CHARVEL HENRIK DANHAGE SIGNATURE PROMOD SO-CAL STYLE 1

review
CHARVEL & EVH
94
GUITARIST FEBRUARY 2021
treble bleed is certainly useful, allowing
you to clean up heavier gains. However, to
approach that Area 67 sound of the Charvel
you’d need some coil splits, which, to be
honest, would probably be very useful here
when we have this much wire involved.
Verdict
We like our pigeonholes and the inclusion
of a Floyd Rose vibrato instantly suggests a
genre-specific instrument. And, yes, both
of these allow you to rip it up, warble and
waggle in spades. But just studying a spec
sheet doesn’t tell anywhere near the full
story. Firstly, both are exceptionally stable
in terms of tuning, even with some heavy
vibrato use. They’re also great weights and,
with a couple of minor exceptions, are 100
per cent performance-ready. Plus, in the
same way someone such as Mike Stern uses
seemingly inappropriate hot pickups on his
Yamaha signature to produce big fat and
rounded cleans, the EVH does exactly that
here. In short, to pigeonhole these as simply
metal guitars is really missing the point.
Neither is a particularly cheap date, and
neither comes with even a gigbag. But these
models possess a huge amount of mojo,
both for their intended purposes and a
lot more besides. From his early beat-up
hot-rod style to the much more refined and
considered Wolfgang, we have an awful lot
to thank Eddie for.
PROS Simply a great guitar
design: lightweight, superb neck
construction and feel, excellent
tuning stability, and big sounds
CONS No gigbag
PROS Great example of an 80s-style
hot-rod ‘SuperStrat’; great weight
and neck feel; contrasting pickups
CONS Just one reliced colour;
no gigbag supplied
98
EVH LIMITED
EDITION WOLFGANG
SPECIAL SASSAFRAS
PRICE: £1,089
ORIGIN: Mexico
TYPE: Double-cutaway arched top
solidbody
BODY: Sassafras
NECK: Baked maple, graphite
reinforced, Wolfgang profi le, bolt-on
SCALE LENGTH: 648mm (25.5”)
NUT/WIDTH: Locking/41.5mm
FINGERBOARD: Baked maple, black
dot inlays, 305-406mm (12-16”)
radius
FRETS: 22, jumbo
HARDWARE: Floyd Rose 1000 series
double-locking vibrato (with brass
block), EVH-logo’d Gotoh tuners
– black
STRING SPACING, BRIDGE: 52mm
ELECTRICS: Direct mount EVH
Wolfgang humbuckers, 3-way toggle
pickup selector switch, master volume
(Bourns low friction) and master tone
(Bourns high friction)
WEIGHT (kg/lb): 3.01/6.62
OPTIONS: None
LEFT-HANDERS: No
FINISHES: Satin Black (as reviewed)
– satin urethane to body, hand-rubbed
satin urethane to neck
CHARVEL HENRIK
DANHAGE
SIGNATURE PRO-
MOD SO-CAL STYLE 1
PRICE: £1,519
ORIGIN: Mexico
TYPE: Double-cutaway reliced
solidbody
BODY: Ash
NECK: Maple, graphite reinforced,
‘speed’ profi le bolt-on
SCALE LENGTH: 648mm (25.5”)
NUT/WIDTH: Locking/43.1mm
FINGERBOARD: Maple, black dot
inlays, 305-406mm (12-16”) radius
FRETS: 22, jumbo
HARDWARE: Floyd Rose 1000 series
double-locking vibrato, Charvel logo’d
die-cast tuners – chrome-plated
STRING SPACING, BRIDGE: 52mm
ELECTRICS: Seymour Duncan JB
TB-4 humbucker (bridge), DiMarzio
Area 67 DP419CR (neck), master
volume (with ‘tone’ knob and a
push switch to voice pickups: down,
bridge; up, neck)
WEIGHT (kg/lb): 3.51/7.72
OPTIONS: None
LEFT-HANDERS: No
FINISHES: White Relic (as reviewed)
– semi-gloss lacquer to body, hand-
rubbed satin urethane to neck
8. The tuners on both
guitars are perfectly
functional, but because
of the combination
of the hugely stable
graphite reinforced
necks and the locking
Floyd Rose vibratos, we
barely touched them
8
GIT468.rev_charvel.indd 94 17/12/2020 17:58