Wolf Hoffmann's tone is probably my favorite pure Metal tone: The low end is beefy, with enormous crunch, and balls. The top end sears and cuts through with lots of bite, but no trebly harshness. He achieves it the old fashioned way: a humbucker in the bridge position and a cranked, EL-34-based Marshall. But unlike many who use this formula, Hoffmann's tone doesn't seem to contain the rock or bluesy elements that most player get through a vintage Marshall. Wolf's tone really is a pure Heavy Metal tone.
Wolf is strongly associated with Gibson Flying V guitars. The reality, however, is that Wolf's stage guitars are most frequently Super Strats (and variants) equipped with black, Floyd Rose trems — he claims the black Floyds introduce less treble harshness. Other than the Gibson Vs, Wolf's stage guitars contain EMG pickups: Model 81 humbuckers in the bridge, and SA single-coils in the middle and neck positions. And instead of using an overdrive pedal while soloing, on his newer guitars, Wolf's likes having the boost at his fingertips via a switch that activates an EMG's on-board preamp.
Wolf Hoffmann's studio choices are somewhat different. He doesn't use the Vs in the studio because he finds them hard to play while sitting. In the studio, Wolf prefers Strats with passive pickups (Duncans) and these guitars are more stock than his stage guitars. Hoffmann has been a devotee of Hamer guitars for years, and would sometimes reach for a carved-topped Hamer to get a Gibsonish sound.
For his early work on Breaker, Restless and Wild, Balls to the Wall, and others, Wolf used a vintage, Superlead 100 Marshall. He toured with this amp all through the early eighties, and later used it just in the studio. But Wolf's sound always had more gain than the typical sound of the late 60s early 70s Marshalls. This was at least partially due to the fact he frequently used an MXR Distortion +. He also uses a good deal of wah, and sometimes you'll hear some phase shifter. Eventually Wolf ran a stereo rig with a subtle effect on it — probably chorus or reverb — to add depth, but the tonal characteristics didn't change much. It was still EL-34-based Marshalls.
One particular Hoffmann trademark sound is that raunchy sound heard on Neon Nights, and Protectors of Terror among others Wolf calls it the "vomiting cow," and says: "It's a Morley Wah, a Mu-tron Octave Divider, a flanger, and maybe an overdrive. Three or four pedals at the same time."
