Last night (1st November 2018) my wife and I took our son to see the Queen Extravaganza at the Clyde Auditorium (SEC ‘Armadillo’) with an overnight stay at the Glasgow Hilton to celebrate his ninth birthday. Queen Extravaganza is the official Queen tribute band put together by Roger Taylor. The band line up for the current U.K. tour consists of: Alírio Netto (lead vocal) François-Olivier Doyon (bass guitar) Nick Radcliffe (lead guitar) Darren Reeves (keyboards) Tyler Warren (percussion) On the 2018 tour, the band play a large selection of songs from Queen’s Greatest Hits catalogue to packed auditoriums around the U.K. There was a lively atmosphere and an appreciative audience at last night’s concert.
I doubt that Nick ‘Radish’ Radcliffe will remember me, or thank me for posting this image cropped from our whole school photograph in 1987, but he was in the year above me at St Bees School in Cumbria until he left. I remember him distinctly due to an altercation we had in my first year (1985) on Eaglesfield house… Public schoolboys… It’s a small world.
After studying music at Middlesex University, Nick has built a successful career as a respected session and performance guitarist. He has played with Gabrielle and M People and performed in the West End with “We Will Rock You”, “Rock of Ages” “Motown The Musical” and “Jersey Boys”. You can read more about him here:
https://about.me/nickradcliffe
See some examples of Nick’s guitar tuition work at FretHub’s website or the Facebook page and YouTube channel:
http://www.frethub.com/
http://www.facebook.com/FretHub/
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl6kVJKgge9–bWgQJiQWjQ
Tag: Brian May
Here’s My Badge
Collectors of Queen and Brian May gear, merchandise and memorabilia should look out for these quality collectable lapel badges on eBay. Long since discontinued, they measure 2 1/4″ (57 mm) long by 7/8″ (22 mm) wide and are decorated with black and reddish brown colour enamel. The proportions of his famous Red Special guitar and the placement of the hardware are relatively authentic given the small size of the reproduction. The pin badges affix in two places with one pin located behind the guitar headstock and the other behind the guitar body (not visible in the photograph below).
KAT Superpot
For those readers who are not Brian May enthusiasts, I’d like to draw your attention to this innovation by Nigel Knight of Knight Audio Technologies (KAT): the BM RS Superpot. It is an Alpha brand dual-gang 250 kΩ linear (B) taper potentiometer fitted with a 1 MΩ resistor and a 2.2 nF capacitor. It was designed by Nigel to serve a specific purpose: that is to create a volume potentiometer with a shallower response curve than a standard logarithmic/audio (A) taper to increase the range over which Brian can control the transition from ‘sparkly cleans’ to sweet overdrive while performing on stage. Nigel flew out to Portugal to fit it to the Red Special before the Lisbon Queen + Adam Lambert concert on 7th June 2018. Check out the post on Brian’s Instagram account below:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BjqXKVIBsuw/
R. G. Keen’s 1999 article entitled “The Secret Life of Pots” at Geofex.com explains the theory behind modifying the taper of linear potentiometers in an easily assimilable format:
http://www.geofex.com/Article_Folders/potsecrets/potscret.htm
Nigel explains: “When you cascade potentiometers you end up with a super-log pot, so the effective end result is a ‘forced’ log taper. Secondly, because after about halfway round the volume sweep of the RS, the pot is no longer really being used as a volume control, but more of a distortion drive which requires a more linear taper. So the new pot is more log at the bottom and more linear at the top. This allows better control over the cleans and smoother transition through the various stages of distortion. In fact, there is no discernible point where the distortion comes in with this configuration. It just slowly feeds in from the cleans.”
“The function of the capacitor is to compensate for high frequency losses while the resistor is there to pull the bottom leg of the pot to ground. The pot (short for potential divider) can’t ‘divide’ the level if it has no reference to the two points it is dividing between. The new pot gives Brian an array of tones that used to reside within about half a degree of pot movement (if you could find the sweet spot in the dark)”
Nigel has published a diagram of the pot shown in the image above. You can download it here and on the KAT website:
From summer 2023, Nigel is offering KAT Superpots for sale at £20 plus shipping:
https://deacyamp.com/products/kat-rs-superpot
Fender Stratocaster Conversion to Brian May Specification
I have completed converting my 2012 Fender American Standard Stratocaster to Brian May Specification. It has Adeson pickups, a custom switching PCB module based on that fitted to the Guyton RS Transporter designed by Nigel Knight of Knight Audio Technologies, Anotone aluminium Strat style control knobs, Fender branded Schaller locking tuners and roller bridge saddles. I designed the custom pickguard in CAD and CNC cut it myself using my Stepcraft 2/840 CNC machine. You can find full details of the project here:
https://dsgb.net/projects/maycaster/
Meeting Brian May
In the project section of this website you will find build details for this 3/4 scale Brian May Red Special replica which started life as a BMG Mini May I bought in 2012. At the suggestion of some fellow enthusiasts, I requested and was granted a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to meet Brian and get him to autograph it before the Queen + Adam Lambert concert at the SSE Hydro arena in Glasgow on 3rd December 2017.
I had resisted arranging this for various reasons, not least of which are that the instrument was my first guitar project and I was concerned about putting Brian in the awkward position of having to be polite about an unusual replica of his famous Red Special guitar, particularly since the inference was that the BMG Mini May that inspired it was not satisfactory in some way.
Thankfully the meeting went well and I needn’t have been concerned; Brian was relaxed and in good spirits because the other guests in our small group were Scottish members of his family [his late mother, Ruth Fletcher was Scottish] including Mike Donald and his father (Brian’s cousin). We asked his permission to take the photographs I have included with this blog post and he was kind enough to show interest in, and pose with the guitar. Thanks to Sharon Ashley, Brian’s touring PA for arranging this and Jen Tunney for forwarding on my e-mail that made it happen. Credit also goes to Andy Guyton because I sent a picture of him handling the guitar at the 2017 Red Special meet-up to Jen which might have leveraged the situation in my favour!
This was indeed the gift that kept on giving: ‘sidestage’ we spotted Brian’s celebrity guitar tech, Pete Malandrone from a view normally reserved for Queen flight cases.
BMG Special BHM 09644 Conversion
My first foray into the world of Brian May Red Special ownership in 2013 was a model year 2009 BMG Special conversion carried out by an amateur luthier in Portugal. I then further modified the guitar myself including a reshaped pickguard. It played well and looked acceptable. Nevertheless, I don’t recommend attempting conversion work on the commercial Burns and BMG Special guitars yourself. It’s a great deal of painstaking effort and you will still have an attractive but non-authentic deep burgundy red colour guitar which has evidence of the original tremolo system on the back (if cosmetic details concern you).
While unmodified BMG and Burns Brian May Red Special replicas sound authentic played through a BM signal chain and are excellent value for money, if you seek an more authentic instrument, Woody Thomas at RS Conversions in the USA has carried out conversions for a number of satisfied customers:
http://rsconversions.com/
dsgb 