happy birthday, brian may

[mojo]

just wanted to say happy bday to the great guitarist of queen. born on this day in 1947.

[topane]

Aw, what the heck, I could use a beer...

[mojo]

you know, brian may actually built his own guitar with help from his father in 1963 (i guess he was about 16 yrs old). he calls it the "red special" and uses it almost exclusively.

[LPMiller]

I love queen, and brian may.

[mojo]

some math degree. he also started one in astronomy, but never finished.

i think the thing about brians guitar is the burns pickups. i dunno if they are even still available.

from matthews brian may's page at http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip...48/sounds.html
(go up a few directories for the whole site)

"Brian's guitar, the Red Special is unique. He built the guitar himself, with some help from his father, when he was still at school. Incredibly, over 30 years later, this is still Brian's number one guitar and he regularly uses it both on stage and in the studio. One of the unique features of the Red Special is its series wiring for the pickups. Most guitars are wired in parallel, but Brian equipped his guitar with 3 single coil pickups wired in series. Each pickup has a switch to turn it on and off and a phase change
switch. This allows a huge variety of sounds as different pickups and different phase combinations are used. The neck of the guitar is mahogany, from an old fire-surround. The centre block and fingerboard are oak and the front and back of the body are a mahogany veneer over blockboard.

The construction is semi-solid with large routed areas either side of the centre block of the body. Brian made his guitar from the materials he had available at the time - these included motorbike valve springs (tremolo springs), shelf edging (white binding) and mother of pearl buttons (neck position dots). The pickups were originally home-made but Brian was unhappy with the sound and replaced them with Burns Tri-sonic single coils, which he potted with epoxy resin to prevent them becoming microphonic. Unusually for its time, the guitar features a 24 fret (2 octave) neck and a tremolo system which will 'dive bomb' and come back perfectly in tune. It cost him just £8 to build the guitar and it is now surely one of the most unique and valuable
guitars in the world."

[mojo]

well, he also uses a sixpence coin with a serrated edge as a pick. that surely makes each note louder. i'd freakin break strings if i did that.

these days for hotter pickups, i am a firm believer in active electronics. stanley jordan sold me on those long ago