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How to get a Brian May's tone??

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10/25/1997 4:17 PM
RICHIE WANG	How to get a Brian May's tone?? Does anyone have any idea on how to create his famous tone? Thanks a lot! RICHIE WANG

10/26/1997 10:56 PM

Hey Richie,
Brian May uses a simple, one transistor treble booster into a Vox AC-30.(five of 'em actually)

His secret is in his guitar "THE FIREPLACE" so named because the neck is made from the mantel of his family home fireplace. He made the guitar when he was fifteen, with some help from his DAD.

The tone you speak of comes from his guitar, it is still very Vox-like but lots'o'guys play through a Vox and sound nothing like Brian May - Brian Adams and Dave Faulkner for example.

No secret black box I'm afraid!

Hope this has helped!

See Ya

Oz

10/28/1997 3:03 PM
Mark Hammer	Well, there IS a Brian May model guitar, made by Guild, with many of the same generic features of the original. As far as I understand, though, the family fireplace was only large enough for one guitar.

10/28/1997 4:40 PM

Hi Mark

I am familiar with the Guild model that you speak of and I must say that it does LOOK alot like Brian's guitar, not exactly but fairly close.

Same with the sound, the model that I played had pickups similar to P-90 soapbars, whereas Brian's has always had lipstick pickups.

The neck of the guitar was the only part made from the fireplace, Oak I believe. The body was made from blockboard with the blocks chiselled out to achieve a hollow-body kind of deal. This renders the guitar very resonant and interactive. Very Brian May.

The neck is a real beast. It's wide and it's thick but get this.....
It has no taper at all! It is a consistent thickness and width for the full length of the two octave neck!! (quite logical I suppose).

I'll shut up now.

See ya

Oz

10/30/1997 9:39 AM

The models I remeber seeing all had basic looking single coils (don't know much about what pick-up was used in the guitar). But considering the "ballsy" (yeah, real descriptive word, "ballsy") tone in a lot of May's playing (We Will Rock You, etc.), P-90's would be good choices for trying to copy his tone.

I would look at what sort of amps he used (probably, his main OD/distrotion was the amp itself). There was a Brain May effects processor released by Guild, but it came out of line just as Brian May was suing Guild over the rights of his name (it seems he licensed out the name the first time the made a "Brian May" model, the one with the floyd rose, but not when they reintroduced the line, this time with better made and layed out guiatrs IMHO), and Guild quickly discontinued both the guitar and effects.

In most guitar interviews, many guitarists mention what effects they used for what albums and their quarky arrangments. So, have a look around for that info (I betcha, if you can sort through it, there is a mess of info on the web).

-Y.
(wyatt poist)

10/31/1997 2:00 PM
Mark Hammer	The pickups in the original are Burns of London pickups, not lipsticks. These, I think, are the same type of single coil pickups as found in most mid-60's Burns guitars (the one's with the "wild dog" setting).

1/3/1998 9:38 PM

Paul Dellagiacoma

I'll quote from "The Guitar Handbook" by Ralph Denyer, Pan Books, 1992
p26 "May has always used the same home-built guitar. The instrument, constructed using the most basic of materials, was designed to respond specifically to feedback. To achieve this he set the coils of the Burns pick-ups in Araldite adhesive, made the instrument out of very solid timber, and cut acoustic pockets in the body, causing it to resonate at frequencies around the middle of the guitar's frequency range. Setting the pick-up coils in adhesive prevents them from being microphonic so that the strings feedback but the pick-ups don't whistle. Interestingly, instead of playing with a standard plectrum, he favours an old English sixpenny piece."
& p198 "The classic Brian May sound
Although Queen's Brian May has 12 Vox AC 30 combo amplifiers on stage, only the bottom four are used. The signal from his guitar goes into a pedalboard, through a treble booster, a Fox (sic) phase pedal, and then a second treble booster with an overload switch. A switching unit directs the signal to one AC 30 to produce the main guitar sound. The second amplifier receives the same signal via a chorus with a 19 milliseconds delay and sweep to give a stereo effect. The remaining two amplifiers receive the guitar signal via a pair of delays or pitch changers."
I hope this helps.
Cheers, Paul.

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