The guitar that every Queen fan has been waiting for - an affordable "Red Special"
 

In the history of guitar-based music, no other guitar has such an iconic status as Brian May's Red Special. Even such treasures as Hendrix's white Strat, Jimmy Page's '58 Les Paul Standard and Jeff Beck's battered Esquire pale into insignificance simply because, rare though they are, those models were production instruments. Irrespective of the music that May subsequently produced with his guitar, what makes the Red Special unique is it was made at home by two people -Brian and his dad -who had no prior experience of guitar building.

Stories of the construction of the Red Special -the use of motorcycle saddle springs, knitting needles and pearl shirt buttons, not to mention a mantelpiece riddled with woodworm holes - have become legendary. But the bottom line is that the guitar turned out to possess several innovative designs that have yet to be fully copied by other manufacturers, even today.

Many companies have attempted to persuade and cajole May into allowing them to produce a signature model, but only Guild - and more recently RS Guitars and Greg Fryer - have grabbed the bull by the horns and taken on the daunting task of copying a guitar that is idolized by millions. As good as these guitars are, although the Guild models are no longer available, they are all exclusively expensive and May has had the idea of producing what he describes as an 'affordable' copy on the back-burner for years. The story of how he ultimately chose Burns for the job is described by both Brian and his tech Pete Malandrone elsewhere within the issue, but here we have one of the first production Burns Brian May Signature models to roll off the Korean production line in late August 2001.

Burns Brian May Signature

To be fair, the term 'production line' does Burns something of a disservice, as quality has been arguably the highest consideration of all during the R&D stages. Yes, the guitar is manufactured in the same Korean facility as the rest of the company's excellent Club series, but Burns have taken steps to keep standards up without realizing a hike in price.

As you'd expect, the guitar is loaded with a trio of Tri-Sonic ® single-coils combined in series (as opposed to parallel like a Strat). The pickups are the bar-magnet-style Tri-Sonics from the early sixties. Burns London supplied the specification and all parties involved have been very happy with the resulting tone.

Obviously the oak/mahogany construction of the original guitar would have been prohibitively expensive here, so May has opted instead for basswood for the body.

In an aim to replicate the resonance of the original Red Special, the body also features an acoustic chamber in the area above and behind the bridge. Earning full marks for attention to detail, Burns actually went as far as x-ray scanning the original - courtesy of British Airways! - in order to ensure the placement and dimensions of the cavity were wholly authentic.

There's pinstripe binding on both the upper and lower faces and, as Burns are understandably keen to point out, the actual body shape is exactly the same as the original. It transpires, according to May, that the bodies of the Guild BHM models weren't quite shape-correct. Another brownie point for Burns then.

Also faithful to the original design are the initially daunting array of black-topped, two-position slide switches that control the trio of Tri-Sonics. Each of the three pickups has its own on/off and phase reversal switch. Although our creaky mathematics makes that a total of 27 possible combinations, there are some duplications caused by the phase reversal on a two pickup combination and the fact that you'll only hear any difference in phase when two pickups are selected, not one. In reality, the guitar offers 16 different tones, and of course you can mute it rather too easily! We'll go into the actual sounds in due course, but if there's a potentially more versatile guitar out there, we'd like to hear about it.

An obvious compromise from the original guitar was the bridge arrangement. Instead of the complex original vibrato assembly, Burns have gone for a Strat-derived unit. 'This bridge was a problem,' explains May, 'because almost always when you have this kind of saddle the worm [height adjustment] screws stick out of the top and I hate that - it kills my hand. So they did this version which just works great because you've got this space here for your hand and can play as usual and have the vibrato there at the same time. The vibrato has a different source point from mine too, a different pivot. Mine is way back on the bridge, so you don't have this feeling of (it) being in the way.'

The vibrato arm bar, too, differs slightly. According to May's tech Pete Malandrone: 'Brian couldn't actually play the way he liked, which is being in contact with the arm almost the entire time; it was always either too low or not flat enough to the body. So we bent the arm in a vice one afternoon and came up with the design you see here.'

Arguably the biggest compromise, however, is with the neck. Although, like the Red Special, the scale length is 610mm (24-inch), shorter than the vast majority of production electrics, and we get the zero fret and string guide which, incidentally, is hand-cut in the UK, the neck is made from a single piece of hard rock maple. And although Brian specified a wide 45mm nut width, the resulting feel is completely different from the original. Several of us at Guitarist have had the chance to play the real deal in anger, and suffice to say that the dimensions of the Red Special's neck are almost impossibly huge in both width and depth - far too big for a production instrument.

The neck goes from 45mm at the nut to 56.5mm at the 24th fret, which is in keeping with the width of the original, but has an average depth of 24mm - a lot slimmer than the Red Special - all the way to the heel. Coupled with the medium frets, superior ebony board and super-glossy finish, the instrument is extremely playable with vibrato stability coming from a set of unusual but efficient locking Grover tuners. The dot inlays add to the authenticity and, if anyone was in any doubt as to the origin of the guitar, Mr. May's signature scrawl adorns the characteristic headstock.

SOUNDS: Obviously the best method of gauging the performance in this department is to listen to the audio demos on this month's CD, courtesy of both Brian himself and yours truly, but it's awe-inspiring just how 'Queen' it's possible to sound upon plugging in.

It's easy to get lost among the flurry of switches - even Brian admits to getting foxed from time to time - but the sheer variety of sounds at your fingertips is most impressive.

The option of reversing the phase of any of the pickups at any time has a drastic effect. For example, having all three pickups on in series produces that thick creamy tone that has been used for the cello sections of May's guitar orchestrations. However, reverse the phase of the middle pickup and the bottom drops out, leaving you with a snorting twang that a Telecaster or Gretsch would be proud of.

The vibrato system is worthy of mention too. It offers surprisingly wide travel, feels very smooth in action and above all holds its tuning well both during quite violent bends and also when you're palm damping with your right-hand.

THE VERDICT
An almost unavoidable trap with the Brian May Signature is that it'll be perceived as a tonal Queen vehicle and not much else. However, such is the playing comfort, the look, vibe and sheer amount of tone involved here you'd be missing out on something genuinely special if Freddie and co were never your bag. As well as the three-tone sunburst option already on the market, plans are in the pipeline for a further two finishes, so there's no need to go for the vintage cherry model if you do want to distance yourself from the May persona.

Do many players use more than three or four sounds during a gig? Arguably not, but if you want to go from all out rock to the aforementioned country twang at the flick of a switch or two, we can't think of more than a couple of other guitars that could do the same job.

There's no doubt that these guitars are going to sell like hot cakes. For May fans, this instrument is a dream that's finally come true. But guitarists of any genre will find something here that they can use, which is the highest praise we can give.

Brian May Left Handed

This Guitar has taken over two years to come to fruition and is the end result of 22 prototype models.

Brian May was insistent that not only should this guitar be affordable but is of the highest standard using only the best quality timber and parts available.

As the Guitar has developed Brian has inspected each prototype, changing only small details to achieve the end product.

This Guitar is now as exact a replica as you would expect, with the exception of the tremolo unit which Brian has agreed to use on the production models.

The Burns Tri-Sonic ® Pickups are handmade to the original design and when tested alongside the original Red Special guitar Brian was astonished by the similarity of the sound.

The pickup switching system is also exactly the same as the original spec. An on/off switch for each of the pickups and an in and out of Phase switch for each pickup, this allows you to obtain all pickup combinations.

One Master Volume and One Master Tone control.

Brian also insisted that the nut width should be the same as per original 45mm.

The Machine heads were also a critical factor, for greater turning stability Brian chose locking Grover Tuners. 

The neck is hardrock maple and glued to the body, fitted with an A grade Ebony fingerboard. With 24 medium frets, + zero fret, Scale 24 inch (610mm).

Achieving the color was one of the biggest obstacles as most people who know of Brian's original Guitar consider it to be Red!!! In fact the Guitar is more Brown color due to the natural color of the wood and the fence stain Brian used to finish it in the sixties.

Brian agreed to compromise with a slightly redder finish.

There are two colors available, Vintage Cherry Red   and three tone sunburst as this was Brian's request.