Arts Entertainments

The history of the Wolfgang guitar

Posted by admin

After nearly 35 years of playing and studying the inner workings of literally thousands of electric guitars, Eddie Van Halen, lead guitarist and co-founder of the rock band Van Halen, had finally developed what many consider to be the best rock-n-roll. Instrument: Fender’s new Wolfgang guitar.

The Wolfgang Guitar, named after Eddie’s son and the band’s newest bassist, Wolfgang Van Halen, this guitar has reached the zenith in solid body electric guitar design. In 2004, Eddie Van Halen ended his long collaboration with Peavey Electronics, who were the original manufacturers of the 5150 EVH amplifiers and the Peavey Wolfgang and Wolfgang Special guitars.

Later, in 2006, Eddie approached master designer and builder Chip Ellis at Fender to recreate a new and improved Wolfgang. After reviewing the older models, Ellis created a prototype with an alder wood body and a bow on top. Alder wood has been used as the main wood in many solid-body electrical systems since the Stratos of the 1950s.

Eddie, after testing it, requested that the body be made of basswood with a five-piece bound maple top. Basswood is a lighter wood than an alder and generally produces bodies that weigh less than 4 pounds and are easy to play even after long studio sessions and concerts. While basswood guitars are sometimes prone to knocks, dents and nicks due to the nature of wood are still prized for their warm, full tones.

The Wolfgang guitar is also unique in the development of its pickups and tuning system. All pickups were custom designed for this instrument, by leading Fender engineer, Seiki Goto. Rigid mount humbucker pickups are manufactured in-house to Eddie’s exacting specifications.

This new Fender uses custom designed very low-friction Bourns potentiometers to control volume and tone, along with an EVH D-Tuna trademarked Floyd Rose tremolo unit. The EVH D-Tuna is a drop D tuning system designed to work especially with double locking tremolo like this exclusive Floyd Rose.

This system allows you to be in Drop D on the fly without having to change or tune your guitar on stage or during a studio session. The world-famous Floyd Rose bridge unit with its double-locking tremolo arm, tremolo bar, or strike bar was designed exclusively for the Fender Wolfgang guitar.

The quarter-cut maple neck is reinforced with 2 graphite rods and has 22 vintage stainless steel frets that are nearly indestructible and extremely resistant to wear points, nicks, and offer the guitarist a very smooth feel and bending action. that does not wear out.

To prove his “road worthiness”, Eddie took 3 prototype Wolfgang guitars on tour with him in 2007 during Van Halen’s reunion tour with former singer David Lee Roth, Alex Van Halen, Eddie and their son Wolfgang Van. Halen.

Tested over 6 grueling months of concerts, trials and trial and error, the final version of the new Fender Wolfgang guitar went into production in March 2008. Since then, sales of this latest guitar creation from a major ” Guitar Gods “have been stable. late twentieth century.

Now that you know a little more about Fender Wolfgang guitars, you can understand why rockers and collectors alike are interested in adding this instrument to their personal group of guitars.

Leave A Comment