New Wolfgang $3K, Sounds Like ‘Nut Butter’

Full Wolfgang specs below!

It’s almost time for the winter NAMM convention, so details about new gear are starting to come out here and there. One of the hottest items in terms of buzz is of course Edward Van Halen’s new EVH Wolfgang guitar.

What Ed said about it to Guitar World’s fawning staff has previously been covered here at WoodyTone. Not the greatest interview, but nuggets from Ed kept it interesting. The latest interview is by real journalists at USA Today, and it comes with a video which naturally is worth watching – it can’t be embedded here.

A few nuggets from the print part of the interview:

> The MSRP of the new Wolfgang is $3,000, meaning it will hit the street at somewhere above $2,000. That’s a lot of money, but look at what new Fenders and Gibsons are going for – and there’s every possibility this is a much higher-quality guitar (the EVH guitars are made by Fender, though).

> How is the guitar market doing? “‘The guitar is the bellwether for our industry, and things are looking good,’ says NAMM CEO Joe Lamond, noting a 3.8% increase in sales of fretted instruments over the last quarter. Kalamazoo-based Gibson, one of the nation’s oldest manufacturers, enjoyed its best quarter ever at the close of 2008, says CEO Henry Juszkiewicz.” Juszkiewicz also said: “In times of [economic] distress, a guitar can be a relatively inexpensive way to create entertainment at home.” Inexpensive?!

> Even though Ed said the Peavey Wolfgangs he used were the same as the ones sold in stores, USA Today quotes him as saying: “In the past, guitars with my name on them weren’t as good as my own. This is my last attempt to get things done right, and I took it seriously.”

> “Ed’s like a dog,” Matt Bruck, said Van Halen’s longtime guitar tech. “Ed was always saying, ‘It needs to sound more like nut butter.’ ” “Nut butter, yeah,” says Fender’s Chip Ellis with a laugh. “What does that mean?”

> The duo recall listening to the boss wring out pickups for eight months straight. “Ed can even hear the difference between a guitar plugged into a 5-foot cable and a 10-foot cable,” Bruck says. “Nuts.”

> “Sound is a funny thing,” Ed says. “It’s like color to a blind person, I guess. You just feel it instead of seeing it.”

And here are the new Wolfgang’s specs, courtesy of evhgear.com, which was finally updated. It is basswood with a maple top, which everyone assumed but which Guitar World failed to specify, and check out the different values on the pots.

Color
(85) Black (86) Vintage White (90) Tobacco Burst

BODY
Basswood core, 1 1/2” thick; Arched 1/2” thick AA Maple top

NECK
Quartersawn maple

FINGERBOARD
Fingerboard AA birdseye maple Compound radius 12” to 16”

FRETS
22, Stainless steel frets, vintage size

SCALE LENGTH
25.5” (648 mm)

NUT
Floyd Rose® #2 locking nut, 1.625” (41.2 mm)

NUT WIDTH
1 5/8”

HARDWARE
Chrome

TUNING KEYS
EVH-branded Gotoh® tuning machines, chrome w/ pearloid buttons

BRIDGE
EVH-branded Floyd Rose® locking tremolo

PICKUPS
Neck: EVH® humbucking pickup
Bridge: EVH® humbucking pickup

PICKUP SWITCHING
3-way switch

CONTROLS
2 Bourns® low-friction pots (1x250k, 1x500k)

INCL. ACCESSORIES
Case: 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

Category: Edward Van Halen, Fender, Gibson