TOAO
03-12-2009, 12:46 AM
No, it's not a new strain of the clap. I mean THE Red Special. Brian May's guitar.
http://www.brianmaycentral.net/RomanRS.jpg
Eddie Van Halen got a lot of credit for "Building" his own guitar. But in reality, all he did was slap some aftermarket parts together, and slapped some bicycle paint on it.
The Red Special is a virtual masterpiece. You've all heard the sound. A lot of it is the Vox amp, and the treble boost John Deacon made, but the heart of it is the guitar.
Unlike the primary instruments of most musicians, the original Red Special was built by May himself along with his father, Harold. They began to work on the guitar in August 1963. Most of the wood came from an 18th century fireplace mantel that a friend of the family was about to throw away. The neck was hand-shaped into the desired form; this was difficult because of the age and quality of the wood. According to May, there are two wormholes in the neck of the guitar.[1]
The neck was finished with a 24 fret oak fingerboard. Each of the position inlays were hand shaped from mother-of-pearl buttons. May decided to position them in a personal way: two dots at 7th and 19th fret and three at 12th and 24th.
The body was made from oak, blockboard and mahogany veneer; the final result was a sort of semi-acoustic guitar—the central block is glued to the sides and covered with two mahogany sheets to give it the appearance of a solid-body guitar. White shelf edging was then applied as binding. It was then completed with three pickups and a custom-made bridge. May purchased a set of Burns Tri-Sonic pickups but re-wound them with reverse wound/reverse polarity and "potted" the coils with Araldite epoxy to reduce microphonics. He originally wound his own pickups, as he had for his first guitar, but he did not like the resulting sound using bending because of the polarity of these pickups: alternating North-South instead of all North.
The tremolo system is made from an old hardened-steel knife-edge shaped into a V and two motorbike valve springs to counter the string tension. The tension of the springs is adjustable by screwing the bolts, which run through the middle of the springs, in or out via two small access holes next to the rear strap button. To reduce friction, the bridge was completed with rollers to allow the strings to return perfectly in tune after using the tremolo arm (the arm itself was from a bicycle saddlebag holder with a plastic knitting needle tip). For the same reason, at the other end of the neck the strings pass over a zero fret and through a bakelite string guide.
Unusual features
Series wiring
The pickups are wired in series rather than the more usual parallel configuration. This means that when more than one pickup is active the resultant tone has more bass and less treble than if the pickups were wired in parallel. The output is also added together when wired in series meaning that with all 3 pickups turned on the output is tripled.
On/Off switches
Each pickup has its own dedicated on/off switch. This allows for the additional pickup combinations of "all 3 on" and "neck and bridge on", combinations not commonly available on three pickup guitars.
Phase Switches
Each pickup has a phase switch which reverses the pickup wiring therefore reversing the phase of the signal from the pickup. This means that when more than one pickup is active and one has the phase reversed, the resultant tone is rich in mid to high frequencies with the low frequencies reduced, giving a characteristic "thin" quality.
Controls
The position of volume and tone controls is transposed compared to most guitars with the tone being nearest the pickups and the volume furthest away.
Tone
Perhaps the most novel feature of May's guitar (and the one that is most difficult to ascribe to a particular technical specification) is its very singular tone. Many theories abound as to what particular aspect of the guitar (or the setup of effects and amplifiers used to convey the sound) contributes this tone, but no guitar before sounded quite like it, and efforts to replicate the tone in latter setups can only come close. It is near-impossible to describe, but is so singular that it is easily-identified.[citation needed]
In the DVD Queen: Live at Wembley Stadium, during Brian May's solo feature, he is seen working the switches on the Red Special while playing to produce different sounds.
YouTube - Queen - Brighton Rock Solo
Sure, there are better,more techical players, But I'm going for tone, and he had a standout one.
I remembered this from around 77, or News of the world, cause I remembered learning the opening riff and thinking I was god.
YouTube - Sleeping On The Sidewalk News Of The World Queen
To paraprhase
"Sleeping On The Sidewalk", written and sung by May, was inspired by Eric Clapton. It was recorded in one take. On close inspection, John Deacon can be heard playing the wrong notes in some bass parts. Brian May can also be heard laughing at the end of the song. The reason the song is so aloof is because the band was not aware they were being recorded at the time and were simply practicing, while the engineer had turned on the recording.
Kind of cool to hear the rest of his rig going through a tele, which still gets a tone to die for
YouTube - Queen - Crazy Little Thing Called Love [ High Definition ]
Side by side too.
I guess I should end this with my personal favorite of theirs. There was a guy I played with for a few years, we got on so good because on a spur of the moment, and did it well enough for him to reconize it. Which was cool cause neither one of us had heard it for like 20 years. It was a melody that stuck with you.
YouTube - Queen - It's Late (video clip)
So anyways, it you have a favorite of theirs, post it.
Better yet, it you saw the live, share.
I saw em in Oakland, on The Game tour. Din't want to go. Left impressed
YouTube - Queen Rock Montreal - Save Me
http://www.brianmaycentral.net/RomanRS.jpg
Eddie Van Halen got a lot of credit for "Building" his own guitar. But in reality, all he did was slap some aftermarket parts together, and slapped some bicycle paint on it.
The Red Special is a virtual masterpiece. You've all heard the sound. A lot of it is the Vox amp, and the treble boost John Deacon made, but the heart of it is the guitar.
Unlike the primary instruments of most musicians, the original Red Special was built by May himself along with his father, Harold. They began to work on the guitar in August 1963. Most of the wood came from an 18th century fireplace mantel that a friend of the family was about to throw away. The neck was hand-shaped into the desired form; this was difficult because of the age and quality of the wood. According to May, there are two wormholes in the neck of the guitar.[1]
The neck was finished with a 24 fret oak fingerboard. Each of the position inlays were hand shaped from mother-of-pearl buttons. May decided to position them in a personal way: two dots at 7th and 19th fret and three at 12th and 24th.
The body was made from oak, blockboard and mahogany veneer; the final result was a sort of semi-acoustic guitar—the central block is glued to the sides and covered with two mahogany sheets to give it the appearance of a solid-body guitar. White shelf edging was then applied as binding. It was then completed with three pickups and a custom-made bridge. May purchased a set of Burns Tri-Sonic pickups but re-wound them with reverse wound/reverse polarity and "potted" the coils with Araldite epoxy to reduce microphonics. He originally wound his own pickups, as he had for his first guitar, but he did not like the resulting sound using bending because of the polarity of these pickups: alternating North-South instead of all North.
The tremolo system is made from an old hardened-steel knife-edge shaped into a V and two motorbike valve springs to counter the string tension. The tension of the springs is adjustable by screwing the bolts, which run through the middle of the springs, in or out via two small access holes next to the rear strap button. To reduce friction, the bridge was completed with rollers to allow the strings to return perfectly in tune after using the tremolo arm (the arm itself was from a bicycle saddlebag holder with a plastic knitting needle tip). For the same reason, at the other end of the neck the strings pass over a zero fret and through a bakelite string guide.
Unusual features
Series wiring
The pickups are wired in series rather than the more usual parallel configuration. This means that when more than one pickup is active the resultant tone has more bass and less treble than if the pickups were wired in parallel. The output is also added together when wired in series meaning that with all 3 pickups turned on the output is tripled.
On/Off switches
Each pickup has its own dedicated on/off switch. This allows for the additional pickup combinations of "all 3 on" and "neck and bridge on", combinations not commonly available on three pickup guitars.
Phase Switches
Each pickup has a phase switch which reverses the pickup wiring therefore reversing the phase of the signal from the pickup. This means that when more than one pickup is active and one has the phase reversed, the resultant tone is rich in mid to high frequencies with the low frequencies reduced, giving a characteristic "thin" quality.
Controls
The position of volume and tone controls is transposed compared to most guitars with the tone being nearest the pickups and the volume furthest away.
Tone
Perhaps the most novel feature of May's guitar (and the one that is most difficult to ascribe to a particular technical specification) is its very singular tone. Many theories abound as to what particular aspect of the guitar (or the setup of effects and amplifiers used to convey the sound) contributes this tone, but no guitar before sounded quite like it, and efforts to replicate the tone in latter setups can only come close. It is near-impossible to describe, but is so singular that it is easily-identified.[citation needed]
In the DVD Queen: Live at Wembley Stadium, during Brian May's solo feature, he is seen working the switches on the Red Special while playing to produce different sounds.
YouTube - Queen - Brighton Rock Solo
Sure, there are better,more techical players, But I'm going for tone, and he had a standout one.
I remembered this from around 77, or News of the world, cause I remembered learning the opening riff and thinking I was god.
YouTube - Sleeping On The Sidewalk News Of The World Queen
To paraprhase
"Sleeping On The Sidewalk", written and sung by May, was inspired by Eric Clapton. It was recorded in one take. On close inspection, John Deacon can be heard playing the wrong notes in some bass parts. Brian May can also be heard laughing at the end of the song. The reason the song is so aloof is because the band was not aware they were being recorded at the time and were simply practicing, while the engineer had turned on the recording.
Kind of cool to hear the rest of his rig going through a tele, which still gets a tone to die for
YouTube - Queen - Crazy Little Thing Called Love [ High Definition ]
Side by side too.
I guess I should end this with my personal favorite of theirs. There was a guy I played with for a few years, we got on so good because on a spur of the moment, and did it well enough for him to reconize it. Which was cool cause neither one of us had heard it for like 20 years. It was a melody that stuck with you.
YouTube - Queen - It's Late (video clip)
So anyways, it you have a favorite of theirs, post it.
Better yet, it you saw the live, share.
I saw em in Oakland, on The Game tour. Din't want to go. Left impressed
YouTube - Queen Rock Montreal - Save Me