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Published on 08/10/11 at 22:47The 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?
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?