Pictured below are the first guitar I made: a 3/4 scale Red Special which was signed by Brian May in December 2017 and Guyton RS Transporter No. 9 of 25. One of several suitable options to obtain the Brian May tone away from home is a Vox MV50 AC compact guitar amplifier head, a traditional style treble booster and a good quality set of monitor headphones. Just because… Why not? Let’s hear it for travel guitars.
https://voxamps.com/en-gb/product/mv50-ac/
https://www.guytonrstransporter.com/
IK Multimedia of Modena in Italy has released a Brian May collection for their industry-leading AmpliTube Custom Shop guitar amplifier and effects PC, MacOS and iOS modelling software in August 2019. Costing £99.99, it is available as download direct from the IK Multimedia and Brian May Guitars websites or the Apple stores.
https://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/brianmay
https://shop.brianmayguitars.co.uk/bmg-electronics/amplitube-brian-may-download.html
This emulation software is one of the cheapest and most straightforward ways to recreate many of Brian May’s tones, especially the complex three amplifier, twin delay Brighton Rock solo. It is ideal for quiet practice when used with a suitable interface such as the iRig HD2 and monitor headphones and as a travel outfit. Renowned professional guitarist Jamie Humphries helped develop the tone patches and you can watch him demonstrate the software on this official video:
In January 2019, I was very pleased to be able to acquire Guyton RS Transporter #0817154 (No. 9 of 25). I am the instrument’s third owner after it was originally commissioned by Craig Farley of Queen Tribute band Forever Queen. I’ve been unable to see them play live because most of the venues they play at are in the south of England. Check their pages out:
https://www.facebook.com/foreverqueenhampshireuk/
http://www.foreverqueen.co.uk/
The Guyton RS Transporter was designed by Red Special community stalwart Martin Pitcher and is expertly realised by Suffolk luthier Andy Guyton. It has achieved the distinction of replacing the scalloped fretboard Guyton Red Special as Brian May’s pre-concert warm-up guitar.
https://www.facebook.com/Guyton-Guitars-201657545404/
https://www.guytonrstransporter.com/
In the unlikely event that you’re not already familiar with this guitar, please check out Craig’s unboxing video on YouTube where he makes a significantly better job of demonstrating it than I ever could. The guitar is designed to be a travel variant of Brian May’s original Red Special with woods, neck dimensions, Adeson Tri-Sonic pickups, pickup spacing and controls closely reflecting those of the original instrument. It is obviously headless and makes good use of the JCustom XS tremolo bridge.
The pictures in the gallery below are copyright Andrew Guyton of Guyton Guitars.
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).
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:
KAT RS SuperPots are currently assembled by Luke Timmins and cost £20 plus shipping:
https://deacyamp.com/products/kat-rs-superpot
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/
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 