The good news for the many thousands of you out there who would like a rock-operatic electric guitar sound like Queen’s Brian May is that you can set down your power tools, put away the sledgehammer and step away from the fireplace.
Sure, Dr. May and his father, Harold, recovered tonewoods from wherever they could find them - the mantelpiece? Why not, Brian! - to make the famous Red Special and arm the Queen guitarist with the most distinctive and unique signature guitar for the most distinctive and unique rock tone.
But now the Red Special is available for mass-production via Brian May Guitars, you can pick up a good Vox combo anywhere, and the Golden Age of Pedals has something for all occasions, there’s no need to destroy the home. There is even an all-encompassing tech solution for May fans because, well, because it’s 2020.
Red Special
When you look through the archives you often see Brian May with something a little different. He has played Strats, Telecasters (particularly for Crazy Little Thing Called Love), a 1966 Baldwin Hank Marvin signature model by Burns complete with Rez-o-matik pickups and, err, a Washburn RR V. Hey, it was the ‘80s, and that song was for Highlander. But with Brian May there is only one place to start, the Kurgan if you will...
With its arcane switching, its salvaged tonewoods and its DIY build, Brian May’s Red Special has an origin story to rival Excalibur and is the quintessential rock totem. Necessity, as ever, was the mother of invention. In 1963 Brian May did not have the money to get a serious guitar. He had to make one. Why not make one better than any coming out of the Gibson or Fender factories?
The Red Special as it became known, would be a bits-and-pieces guitar. That it is still in operation, still his number one having never been refretted, is remarkable, testament to the May father-and-son luthier team’s vision.
The neck is worm-eaten mahogany from a 100-year-old fireplace, and it has a 7.25” radius oak fingerboard that was treated and treated again with Rustins coating. The body is semi-hollow blockboard with solid oak centre inserts and mahogany veneer on top and bottom. There are three Burns Tri-Sonic single coils, each with an on/off switch, switches for putting the pickups in and out of phase.
These pickups have had the polarity reversed over years to give May some humbucking options. The Red Special has a vibrato that puts motorcycle springs to good use, with roller saddles in the aluminum bridge to reduce friction, and there is zero fret. May now uses a set of locking Schaller tuners but otherwise, this is as it was, a moment of guitar genius, and it would not be May’s last.
No expense spared
Fenders
Wait, what about cheaper alternatives to the BMG Brian May? We’ve got a technical solution for that, in due course. After all, the Red Special is one of a kind, finding a chambered mahogany electric for cheaper, with three single coils, a vibrato and out-of-phase switching? That’s a bridge too far.
Maybe we’d say a Squier Classic Vibe 60s Telecaster Thinline could some sort of a job; it has a nato (eastern mahogany) semi-hollow body and single coils, but is totally different in its voice, and only has two pickups. But no. Let’s look at what else May has used during his career, the acoustics and the other electrics that have come off the bench as a pinch-hitter in the studio.
Famously, May used Roger Taylor’s 1967 Fender Esquire on Crazy Little Thing Called Love, and tours with an off-the-shelf 1978 Fender Telecaster. Now, they still make the latter, and you can still pick up a Custom Shop Esquire if you already have the BMG Red Special tone covered and you’re a completist with money to burn.
No expense spared
On a budget
12-Strings
May used a Burns Double Six 12-string on Long Away, from A Day At The Races. As May tells it, the Double Six inspired the song. As anyone who has picked up 12-string electric will testify, it tends to do that, inspiring new tones with its choral quality and harmonic overtones.
You might find a Double Six second hand on Reverb, this one would be ideal, though you’d want to swap out the Tri-sonics for Strat pickups as per May.
If you don’t want to do that, then here are several other viable 12-string options...
No expense spared
On a budget
Amps
For this section you can choose whatever amps you like, just so long as they are Vox*. Seeing Rory Gallagher running a Dallas Rangemaster through an AC30 combo gave May a tonal epiphany. Hitherto he had used a Burns transistor amp. The Vox with its full-blooded chime, its volume, its juicy crunch, that changed the game.
*Completists should point themselves towards reverb.com or similar in search of a replica Deacy Amp. Complete with chipboard baffle, it was built by John Deacon and used by May for the orchestral guitar parts in Killer Queen, Lily of the Valley, and so on.
No expense spared
On a budget
Effects
Well, if you want to ride your bicycle you are going to need pedals. Oh, sorry, we’re better than that. The good news is you don’t need a spare acre of stage space to accommodate a few gizmo’s that will help you get May’s tone. We’re thinking some tape echo, a good treble booster, a phaser, some chorus, and a wah.
Or, skip on to the end for the ultimate Brian May tone hack...
No expense spared
On a budget
The ultimate Brian May tone hack
And finally, you've got a bag of sixpences for picks, you might as well get the strings, too...
