So chasing big sounds is every bit as much a priority as taking cosmetic risks. Visually speaking, relative restraint is on display in the new LTD M-1001, a streamlined and fast affair with a single Fishman Fluence humbucker and Floyd Rose 1000 that keeps things elemental and understated, at least by ESP standards.
Speed Racer
The Korea-made M-1001 is part of ESP’s LTD line, an affordable series that puts luxurious ESPs in the reach of regular-people players. At $1,399, the LTD M-1001 isn’t exactly a bargain-rack affair. But it’s also not especially expensive for a guitar built this well. Fancy gold appointments are everywhere, from the strap buttons and input jack to the Floyd Rose 1000 double-locking tremolo, Grover tuners, and Fishman Fluence Modern humbucking pickup in the bridge. Against the alder body’s charcoal metallic satin finish, the gold bling is captivating but not too flashy. It’s an attractive and sleek guitar, though I noticed that the satin finish can be prone to catching fingerprints. The guitar also ships with a hardshell case, which is not an inclusion you can take for granted these days.
ESP makes much of the M-1001’s speedy feel, and the guitar’s specs certainly reflect emphasis on the fast-fretting ethos. The bolt-on, 3-piece maple neck has an extra thin U profile and is built around a 25 1/2" scale. The Macassar ebony fretboard is shaped in a very-flattish, bend-friendly 12"–16" compound radius and is home to 24 extra-jumbo stainless steel frets. I love the durability of stainless steel frets and I’m happy to see more manufacturers including them as standard equipment—particularly because a lot of luthiers and techs are still reluctant to work with the harder metal and wider adoption could change that trend.
The M-1001’s quality is easy to perceive, which makes the guitar’s price tag seem especially fair. It feels lively and as fast as advertised, the neck is free from dead spots, and it’s virtually impossible to fret out a big bend. I was also impressed that, even with very low action, the guitar doesn’t sound plinky, floppy, or thin like some low-action/light string setups can. The Floyd Rose bridge is set at the factory to pitch up as well as dive, and I was easily able to pitch up a major 3rd on the G string and stayed in tune. Nor did it mind a lot of very vigorous whammy work.
The Beast Unleashed
The M-1001 uses a single active Fishman Modern bridge pickup and one volume knob. There’s no tone knob. Despite this sparse layout, the guitar offers more tonal possibilities than you’d expect. The volume knob has a push-pull function that lets you select from one of the two Fishman Fluence voices. Voice 1 is razor sharp and articulate with immediate response that makes low, chunky metal riffs pop, and muted power chords have a defined chunk that I could physically feel. True story: I was powering through some Metallica riffs on the M-1001 when my son walked into my studio and asked if I felt the earthquake. I didn’t. I was completely oblivious that a rare New York Metro-area earthquake (the last to rival it in magnitude occurred in 1783) rocked my house because the M-1001 had been rocking me while the earth shook.
Played clean, voice 1’s bright, warm, and full bodied with clarity that brings the pop and detail in tapped phrases to life. Voice 2 is slightly less midrange-y and more responsive to picking nuance. It’s a great voice for solos, and I really got into coaxing overtones by attacking and bending the strings with varying degrees of intensity. For a fairly potent pickup, the Fishman is still dynamic.
If you’ve come to associate ESP guitars with EMG pickups and worry about the inclusion of a Fishman Fluence instead, fear not. The Fishman is equally hellacious. With lots of amp gain slathered on, the M-1001 sustains forever with a very natural sense of bloom. Because the pickups are dead quiet and less prone to squeal and hum, the sustained tones sound prettier too. And even though the M-1001 is marketed as a metal machine, with the guitar volume rolled down a bit I easily tapped into lighter rock and blues tones that sounded rich rather than thin.
The Verdict
One thing I’ve always admired about ESP is that they make the guitars they want to make, rather than trying to create “jack of all trades, master of none” axes. The M-1001 is made specifically for aggressive styles of music, and ESP makes no bones about that. If you need single-coil-type flavors or a neck-pickup sound, ESP has other models that fit the bill. Still, there is sonic versatility lurking beneath the tough exterior. And if you need a simple, lethal metal machine you’re unlikely to find a better axe in this price range.
Lyle Lovett once told me in an interview, “There’s nothing that sounds better to me than an acoustic guitar played into a microphone or into the air in a room.” That’s an understandable sentiment, and since Lovett and other acoustic guitarists rely primarily on natural sustain, many wrestle with adding electronics to the sonic recipe. Undersaddle pickups, DI boxes, and then, at the end of the signal chain, amplifiers, all pose threats to acoustic fidelity, which purists don’t take lightly. Measuring at 8.1" x 10.4" x 9.5" and weighing in at 9.1 pounds, the bantamweight Fishman Loudbox Micro ($299 street), however, is an affordable and compact option that may put their ears and nerves at ease.
Simple, Set, Go!
The Loudbox Micro is very straightforward. It has instrument and mic channels distinguished by 1/4"and XLR inputs respectively. The instrument channel’s controls include gain, low, mid, high, reverb and chorus intensity, and a phase switch. (The chorus also has two preset voices—one softer and subtler, the other pleasant but intense—that are adjusted from either side of noon on the chorus intensity knob.
I’ve been an almost strictly acoustic player for the past 16 years, until recently, when a switch inexplicably flipped and I shifted my gaze to electric. When I plugged my Washburn Bella Tono Elegante (with an L.R. Baggs Anthem SL undersaddle pickup and preamp) into the 40-watt Loudbox Micro, it had been three and a half months since I’d heard it at all (I almost shed a tear). Amplified, my guitar tends to sound pretty clean and uncompromised, and these characteristics were plainly audible through the Loudbox Micro.
The desired effect of an acoustic amp is to plug in, start playing, and say, “Is it on?” With the master volume at noon, gain at 8 o’clock, and the 3-band EQ controls all at noon, the Loudbox Micro pretty much pulled that off, save for the tiniest bit of speaker hiss. The Washburn is a warm guitar with pretty high end presence. Both attributes can be heard clearly through the 5.25" poly cone woofer and the .8" soft dome tweeter. The Fishman preserves that critical brightness in fingerpicking tunes, and keeps string separation intact when strummed. If anything, the tone from the Fishman was a little bit rounder than when unplugged, but only slightly and certainly not so much so that it weighed down the clean tone.
At lower master volume and higher gain levels (in this case at 8 o’clock and 3 o’clock, respectively) I found that the tone got a little too round and some fidelity was lost. With the higher master volume settings, I was able to turn the gain up to 10 o’clock before I heard feedback. At the lower master volume, I could turn the gain to near-maximum levels. If your ears fail you for some reason, you can also consult the clipping light on the console that indicates when the gain is too high.
I enjoyed hearing the reverb convert my decently sized living room into something like a concert hall. The reverb has relatively low diffusion, and I heard it as subtle and distinctive, with enough decay to achieve a large hall effect. With my recent dive into electric guitar, I’ve become a bigger fan of chorus, so I was a little disappointed to discover that I could only really hear much of it in the mix when turned halfway up on the second, more intense preset. That’s a minor drawback. Heavy chorus is not the most commonly sought-out acoustic color. Still, it’s nice to have a strong voice to experiment with.
The Verdict
The Loudbox Micro is a reliable amp that, with the right settings, will keep your acoustic tones authentic and true. Its diminutive size and 40-watt power make it an ideal companion for gigs in small to medium rooms, and its onboard reverb and chorus are a plus. At $299, it might even keep Lyle Lovett happy.
Gibson’s Falcon 20
Gibson Falcon 20
But imagine if that scientist was teleporting a vintage amp, and accidentally left a high-end boutique amplifier at the back of the chamber? The result might be the reimagined Gibson Falcons, which combine the pleasures of old-school tone with the clarity, quality, robust punch—and some of the functionality—of a modern boutique amp.
I love the sound of low-wattage Gibson and Valco amps from the early 1960s, and original Falcons and Skylarks—the latter model inspired the Falcon 5—are classic examples. They have lush midrange, fat, elegant bottom-end, snappy high-string response (with a bit of top-end roll-off), and they break up beautifully. It’s a sound that’s perfect for blues and other rusty-tractor-style roots and rock. Just ask Ry Cooder. But vintage examples can have a little fog in their voices, which amounts to a lack of clarity—especially with brisk, heavy-handed chording. I used to think eliminating that patina would kill the vibe that made those amps special, and I had largely ascribed that patina to aged components and speaker dust, until I heard a mothballed NOS Gibson GA-20 that had the very same qualities. Thankfully, that fog is gone in these two canny birds.
Let's Boogie
The Gibson brand hasn’t appeared on an amp since 2008, although in 2021 the company did acquire Mesa/Boogie. So, it seems only natural that Mesa’s founder Randall Smith and R&D director Doug West would be involved in resurrecting these avians, which are built in Mesa’s Petaluma, California, shop.
The only outward signs of Boogie in these amps’ bloodstreams is the power-scaling toggles on the control panels and the monitor and 4-ohm outs on the rear panels. The Falcon 20 also scales between 1, 5, or 12 watts (or 2, 6, or 15 watts, with 6L6 tubes rather than the 6V6s in our test model), and the Falcon 5 can flip from 3 to 7 watts with its 6V6s, or 4 to 8 with 6L6 replacements. The 20 has a 12" Jensen Blackbird alnico speaker, while the 5 has a 10" Blackbird. They are serious sound generators.
While power-scaling has become common, Smith was a pioneer. “I really enjoyed the Falcon project, as it harkened back to my early days in the late ’60s as a repairman— becoming the first boutique amp builder before that category existed,” Smith told me, when queried about the reissues. “I could try out radical ideas on a small scale, in response to what players were seeking, like separating gain and distortion from playing loudness, and providing switchable power levels to fit different venues.”
Playing through both amps with a Les Paul, a Flying V, a PRS SE Silver Sky, and a custom Zuzu with coil-splitting, it readily became apparent that power-scaling wasn’t Smith and West's only renovation here. With each instrument, notes and chords were tightly focused—even with my raucous Tone Bender clone. Overtones hung in the air, the mids and lows were fat and present (even with the Falcon 5) with just the right amount of sag, and that light, distant fog that colors the originals was supplanted by clean, well-defined tones—all without sacrificing the essence of the classic sound I associate with old, small Gibson combos. The adjectives punchy, clear, beefy, airy, and responsive filled my head every time I plugged in.
The Gauntlet
To challenge these Falcons, I played them against character on gigs, bringing the 20 to a quiet room and the 5 for a loud rock set. For the low volume gig, I left the 20’s power full and turned down the volume. Not an iota of its character was diminished. And the 5 was a barking wonder, cranked up to noon, with its humble 10" speaker maintaining clarity and focus and characterful tones despite the incursions of my drive, fuzz, delay, and modulation pedals—proving it’s far more than a practice amp. I’d play either Falcon anywhere, without reservations. And at home, the amps managed to maintain their essential personalities at all power settings.
Smith offers an explanation: “What I did in resurrecting the Falcons was retain parts of the circuit that contributed to its character while getting creative with my bag of experience to make it a hot rod instead of a reproduction. Doug and I auditioned different capacitors and resistors to get vintage characteristics, but the power and output transformers were custom-designed and refined”—the key to the amps’ sounding both old and new at once.
There’s no mystery to the Falcon’s controls. The 5 is dirt simple, just like original Skylarks. There are two inputs, power and standby toggles, and volume, tone, and reverb dials. On the 20, there’s all of that plus depth and frequency dials for the tremolo, and an included on/off pedal for tremolo and reverb.
The tremolo on the Falcon 20 is a bit too subtle for my taste, but it’s a sore spot for me with the originals, too. If I want to use an effect, I really want to hear it, and unless the depth control is close to noon and higher, it's not terribly effective on the Falcon. That said, there are pleasing, colorful tremolo textures to be found in the upper half of the depth’s range, particularly with frequency settings ranging from 10 o’clock to near maximum. This tremolo isn’t about extremes; it's about mood and vibe. Unfortunately, at high depth settings—say, after 5 o’clock—the pulses get noisy. That’s likely because the tremolo is part of the power section. And that’s an unfortunate trait of vintage examples, too.
The spring reverb on both Falcons, however, is perfect and perfectly vintage to my ears. It’s comparable to that on my own ’64 Supro Tremo-Verb, but with a wider range and glorious depth. It made my guitar sound warm and glowing, or, when I wanted to crank the reverb up, like a flashback from the original psychedelic era or a ’60s Chess session. It sounds almost otherworldly at maximum. I basked in its warmth and weirdness. Smith, again, shares his strategy: “The original Falcons were the very first guitar amps to incorporate reverb and did it in a way that we consider to be unconventional now. One could literally turn up the reverb while keeping the dry guitar signal completely off. But it was new technology at the time, which later evolved. I retained the original input, tremolo, and power amp circuitry, but the reverb was, again, more of a hot-rod approach.”
The Verdict
These small, easy-to-lift combos are loud, clear, and bold, and dialing in great sounds is easy. Dressed up in cream bronco vinyl and plastic handles showing the Gibson name inside them, they transmit old-school vibe as they provide updated takes on classic tones. They‘re also a cheaper, more efficient option than actual vintage Skylarks or Falcons, which fetch high prices these days. For their blend of modern efficiency and reliability, and classic tones, these birds certainly soar.
Gibson Amps Return! Falcon 5 & Falcon 20 Demos | First Look
Heavy Hitter
The Zoar is housed in EQD’s standard enclosure and built around a 6-control layout, which has become a familiar sight on the company’s pedals. Here, they control gain, weight, level, bass, middle, and treble. Input and output jacks flank the center-negative 9V input on the crown of the pedal, and there’s a red LED indicator alongside the silent-action footswitch. Most of the controls are self-explanatory, save, perhaps, for weight, which governs the low-end content in the distortion signal. How you set it up plays a big part in shaping the pedal’s overall voice. So, too, does the traditional-looking 3-band EQ which EarthQuaker configured to feel and respond more like a traditional low-pass filter.
The Zoar can be powered by anything from 9V up to 18V DC, and higher voltages enhance the pedal’s dynamics, articulation, and frequency range. The non-latching, relay-based, true-bypass footswitch—called a “flexi-switch” by EQD—enables either standard on/off operation with a single tap or momentary operation when you press and hold.
Rhymes with Roar
Unlike some distortion pedals—and fuzzes in particular—that are nearly all-or-nothing, the Zoar’s gain knob has a gradual curve that yields many subtler drive colors. From around 3 o’clock to maximum, it’s pretty thick and heavy, and very fuzz-like at the highest settings. This is where the “Audio Grinder” part of the pedal’s name makes the most sense, and where the meanest, dirtiest sounds live. It’s great for sludgy chord work or foundation-rumbling riffing. It’s a heavy tone for sure, but one I can imagine using across indie styles, too.
There is an impressive plurality among the pedal’s tones, thanks to the wide-ranging EQ and the girth delivered by the weight knob. From razory and tight to flabby and bovine, there’s an entire world of high-gain, fuzzy distortion available. The Zoar’s noise levels aren’t bad overall, but noise becomes significant in silent passages if you have the gain maxed.
Reduce the gain, tweak the other controls, and the Zoar becomes appealingly nuanced. Where so many distortion and fuzz pedals are virtually unusable with their gain controls at the minimum, the Zoar behaves a lot like a good low-gain overdrive or a fat, semi-clean boost. Set this way, it lends lots of texture and liveliness to the tone as well as just a little hair that stops short of outright distortion as most of us imagine it. At 11 o’clock, you’ll hear a bit more clipping that’s more within the realm of overdrive than distortion, but you can construct many variations on that, thanks to the bass, middle, treble, and weight controls. More variation still is available via use of the 18V power option. It increases clarity and crispness as well as more detail and greater range in the already respectable touch sensitivity, which might make this mode many players’ favorite powering option.
The Verdict
sparkle as it does to generate all-out distortion and fuzzy textures. There’s a little noise with the gain knob at full tilt, but few medium-high-gain drives escape that fate, and the tones are sweet enough that you probably won’t notice anyway.
Bohlinger Tries the EarthQuaker Devices Zoar | First Look
EarthQuaker Devices Zoar Dynamic Audio Grinder Distortion Pedal
