Reviewed by:
f-e-z, on may 07, 2007
0 of 1 people found this review helpful
Price paid: $ 457.5
Purchased from: Sounds Great
Features: My Wolfgang is a 2001 US guitar. It has 22 frets on a single-piece maple neck with a maple fretboard. It's a dark burst quilted and laminated maple top with a maple body. It's a pretty unique body style, with only the follow-up guitars by Peavey and Ernie Ball similar to it. It has a floyd Roas non-floating tremolo system which provides the authentic EVH dives. Also note the D-tuna, a simple device on the trem that pulls out and puts the guitar into drop-D tuning. Snaps back into place for concert pitch. Perfect tuning everytime. There is only one control, that's volume, in true EVH fashion. The pickups are Seymour Duncan Zebra humbuckers, designed and co-built by Eddie to his own specs. There are two of them. The tuners are Grover, and there is a locking bnut for tuning stability. Gator flight case included free. // 9
Sound: I myself play quite a bit of Van Halen, but it is more versatile than expected. It can cover the whole '70s and '80s era of rock, and loves to be cranked with some dirty overdrive. I am currently usin a Epiphone Valve Jnr. 5watt head with a 1X12 Marshall cab, with a Boss distortion and Marshall Guv'nor. The sound is something else. It isn't really more noise than you can handle, even through more powerful setups, and too much noise can be corrected by a simple turn-down. Very full sound courtesy of the body and neck. The gFloyd Rose makes for some very authentic sounds and some unique noises that even a rookie could create on first picking up this guitar. My only criticism of the sound is the clean. It sounds cheap, like something you would expect a £150 guitar to do. // 9
Action, Fit & Finish: The guitar was set up perfectly when I bought it. Whether this was because it was second-hand, I don't know, but the Neck and action are just perfect. The neck is slim, and yet feels solid, and professional. The action is probably as low as it can go without buzzing, but there's never any hint of buzzing when playing, even if you're thrashing the living daylights out of it. The pickups are screwed straight to the body for optimum tone, so there's no room for adjustment, but there's no need to adjust them. Top is perfectly matched, couldn't tell it was 2-pices at first. The bridge is routed fine, and there's not too much or too little tension for those huge dives. The guitar contains no flaws whatsoever, the pickup Switch is noisless and smooth. // 10
Reliability & Durability: Considering Eddie built these to be played by himself Live, they will withstand a beating. Mine has not yet been gigged with, but has had a number of 'incidents' at home involving younger brothers and a guitar-hating mother. e.g. it recently had a Fender acoustic dropped onto it's front, and there's not even a scratch. Hardware is completely solid; Bearing in mind I bought this 2nd hand, and it's already 6 years old, it still looks Brand New. Strap buttons, again, are an EVH design, so they would have to be solid or he'd just send them all back. I would not use it a gig without backup, but only because some of the songs I play require a clean guitar, which is the Wolfgang's downfall. // 9
Impression: This is a good match for the classic rock I tend to play. Not sure how it will cope with other genre's, but I suspect it won't be so awful that you take it back. I have now been playing for almost 5 years, in which time there have been 5 guitars minimum in the house (Fender US Stratocaster, Epiphone Les Paul, Montana acoustic, Fender acoustic, Peavey EVH Wolfgang). I have to say, the Wolfgang is the best guitar to play out of those 5. Albeit, only the Epiphone and the Pavey are my own, the rest my dad's, but the'yre always out and it's good to see how they compare to the Peavey. Dad still retains his Strat is the best guitar he's ever played, but I have my opinion and it's with the Wolfgang. We also own (excluding those mentioned earlier) 2 30watt Fender amps, a HH100watt bass head, a 250watt bass cab, Peavey Milestone series 1 bass, and sea Jim Dunlop crybaby. I wish I had asked for fingertip surgery, cause I was playing this (literally) till my fingers bled, and I still carried on, that's how good it is to play. I would definitely buy this again if it were stolen, after I got out of prison for murdering whoever stole it. If it were lost, then, I would buy it again after much hunting and looking. Ease of play, great overdriven tone, appearance, versatility, and sound. Hate is a strong word, but only the fact it doesn't sound good clean at low volume. I did not compare this to anything else simply because I think it's in a class of it's own. I chose this one because it stood out, and as soon as I played it I thought "Yes, this is the one." I only wish it came with the disclaimer "warning: this guitar will make you sound like EVH, but you'll probably never be as good as him." // 10