EVH Wolfgang USA

Color: Tobacco burst
Body: Basswood core, 1 1/2" thick
Top: AA maple, arched, 1/2" thick
Neck: Quartersawn maple with two graphite reinforcement rods
Fingerboard: AA birdseye maple; compound radius - 12" to 16"
No. of frets: 22; stainless steel, vintage size
Scale length: 25.5"
Nut: Floyd Rose #2 locking nut, 1.625"
Nut width: 1-5/8"
Hardware: Chrome
Tuning keys: EVH-branded Gotoh tuning machines, chrome with pearloid buttons
Bridge: EVH-branded Floyd Rose locking tremolo with EVH D-Tuna
Pickups: Two EVH humbuckers, hard-mounted
Pickup switching: 3-way switch
Controls: Bourns low-friction pots (1x250k, 1x500k)
Case: SKB case with molded stripes

UTILIZATION

I had gassed for this guitar for quite some time, and truthfully I am not even a huge van halen fan. I just happen to think Eddie knows a thing or two about guitars, even though his products are pretty obviously overpriced by a slight margin. The design of the Wolfgang is nothing new and it's truly a love or hate style of guitar. It's definitely not a super strat. The neck is a different beast from the previous guitars EVH has endorsed. It has more of a compound radius thing going on and is especially easy to get your hands around toward the low frets. I can't say it's the best neck I've ever played or anything but it is comfortable.

A lot of the price I think is dictated by the small upgrades that have been put into the guitar like high quality pots and other internal hardware. A lot of high end guitars still need some minor hardware upgrades but admittedly the wolfgang really doesn't need any provided you like the pickups.

SOUNDS

People knock this guitar for a number of reasons. After spending a lot of time with mine I have discovered it really sounds best through a specific few amps. The newer EVH amp is obviously one of them, but it seems to like high gain marshall style amps a lot too. If you're being picky, and I am, you will find that there's not a lot of other amps that this guitar likes. In fact I basically play it through my Splawn quick rod and CAE OD100 and that's it. Kind of a sad fact but what are you gonna do? It also sounds okay through a Soldano SLO. But what guitar doesn't?

It's not a super versatile guitar. It gets the eddie thing down and also does some hair metal stuff. Other than that it's just eh.

OVERALL OPINION

This is a lot of money to spend on a guitar that can admittedly only do a few things really well. I think it's a well made but probably a bit overpriced guitar. Used they are a decent deal. The quality is up there with Jackson USA if that tells you anything. Pretty darn good. It isn't my go to shredder usually. Sometimes I ponder selling it but it's so fun to play panama on, I can't help but keep it. Eddie fans will buy this and for good reason.

These new EVH guitars are pretty cool. They look like the old Peavey models but have more modern features. After his time with Peavey he hooked up with Fender to produce a very similar guitar through the new EVH brand and this is that guitar. This guitar has the round EVH shape that the Peavey version had. It has a basswood body with a maple top. It has a fender scale neck with an ebony fretboard on this model. The neck is maple and has 22 vintage sized stainless steel frets. The fretboard has a compound radius as well. The neck is pretty chunky. The neck has two carbon fiber rods inside of it along with the truss rod to keep it nice and straight. It has an EVH signature Original Floyd Rose with a D-tuner attached so you can easily go to drop tunings on the fly. You get a set of custom voiced EVH humbuckers. The controls are simple with a volume and tone. The pickup toggle on the upper bout is reversed.

UTILIZATION

With this new EVH line of guitars there is more variants in the line. There are some guitars that are more Les Paul like and some with more modern features. The ebony fretboard on this is super smooth and looks great. This with the stainless steel frets means that its like playing on water. EVH swears by stainless steel frets now. He said that before he use to have to refret his main touring guitar every couple weeks. Now with the stainless steel frets he can go a whole tour without refretting it and it doesnt affect tone at all. It has a compound radius fretboard like a Jackson. It goes from 12 inches to 16 inches near the body. With the compound radius you get good comfortable playability with chords on the lower end of the neck and the higher end of the fretboard is nice and flat so you can bend away. The pickup selector switch is reversed. Up is the bridge position and down is the neck position. This is the way EVH likes it.

SOUNDS

The pickups in this guitar are pretty low output PAF like pickups but they have a lot more dynamics and harmonics to them. You can really hear every note you play and they are all clear as a bell. The low output pickups respond well to picking and volume dynamics. Better than most super high output pickups would. The pickups are attached directly to the wood of the guitar not on springs. The direct mounted pickups get more sustain although they are not adjustable. If you have heard any Van Halen you know what this guitar sounds like. The bridge has a crunchy wide open sound. You can really hear every string and every note in the chords you play. The neck is a bit smoother but still has lots of bite. Your tapping lines come through smoothly but with enough bite that you can tell what notes you are playing.

OVERALL OPINION

EVH is doing some pretty cool stuff with Fender and his own company. This guitar has a lot of features that you would only find on custom made boutique guitars. These are features that should be used on more production models. The modern features on this guitar help improve tone and help improve durability. You dot not have to be an EVH fan to appreciate a good guitar. This guitar is solidly built and has tons of tone.

The EVH Wolfgang was marketed as a culmination of 35 years of everything Edward Van Halen learned about guitar building. Certainly it seems to be far more engineered than the Peaveys that it replaced and for the $3,000 street price that it fetches... it had better live up to the name.

The guitar is made under Fender in the good ol' US of A. It features many awesome features that Ed himself specified for the design, such as a basswood body, arched maple top, quartersawn maple neck with vintage SS frets, EVH pickups, EVH bridge with D Tuna, Gotoh tuners, etc. The full list of specs is here:

EVH Wolfgang Electric Guitar Features:
* 1-1/2" basswood back
* 1-2" arched AA maple top
* Bolt-on quartersawn maple neck
* AA birdseye maple fingerboard
* 25-1/2" scale length
* Compound fingerboard radius 12-16"
* 22 vintage-size stainless steel frets
* Floyd Rose R2 locking nut
* 1-5/8" nut width
* Chrome hardware
* EVH-branded Gotoh tuners, chrome with pearloid buttons
* EVH-branded Floyd Rose locking tremolo
* EVH humbuckers (neck and bridge)
* 3-way pickup switch
* Master Volume and Tone Controls
* 2 Bourns low-friction pots 250k/500k
* SKB case with molded stripes

Unique features:
* Hard mount pickups
* Magna Coatings paint
* 2 graphite neck reinforcement rods
* Schaller chrome string retainer
* EVH D-Tuna
* Square jack plate

EVH Wolfgang Electric Guitar Includes:
* SKB Case

UTILIZATION

As I stated in my EVH Wolfgang Special review... I really get along with the Wolfgang design quite well. This guitar is crafted flawlessly and feels like driving a Ferrari. The woods and parts used are top notch and contribute to a guitar that feels and sounds SOLID. It's not a super light guitar by any means, but it's not so heavy that it hurts the back to hold. The upper fret access is great on the Wolfgangs as well... no complaints there.

Getting a good sound out of one of the USA Wolfgangs is near effortless. These guitars are set up and crafted to such demanding standards that they basically play themselves. Ed's picky ear lent itself to the design of the pickups that are loaded in this guitar and to my ears they sound like a more modern, slightly more scooped version of Ed's classic PAF based tone. It will show your mistakes if you're not a good player, but for someone like Ed, it unleashes tone of the Gods.

SOUNDS

I've tried this guitar through various high gain British voiced amps primarily and absolutely loved the tone and feel of it. It's no surprise that it excels at at the classic and modern EVH based tones, but it's also versatile enough to do even some cleaner sounds fairly well. The clean tones from this guitar are fairly woody and pure sounding... great for jazz or some more low-down blues sounds. The drive tones are just stellar. It goes from 0 to 200 in 5 seconds flat. The guitar never loses definition or focus at even the height of gain levels, and that warm spongy character never left the guitar's side... perfect. I liked it mostly for 70s/80s style hard rock and lead stuff ala Van Halen but I found that it also worked very well for some 90s and modern rock riffs, especially in dropped D. Since EVH's tone has gotten steadily more modern over the years, this comes as no surprise to me.

OVERALL OPINION

All in all I think the EVH Wolfgang Standard is just a killer, killer guitar. Sure it's expensive and not really customizable (I spec'd out and ordered a custom Suhr Modern for less than the cost of a new EVH) but for those who want a pure sounding guitar that's the next step in the equation to the brown sound... this may well be the ticket! Try one today won't you?

For the last 15 years or so EVH has been using guitars similar to this. in the mid 90s EVH set out with Peavey to design his perfect guitar. After a few years of trials they came out with the Peavey EVH Wolfgang which looked a lot like this. After his time with Peavey he hooked up with Fender to produce a very similar guitar through the new EVH brand and this is that guitar. This guitar has the round EVH shape that the Peavey version had. It has a basswood body with a maple top. It has a fender scale neck with a birdeye maple fretboard. It has 22 frets and they are vintage Fender sized so they are pretty small. The neck is pretty chunky. The neck has two carbon fiber rods inside of it along with the truss rod to keep it nice and straight, something I wish more guitar makers did. It has an EVH signature Original Floyd Rose with a D-tuner attached so you can easily go to drop tunings on the fly.

UTILIZATION

This guitar is setup to EVH's specs. The neck is pretty big and has a vintage Fender feel along with the small frets. The neck shape is asymmetrical so it fits your hand in a unique way. The action is very low, almost two low on the low strings. There is a bit of buzz with the factory setup. It has a compound radius fretboard like a Jackson. It goes from 12 inches to 16 inches near the body. With the compound radius you get good comfortable playability with chords on the lower end of the neck and the higher end of the fretboard is nice and flat so you can bend away. This guitar has stainless steel frets which are super smooth and will never wear out, another thing more companies need to do. The Floyd Rose is setup to go down only so you cannot pull up on it. It is set up like a Fender tremolo but since its double locking it wont go out of tune on you like a fender tremolo will. One strange thing on this guitar is that the pickup selector switch is reversed. Up is the bridge position and down is the neck position. This is the way EVH likes it. I find it pretty annoying.

SOUNDS

The unfinished neck helps the tone of this guitar. You can really feel the resonance in your hand while you are playing. The low output PAF style EVH pickups give great clarity to the sound in a very old school way. You can really hear every note you play and they are all clear as a bell. The low output pickups respond well to picking and volume dynamics. Better than most super high output pickups would. The pickups are attached directly to the wood of the guitar not on springs, something else I wish more guitar makers would do. Because of this you get better tone but you cannot adjust them and it is a very complex task to route the pickup compartments for a guitar like this. The way the Floyd Rose is setup the bridge plate is resting on the body of the guitar so you do not lose as much vibration in the spring assembly of the tremolo system. This guitar is very well thought out.

OVERALL OPINION

This guitar has a lot of modern features more guitar makers should look at. If they werent stuck in their traditionalist ways more guitars would have great features like carbon fiber neck reinforcement or directly mounted pickups. EVH may be crazy nowadays but he can still design a good guitar. I dont know how many of these features were his idea but overall this is a great guitar with great modern features. If you are looking for a great rock n roll guitar with dynamic pickups and super tone this EVH brand Wolfgang is a good choice. Maybe Fender can start making some Fenders like this.