Brian May's Red Special Guitar Switches
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- Опубликовано: 6 июл 2024
- Brian May from Queen's Red Special guitar has been the source of much wonder and analysis for decades. The way it is build almost seems intentionally to be married with a treble booster and a roaring Vox when the innovative switching system is used with that guitar rig.
In today's episode of Musician's Midlife Crisis I look at what these switches do for Brian May and how I use them in a Queen tribute band.
This inspired me to something quite radical with a Les Paul style guitar which is coming next so subscribe so you don't miss it!
00:00 Brian May's Red Special Overview
02:33 The money sound - bridge and middle in phase
03:58 The neck pickup's a Killer Queen
04:18 Neck and middle in phase - A kinda humbucker?
05:25 Bohemian Rhapsody guitar sound - neck and middle out of phase
07:00 Keep yourself alive guitar sound - bridge and neck out of phase
08:37 The gig panic out of phase mode - all on with neck out of phase
10:26 The lesser spotted 1980s clean tone - neck and middle out of phase 
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These are the sounds my mind thinks to most when I think 'Electric guitar'. It doesn't sound like anything else. Best sounds ever. I wish more people would use this guitar (meaning its pickup scheme), for some reason the only people that use it are Queen enthusiasts who play nothing else. I want to hear it everywhere. Might be a bit of a challenge for you but it'd be awesome to have a demonstration of every single pickup combination. You'd need to write them down first so you don't miss any.
I had another look. The few I missed where the middle on its own, all three on with the bridge out of phase and all three on with the middle out of phase. The differences are there but as often happens with this guitar, without a Queen context one gets stuck!
I just finished another project. 16 years ago (and one of my first RUclips videos!) I got a Japanese Les Paul copy - an Edwards guitar which has three humbuckers. Traditionally, these have a three way switch which gives you neck or bridge with neck and middle in the centre position. That guitar is my mainstay when not pretending to be Brian May but the experience of using a Red Special prompted me firstly to put a trem on it but latterly to introduce to Brian May style wiring to it.
To that end I had a six way switch put in it and the pot all changed to switches and the results are fascinating. Not least because you can invoke some of the Red Special switching with it but be untethered from the heritage of a Red Special.
Hope to shoot that film this week and it might go some way to exploring the question and positioning the ideas for use by the wider guitar community.
@@ThomasBrunkard Would love to see that guitar, definitely honour us with a demonstration!
@@matthewapsey4869 Very soon for sure. It's worked out wonderfully. Not sure how well it would go down in the hear of high octane gig but there's sense in the layout.
ABSOLUTELY FASCINATING YS BOTH The Enigmatic Elec Intricacies And (Wouldnt be much without) VERY Appreciable & Inspiring Playing/taming the controls in song context no less.
Sub, Like n Comment from me here no prob at all. Look forwardto to checking out some stuff if you MAY do in future.
God Bless,
IRISH LOVE.
@@myleskenney7258 kind of regretting I don’t have any t-shirts to sell now 🤣🤣🤣
That was a really fantastic breakdown of tones, I truly enjoyed watching every single second thank you so much for your time, hard work and impressive musical talent.👍♥️🎸
Very kind of you to say Mark.Thank you for tuning in. More similarly geeky content forthcoming!
@@ThomasBrunkard I am looking forward to every future post your channel is fabulous 👍
Amazily informative as usual. Thank you for sharing!
Brilliant vid - been listening and marvelling at brian since the mid 70s - got my first delay in 1982 trying to emulate a rough version of Brighton rock. Never ever seen a run thru of his switches - really interesting and the sounds are so different
The sounds take on different colours entirely when you change the rest of the rig too. I there's an expectation that it can become a strat, tele or LP simulator but it is always it's own thing which is very interesting.
This is such a good video all these sounds bring me right back to classic Brian May! So much is in the fingers too though and you’ve obviously got that as well
Thanks for the support Joe. Vibrato and all that are absolutely key too of course but at least the cost there is time rather than finance! 🤣
Very interesting. I knew what the switches did, but it's nice to hear the various combinations and how the pickups & switches work together. I customised one of my guitars with 3 pickups and one phase switch- I could find some good tones but I could never remember the switch combinations necessary to recreate them. Of course, I'm not as clever as Brian May!
Just a word wearing my photographer's hat: If you must have a window behind you when filming, don't have the curtains open! It competes with your lights and reduces contrast in parts of the image.
Hi Ian, almost gave myself a tan with all the light to fight the window glare. Usually I get away with it as I’m facing the north but uncharacteristically sunny weather in Dublin, stealing a couple of minutes in the morning and drab curtains conspired against me 😂
When I first got a Brian May guitar I plugged it into a normal rig and was seriously underwhelmed. The whole thing makes those sounds useful in his context but they take on a very different hue in others!
Excellent video Thomas . It's so interesting to see all the pickups and how they work and the sounds they can create.
I doubt I will be getting a Red Special any time soon, but I did see a Harley Benton BM-75 Trans Red Deluxe Series - but you probably won't get the sane sound or feel even though it looks Red Special(ish).
I did actually get the cheap one and it lives with the in-laws and it's quite good for the money.
Nicely demonstrated, it is a very unique sound that sets brian apart from the norm.
When everyone wanted a Les Paul or a Stratocaster, Dr. Brian May said «Fuck it. I'll make my own guitar!»
Gotta love The Red Special. One of the most Iconic guitars in rock history.
I used a guitar once with 3-way switches for out-of-phase/off/normal phase for each pickup. Faster to switch all the combinations at once, especially if you mount them a little closer together.
I can understand Brian May not changing what he is used to, but for someone learning such a setup, I found it easier to deal with.
Incredibly interesting video ! Thank you for sharing ! Just found your channel - new subscriber.
Thank you for subscribing and checking it out. More of this type of nonsense coming soon!
I saw a queen when I was a kid man awesome concert
That’s a good looking 🎸!
I've been using out of phase switches for years on humbuckers, ery useful indeed! 😎
I know there's Strats with these switches, even seen one played - but that guitarist was a bit of a traditionalist bluesboy, he didn't hold with "fancy switching" so never got an earful of thát. Rory G would've known what to do with it, I suppose 🤣🤣🍀
But I've always been intrigued by these options on singlecoil pickups... Definitely going to add 2 rows of switches to a spare pickguard and rewire things, it'll be a fun project! 👍
And I can actually boost my (Laney) amp a fair bit, so hopefully that'll let these out of phase sounds shine... 😎🙏
If you can give the Laney a good kicking I’m sure you’ll get something Brian May-like. One thing I’ve noticed is that the Trisonic pickups are quite darker than traditional single coils. They are quite unique.
Best of luck with the project. I’m certain you’ll get something useful from the work.
Great demo! I never knew that the Red Special was wired in series instead of parallel. Now I know why the have so much power and still retain single coil top-end sparkle. The Burns Tri-Sonic’s really sound great. Does Burns still exist and does it still make the Tri-Sonics? I always wanted to buy one of the BMG replicas but I kind of wanted one with a bolt-on neck like the original Red Special instead of the set-neck. Just something about it that has more twang and attack.
I never considered the effect of the bolt on versus the set neck. The biggest thing for me was the pickups. I did another film comparing the various options from the production to the hand built. ruclips.net/video/6pou0wcuItg/видео.html
The pickups are a bit of a rabbit hole. I'd argue Burns haven't made pickups like his for decades. The brand is mothballed presently but the pickups to the same spec as Brian's can be got from independent manufacturers. See yonderbosk.com for those!
Excellent video, Thomas! Are you using the Amplitude rig?
Hey Andrew! For this one I was using the Fender Tonemaster Pro. I should start labelling which is which! I like the FTP because my filming has to happen quickly and it lives on the floor in the apartment ready for the rest of them here to head out 🤣
If I’m recording something or doing a gig it’s AmpliTube and ToneX but for these type of things its the Fender into my IK Multimedia iLoud monitors and a stereo Zoom mic to capture them.
What about the tone knob, I've read that it was purely for show and not used. But when having a Red Special with a tone knob that works, should you put it all the way up or down?
I touched on that actually! He doesn't have one now since the Superpot was put in for the volume. I think he did use it times past (read the dark end of the 1970s!). He was messing around a lot with eBows then and they really need you to be able to dim the guitar.
Ordinarily I'd leave the tone control fully bright but on stage I turn it all down for a cello part I play with feedback over the outro of Don't Stop Me Now.
I couldn't live without the tone control myself.
quick question on the trem Thomas...are you fighting the trem when you bend up like a floating trem on a strat ie you have to fight a little harder to bend notes to pitch?
I can’t play strats for this reason and this guitar is actually ok with bends. The scale lenght is much shorter than a strat which really helps. In my latest video about the guitars you can buy and upgrade I used the factory model out of the box and I really struggled with it because of the skinny neck mainly but that’s a me problem I think! 🤣
@@ThomasBrunkard thanks for the reply...does the whole thing go out of tune like a strat if you break a string?
@@tozguitaryep. But here’s the thing. I’ve never broken a string on stage with the KZ. This is a thing with all trem equipped guitars. It’s wjy a good setup and good quality strings are a must. I use Elixirs.
I did have one bad mishap where the glue on the nut had dried out and it collapsed on the literal first chord of the gig but I recovered!
@@ThomasBrunkard disaster 😀
@@tozguitar I put up the full story in a Shorts film here. Once I figured out what had gone wrong I was able to fix it very quickly but it was rather terrifying…!
Brian May is a really tall guy ;)
I have a BMG special. I love the sounds. But I find the array of 6 DPDT switches overly complex and difficult to change on the fly without having to look down at the switches. I know the story of the build and how Sir Bri and his dad scrounged for available parts at hand, and these are very common switches. I don't get why all the fan boys many years later keep this. A simple set of 3 2P3T on-on-on switches would give you everything in a much more intuitive and cleaner set up. Each switch controls one PU. Up is on in phase, middle is off, and down is on out of phase. Exactly all the same combos with only 3 switches instead of 6, and much more intuitive IMO. Or if you want to go even beyond the RS tones, you could add a fourth 4PDT switch that shifts between series wiring (which the RS is by default) and parallel wiring (more like a strat).
the body of that guitar looks huge. or Brian is really big guy and he makes his guitar look small.
It''s quite a big lower bout alright. Wider than a Les Paul. I wanted to get one of those luxurious Gruv Gear cases but alas, she's a Fat Bottomed Girl.