Not that surprising, but I seem to be following a lot of EVH avenues at the moment. Anyway, I found this article and thought that it was really interesting - The evolution of his Wolfgang guitar, from Ernie Ball (forgot about that!) to Peavey, to his own 'Fender' brand (I didn't even realise that it was Fender!)
https://reverb.com/news/the-story-of-eddie-van-halens-wolfgang-evh-guitarIt's a guitar that I have never liked the look of, but I can now appreciate the amount of thought that went into it. It is a genuine long-term honing of a guitarists ideal guitar for sure, which is what a signature guitar should be (take note Mark Knopfler!). I say that I've never liked it, but I think that I'm more into it now, especially since seeing this lovely aged one below. I think that part of my dislike was that it replaced the awesome Frankenstein guitar look. I LOVED that hacked up, thrown together, abused look of the old days, and it just seemed a bit lame (to me at the time) to swap to a boring, off the shelf guitar.
Anyway, it's an interesting read.
Comments
The mention of a two volume pots, no tone layout reminds me of an acquaintance who had that modification performed on his Wolfgang. One local tech made the changes. About six months later, I had the dubious pleasure of reversing them.
I still have my modified Sterling AX40. The combination of Duncan Live Wire Classic II pickups and a midrange boost makes perfect sense of the Tele-Meets-LP concept.
Jim made the body shape somewhat more asymmetrical, which meant the neck could be pushed a little deeper into the body, in turn improving balance. "It didn't neck-dive as much as the Music Man, because the tip of the horn was closer to the 12th fret," he says. "And because the neck was deeper into the body, when you're reaching for an open E or an F chord, it didn't feel as far out. It almost felt like a shorter-scale guitar, but it was still a full twenty-five-and-a-half."
I never had a Music Man EVH, but I had an Axis Sport. I never found it neck heavy and the nut end of the neck certainly didn't feel "far out" like an SG. If anything, the whole guitar, top-to-tail, felt very compact and a bit "squashed", as I recall it.
Obviously much more to a guitar than just the visuals, and of course the guy made it talk...