New Guitar Day: Wolfgang Standard

[IMENATOR]

An unexpected bonus arrived from work, well actually I knoew about it but had totally forgot.Also I had already buy a musical instrument to my wife and son each this year so it was my turn and wanted to get me a rock guitar to play tunes in Eb and C# Drop. I was thinking on the Wolfgang Special but I connected better with the neck of the Stantard when trying them both at the store, the back of the neck and string spacing feels more like the thin Stratocaster neck of my MIM Strats which suites my short fingers better. I dont miss the D-Tuna, I just tune the guitar in drop tuningwith all the fine tunners all the way up, that way if I need to go to standard tuning I jut do a few turns of the low E fine tuner and it goes to standard tuning easily, takes a bit more time but I am ok with that.

The best: The whole neck is just what I needed. Small, smooth, easy bends with big frets and flat radius, easy truss rod adjustment.
The worst: The electroncis inside are cheap, so cheap there was a ground noise issue becasue the union of the conductive tape to the body ground connection in the controls cavity was broken, it is just a stripe of condictive tape that was broken some how. I worried in the begining but It was an easy fic once I found the broken connection but honestly some of the soldering look like cold solder joins so maybe I should change that in the future.

Sounds good enough to enjoy for now, which is good because direct mount pickups and Les Paul cavities is something I don't have any experience with and I would rather start playing for now. The Floyd Rose Special here is not as good as the 1000 series in the Wolfgang Special or my Charvel SoCal so I don't abuse it, so far so good.

The Wolfgang Special is beter quality parts and constructions, no doubt, but for now I wanted a thinner neck like this and I saved some money along the way.

[beaubrummels]

Sounds nice. D-tunas aren't that expensive. Looks like it's just a longer allen screw and spring-loaded retaining collar. I think you could add your own later if needed.

[IMENATOR]

It is been a year so far and here my observations

* Tone wise the pickups are kind of muddy. I am spoiled, I have SDs in my other guitars. I have not dared yet to try to swap pickups because of the cavity and pickup base plate are incompatible with almost any after market pickup. But it is easy to compensate, I always have my Boss GE-7 in the pedal board so I cut some lows and add a touch of 1.6k and it sounds way better. I am still thinking I may want to try different pickups.
* You gotta be careful with the high E string, you can easily slip it out of the fret board because the frets are rounded but there is little space to the edge of the fret board. This is weird and for some reason it did not happen to me while trying the guitar in the store.
* The heel contour makes it much easier to reach the higher frets and do some stretched shapes. Trying the same on the Charvel or the Strat my hand fights a little bit with the angle of the heel. So this is only a benefit for people doing stretched acrobatics at fret 22 while keeping that neck tone. Most people may just go for 24 fret guitars.

[Mincer]

Good to hear the long-term review. These guitars have always intrigued me.

[ErikH]

I’ve been jonesing for a Special. Those are sweet playing guitars.

[IMENATOR]

I’ve been jonesing for a Special. Those are sweet playing guitars.

Yes, the Special is a good guitar, I would put it in-par with my Charvel SoCal 2014 quality wise. The body of the Special is not contoured while the Standard is much like a Strat. The string spacing in the Special is a bit wider, I would say pretty much the same string spacing as my Charvel. If it was not for that thing I mentioned about the high E string the neck of the Standard would be perfect for me.

[Aceman]

I wish I could respond positively to this post, but without pics...

[Tubes]

It is been a year so far and here my observations

* Tone wise the pickups are kind of muddy. I am spoiled, I have SDs in my other guitars. I have not dared yet to try to swap pickups because of the cavity and pickup base plate are incompatible with almost any after market pickup.

Do it!! Those EVH brand pickups are not terrible but they leave a lot to be desired. I put them into my kid's Ibanez RG Mikro and I like to pick that thing up from time to time to shred.

Here's my Wolfgang 'Special Special' that I put a Custom Custom and Pearly Gates in. It's easily of my favorite guitars to play now after replacing the electronics. Modifying the pickups was easy. You can use a pair of diagonal cutters to easily and neatly trim the feet and baseplate to the same shape as the original EVH pickups. Took me less than 5 minutes.

[IMENATOR]

I wish I could respond positively to this post, but without pics...

Some pictures here

[IMENATOR]

Can you make a close up to see how it looks like now cut and mounted? The EVH pickups are mounted using 2 screws, how did you mount the Duncans?

Do it!! Those EVH brand pickups are not terrible but they leave a lot to be desired. I put them into my kid's Ibanez RG Mikro and I like to pick that thing up from time to time to shred.

Here's my Wolfgang 'Special Special' that I put a Custom Custom and Pearly Gates in. It's easily of my favorite guitars to play now after replacing the electronics. Modifying the pickups was easy. You can use a pair of diagonal cutters to easily and neatly trim the feet and baseplate to the same shape as the original EVH pickups. Took me less than 5 minutes.

[Tubes]

Can you make a close up to see how it looks like now cut and mounted? The EVH pickups are mounted using 2 screws, how did you mount the Duncans?

With 2 screws. Here's a pic where you can see it. This was my first time trimming the feet and I used a nibbler which I wouldn't do again. You can make it way cleaner/neater looking with a pair of diagonal cutters like I mentioned.

Make sure you order the standard short leg humbuckers.

[Tubes]

And this is how I wired it if you're curious (50s style)