cutaway here giving good access to the full 2 octaves.
The mirrored black body itself is not too heavy, and has a bit of chamfering on the top where your right arm moves across it, and on the back, giving a decently comfortable playing position.
The B-50 has 2 separate pickups, both feature ESP's ATB, Active Tone Boost, powered by a 9v battery, that gives good, clear response into the amp. At the neck, the split coil, LDP (precision style), and the bridge is the bar type LDJ (jazz style).
The bridge pickup is quite bright and cheerful, a good clear tone, whereas the split coil neck pickup is a fair bit more moody and deeper, better for rock and metal, no so good for jazz and funk.
The 3 controls and bridge a re all in a cool, black Nickel, very smart, you get a master volume and tone, and pickup blend. It's all finished off very nicely, a pretty impressive guitar for under £250, good pickups, a versatile range of sounds, quality all round, and an excellent name on the headstock. Well recommended.

£239