Frankenstrat is a guitar created by Eddie Van Halen.
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The Frankenstrat represented Van Halen's attempt to combine the sound of a classic Gibson guitar with the physical attributes of a Fender. It was originally made from an ash Stratocaster body, with pickup routing that Eddie altered to fit a Gibson PAF humbucking bridge pickup.[1] It had a maple neck and fretboard, and chrome hardware. It developed through several early paint schemes ultimately into the now famous combination of red, with black and white stripes. It is a six-string guitar with an original Floyd Rose tremolo, which Eddie helped to develop.
Eddie Van Halen bought the Frankenstrat's ash body and maple neck for a total of $130. Both of these parts were procured from Wayne Charvel, who sold Boogie Body-made bodies and necks. The body of the guitar was a 'second', so called because it was not cosmetically pleasing. In Van Halen's case, the body had a knot in the wood. He bought it at a discount ($50) because he believed it would perform fine. The maple neck cost $80.[2]
Eddie originally used a Fender Tremolo System from his '58 Fender Stratocaster. The Floyd Rose was added later.
Eddie originally equipped the Frankenstrat with a PAF (Patent Applied For) pickup he removed from his Gibson ES-335. He potted the pickup in paraffin wax to reduce microphonic feedback, a technique that had been popular before machine-winding. He screwed the pickup to the guitar in the bridge position, slightly sideways to compensate for the different string spacing between Gibson's pickup and Fender's bridge. The pickup was later replaced with a Seymour Duncan humbucker.
Van Halen got rid of both tone control potentiometers and wired the pickups in a simple circuit, largely due to his limited knowledge of electrical circuitry. Van Halen famously used a knob reading 'tone' on the volume control spot. He then used a vinyl record he carved as a pickguard to cover the controls. Later, the pickguard was changed to a real pickguard that had been similarly hacked. A strip of double-sided masking tape was also added near the pickguard, on which he would place several picks.
Eddie painted the guitar black. After it was dry he put strips of masking tape on the body and painted it white. This would create the classic version of the Frankenstrat.[3] Due to companies selling guitars with similar finishes, he stopped playing the guitar in public, instead using the famous black and yellow "bumble bee" guitar (pictured on Van Halen II). In 1979, after much disappointment with the performance of the black and yellow guitar, Eddie re-taped the body of the original white and black Frankenstrat, and painted over that with Red Schwinn Bicycle paint. As Eddie said, "The Schwinn Bicycle paint gives it pop."
The Frankenstrat has gone through many necks over the years. The bridge has evolved from the '58 Fender tremolo to original Floyd Rose bridges with and without fine tuners. The placement of the 1971 quarter was a spontaneous addition when it was recruited to keep the Floyd Rose bridge flush on the body. He also attached truck reflectors to the rear of the body purely for amusement value.
During the late 1970s and early 1980s, many guitar companies tried to capitalize on Van Halen's popularity by manufacturing Frankenstrat lookalikes. In an attempt to mislead such companies, Edward Van Halen installed a red single-coil pickup in the neck position of the red, black, and white Frankenstrat, but it remained non-functional. To confuse imitators even further, Van Halen screwed a three-way switch into the empty middle-pickup rout in the guitar's body. Like the neck pickup, it was purely decorative, intended to do nothing but keep observers guessing.
Kramer was the first company that Eddie officially endorsed. It started in 1983, when Kramer built a Frankenstrat replica for him. During this time, he replaced his original Frankenstrat neck with a Kramer neck. In 1984, Edward was presented with the "Hot for Teacher" guitar (as seen in the video clip for "Hot for Teacher"), and started appearing in Kramer advertisements. Paul Unkert, "The Guitar Guy" and of UNK guitars, worked on the Frankenstrat and put his own "Unk" stamp on it.
The most famous Kramer that Edward had was the "5150", which he built in the Kramer factory. It is widely thought that this guitar was made out of a Kramer Baretta body, but it was actually made out of Prototype Pacer body. This guitar was used from the 1984 tour through the OU812 tour, and was last used in the recording for "Judgement Day", for the album For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge. It is now retired.
A number of other Kramers were also built and used by Eddie during these years, the most notable being the "1984" Kramer, while most were simply striped designs without other markings. These guitars were primarily used as backups for the "5150" guitar during the tours, and were likewise retired at the same time. Some were simply given away to various people, or in cases such as the "1984" Kramer, in contests.
The second Frankenstrat that appeared in time for the Van Halen II LP and tour was the black and yellow striped guitar. It was buried with Dimebag Darrell of Pantera, who had asked for a Charvel Art Series replica before they were released. Eddie instead presented the original guitar at his funeral.[4][5]
This guitar was a dual humbucker instrument that was created from a korina Ibanez Destroyer. Eddie removed a large chunk of the wood with a hacksaw, giving it an open jaw-like shape. The name "Shark" was given to it because the chunk he cut out was serrated and gave the appearance of shark teeth. This guitar was used in the videos for "Runnin' With the Devil" and "You Really Got Me". Unfortunately, the removal of the wood destroyed the sound of the guitar, which resulted in its retirement.
Charvel introduced a signature model EVH called the "Charvel EVH Art Series Guitar" that was equipped with a single custom wound pickup, a Floyd Rose locking tremolo, and could be ordered in white with black stripes, black with yellow stripes, or red with black and white stripes. The guitars are not relic'ed, but feature a neck profile similar to the original Frankenstrat.
300 relic'ed replicas of the red with black and white stripe Frankenstrat were painstaking created, scratches and all, and offered under Van Halen's "EVH" brand for $25,000.
The design of this guitar was used as the box art for Guitar Hero: Van Halen, and it appears in-game numerous times as well, including as a transitional effect at the end of songs (the stripes appear, one by one, in rapid succession, and then are removed).
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