Quality Would you consider this product to be made well? How dependable? very well made... surprising out of the box... but I have never had an issue with esp ltd guitars... General Your general opinion of this product. I needed a great guitar with floyd rose... and the kamikaze was it... just love this guitar Playability and Feel How does it feel, Heavy, Fast, Chunky? How was the neck? Are the controls easy to get to while playing? perfect! Tone Bright and snappy? Dark and smooth? Were the pickups hot, mellow, thick, thin? The stock pickups are great for any beginner... no issues there. Finish How did the stain or paint job look? perfect Action How was the action out of the box? had to adjust it a little... but other than that very good.

Quality Would you consider this product to be made well? How dependable? Very good quality on this guitar. I think that the graphics are great and I remember George playing this style guitar back in the day and thinking how cool it was! Reliability How has it stood up over time? So far so good, locking tremolo is awesome, it is the only floyd licensed guitar I have and it bends great up and down with no loss of tuning or intonation. General Your general opinion of this product. Overall this guitar is great and the build quality is very good for a production guitar. Playability and Feel How does it feel, Heavy, Fast, Chunky? How was the neck? Are the controls easy to get to while playing? Neck is nice and smooth and fast the way I like it. Plays great and feels great in the hands, not too heavy like I thought it would be. Tone Bright and snappy? Dark and smooth? Were the pickups hot, mellow, thick, thin? The neck pickup is a little weak for me but that is a common problem even on my variax. I just need to replace the unit with a Dimarzio and all will be good. Finish How did the stain or paint job look? Cool graphics and finish looks great with no dings or marks from the factory. Action How was the action out of the box? Action was a little high out of the box, I like to set my action to at least .010 or lower if I can get it there and not have buzzing or fret out problems.

Quality Would you consider this product to be made well? How dependable? The ESP LTD Kamakazi is crafted very well. The body, neck and hardware are good quality, and the electronics are fair. Mine had some flaws though, there were some hammer marks on the sides of the fretboard from when they installed the frets, and the 5th fret was cut a little too short, so when I do a pull-off with the high E string, it tends to slip off the fret. Also the fret edges on the treble side were a little rough, I had to sand most of them, to smooth them out. I will probably have the bad fret taken out and reset (pushed down further) since low E string pull-offs are down not up, so that should fix my high E pull-off trouble. The hammer dents bug me but they are not affecting the way my hand reacts on the neck. I hope your Kamakazi does not come with these flaws. Reliability How has it stood up over time? I have had the LTD Kamakazi for a month now, and only played it in the house, no gigging with it yet, but it seems to stay in tune pretty well, and has not needed any adjustments. Be careful though! The colored design on the body will scratch very easily, so make sure your fingernails are cut short on your picking hand or you will put swirlmark scratches into the gloss with your picking strokes like I did, they're not from the pick, they're from my fingernails, but I buffed them out, so they are hardly visible. You might also have to do some work to the Floyd Rose (see below) General Your general opinion of this product. The LTD Kamakazi definitely feels like an 80's Heavy Metal music guitar. My age is 48, and I still have three floyd rose guitars I bought when I was 20 years old (two of the first Kramers and one of the first Ibanez) and the Kamakazi looks very similar to all ofr them. The design on the body will certainly make you get noticed when you play this guitar on-stage, because it is very different as compared to just a solid color guitar. One thing I don't like though is the placement of the giant postage stamp kamakazi pilot's face. It would of been much better if they would of put it between the two pickups, instead of on the top of the guitar, because it throws the camoflauge pattern off balance. But I also think it would of been better to not put the picture of the pilot at all, because this guitar would of looked just fine with only the camoflauge pattern and nothing else. The pilot and the Kanji symbols, and the five bombs on it are like unsightly tattoos that ruin its beauty. Playability and Feel How does it feel, Heavy, Fast, Chunky? How was the neck? Are the controls easy to get to while playing? The Kamakazi was certainly designed for shreddin' and chunkin', and dive-bombing. If you have a high level of playing skill, it will be very easy to play fast solos and move bar chords and power chords quickly on the neck. This guitar is a bit heavy to hold, but after a week or so you'll get used to it. When you unpack it though, and hold it for the first time it will have a stiff feel to it, you'll have to break it in for about a month; you know, get your sweat in the fingerboard and put some dirt on the strings, hug it tightly and dive-bomb the heck out of the floyd and you will see, it will feel good in your hands. It will feel balanced and play just right. The tuning keys on the headstock are of good quality, they turn smoothly and stay tight, but if there is a locking nut why worry about tuning keys right? The Kamakazi's body is thick and heavy, but it makes the guitar sustain better and sound fuller. Tone Bright and snappy? Dark and smooth? Were the pickups hot, mellow, thick, thin? The Kamakazi has no tone controls, just one push pull knob that controls volume and pickup selection. You can't use both pickups at the same time, only one or the other, but that's part of the beauty of this guitar, the bridge humbucker has a tone like if you turn the treble all the way up, and the neck single coil sounds a bit warmer, you can get a good jazz sound with it, if you like or a strat sound, but the bridge pickup is made for playing loud through a high gain amp on distortion. I tried the Kamakazi through the distortion channel of five of my favorite 100 watt heads that I own: Marshall JCM 800, Peavey JSX signature, Peavey Windsor, Engl Powerball, and Soldano SLO, running each of them through my Marshall 4 12 1960 A cabinet, and heavy metal music never sounded so good! I'm sorry I own all these expensive amp heads, but I'm wealthy, what can I say? I even tried some country music through my roland jazz chorus with the neck pickup and it sounded pretty good! Finish How did the stain or paint job look? The guitar is not painted, but it is more like a giant decal with a gloss over it, and like I said before it scratches very easily. This is certainly 1980's metal era design, and it will be a very "different" and collectable guitar for you. This was designed for George Lynch of Dokken, and it certainly looks nicer than Eddie V. Halen's white and red striped guitar. Also the back of the neck is finished very smooth and slippery, it is a c shape radius and is very fast for lead solos. Action How was the action out of the box? Upon unpacking the Kamakazi, it was set up pretty nicely, string height, truss rod and pickup height. But the floyd rose was kind of hard to push down and the fine tuning screws a little hard to turn. (solution) go to the locksmith shop and buy a little bottle of graphite powder, and put some on the pivot posts where the blade rides, and then remove the fine tuning screws one at a time and dip them in the powder and screw each one back into the bridge, now try the floyd rose and you will see the difference! The guitar comes strung with 9's, if you change to 10's you will have to raise the action a bit. Also the whammy bar is a little longer and heavier then an average floyd bar, but this tends to give better control on divebombs and fluttering. And the deep cavity angled guitar cord jack is a nice touch.

Quality Would you consider this product to be made well? How dependable? Here is my only issue and it is minor if you have been playing guitar for a while,if I was a newb I might be mad.When I unpacked the guitar one of the locking nut screws was stripped,and it has fret buzz on 2 strings at the 3rd fret.Lucking I keep tons of locking nut screws around. Reliability How has it stood up over time? Too early to tell General Your general opinion of this product. I've been a huge fan of George Lynch for almost 30 years.When this product came out I had to have it and figured for 500 bucks it was probably gonna be a garbage backup only guitar.I am glad to say it totally exceeded my expectations!!. Playability and Feel How does it feel, Heavy, Fast, Chunky? How was the neck? Are the controls easy to get to while playing? Very fast guitar Tone Bright and snappy? Dark and smooth? Were the pickups hot, mellow, thick, thin? Again the humbucker tone is awesome,the single coil is mediocre. Finish How did the stain or paint job look? Action How was the action out of the box? Killer action out of the box!! Shredding machine!!

Quality Would you consider this product to be made well? How dependable? SOLID, put together very well the finish is awesome one it Reliability How has it stood up over time? General Your general opinion of this product. This guitar is awesome for the money one of the best deals on AMS. Playability and Feel How does it feel, Heavy, Fast, Chunky? How was the neck? Are the controls easy to get to while playing? Tone Bright and snappy? Dark and smooth? Were the pickups hot, mellow, thick, thin? thick, rich sounding Finish How did the stain or paint job look? looks amazing, JUST LIKE THE FULL ON VERSION HE PLAYS Action How was the action out of the box? i made a few minor tweaks and the action is excellent. no buss or dead sounding frets just great.