ESP Iron Cross vs ESP Vulture

The ESP Iron Cross and the ESP Vulture are both electric guitars sharing tight, mid-forward, transparent. The ESP Iron Cross leans warm and sustaining.

Similarity
citedBlended from circuit-archetype lineage, dynamic feel, tone-signal overlap and tone-vector distance — the tone vector itself is derived from editorial description text, not a measured acoustic signal, so this reflects how similarly the catalog copy describes the two, not a lab measurement. Shown only within a gear class, and only where there's enough evidence to be meaningful.

59% — moderately similar

Shared genres
citedGenres both listings are associated with.
  • Heavy Metal
  • Metal
Shared tone character
citedDerived from overlapping tonal signals across both listings.
  • tight
  • mid-forward
  • transparent

ESP Iron Cross

Esp · electric guitar

ESP Vulture

Esp · electric guitar

Citation fame
citedCitation/mention fame — how often this gear is cited across artist rigs and gear discussion.
0%
0%
Price

$1418.53via Reverb

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Description

The ESP Iron Cross is a James Hetfield signature guitar based on his personal custom design, a Les Paul-style single-cutaway with a set mahogany body and maple cap, three-piece mahogany neck, ebony fingerboard and an iron cross inlay at the twelfth fret. It is loaded with his EMG JH Het Set active humbuckers and a TonePros locking bridge. The pickups deliver the brutal, tight, high-output EMG metal voice Hetfield is known for, with crisp highs, tight bass and a pronounced midrange, but add an old-school clarity from their passive-style visible pole pieces. Reviewers note it handles clean, blues and even jazz tones better than most metal guitars. It is tied to heavy metal and thrash.

The ESP Vulture is James Hetfield's most recent signature model, a distinctive V-shaped mahogany guitar with bevels and hooks echoing the Metallica logo, built in the ESP Custom Shop in Japan and matching the guitar he uses live and in the studio. It carries his EMG JH Het Set active pickups, discrete volume controls per pickup, Gotoh locking tuners and a TonePros locking bridge. Through an American-voiced high-gain amp with 6L6 tubes it produces an instantly familiar tight chug, especially on palm-muted bridge-pickup riffing in the style of Master of Puppets and Creeping Death. It is firmly a heavy metal and thrash instrument.

Genres
citedGenres this gear is documented as being used in.
  • Blues
  • Jazz
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Tonal lean
  • warm
  • sustaining
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ESP Iron Cross vs ESP Vulture — Shared Character & Differences — NodeTone