VOX Legends » Brian May

Anyone who has ever found themselves at a sporting event and clapping their hands along to “We Will Rock You” is by default, a Brian May fan. That would be Brian May; guitarist, singer, songwriter, and founding member of the immensely popular band Queen. That would also be Brian May, animal rights activist; Brian May, Chancellor of Liverpool John Moores University; Brian May, Commander of the Order of the British Empire; Brian May, Doctor of Astrophysics, Brian May, author of a book on stereoscope photographs, and Brian May, guitar designer extraordinaire.

At age 64, Brian continues to perform and – as he puts it – “soapbox” on issues important to him. Obviously not one to rest on his laurels, Brian nonetheless remains, for many, the driving guitar talent behind Queen’s continued popularity. As this article is written, the lavish retrospective book 40 Years of Queen is already out in the UK and on its way to the Americas; and it will soon be 20 years since the untimely death of Queen frontman Freddie Mercury (Farrokh Bulsara). In discussing 40 Years of Queen, Brian states The book was built mainly around my memorabilia collection, but I was still surprised, when I first held one in my hands, how much I liked it. It is more than a book – it is a great toy! I think anyone who has been touched by Queen’s music will love it. There are even plans for a “Queen” movie, with Sacha Baron Cohen (Borat; Ali G.) pegged to play Mercury. With all this in mind, it seemed like a good time to reflect on the long relationship that VOX has shared with Brian May over the years.

Brian May is as famous for his guitar sound as he is his guitar playing – especially among other guitarists! Although Brian May uses effects sparingly, he was able to coax a wealth of sound from his guitar and amp – with a bit of overdubbing. Early Queen albums proclaimed that “no synthesizers” were used. (Synthesist Larry Fast of Synergy countered with “no guitars” on his early releases!) As many of his fans know, there are four main gear components to the Brian May sound:

• The “Red Special” guitar – and its variations
• The sixpence guitar pick
• The Treble Booster
• The VOX AC30 amplifier

The Red Special

This was the original guitar built by Brian and his dad. Because it was a home-built instrument from day one, the Red Special has probably been one of the most copied guitars ever. The guitars are now built by Brian May Guitars. As Brian explains on the company’s web site:

Through the years there have been a multitude of replicas of the Red Special, built by amateurs and professionals, including two major commercial issues, with Guild guitars of the USA, and Burns Guitars of the UK. As of 2004, the commercial Red Special has at last come home. I was concerned that it ought to be me personally who controlled the manufacture of these instruments, and so I have teamed up with Barry Moorhouse of House Music, and Pete Malandrone, my long-time tech man…

The unique features of the original are a chambered body, oak neck with plastic paint, a wide travel vibrato, and unique pickup switching.

The Sixpence

Just as the original Red Special was probably built out of financial necessity, one would imagine the advent of the sixpence plectrum was somewhat the same — it was handy. But according to Pete Malandrone (Brian’s guitar tech), there is more to it than that:

I think he prefers the feel of a sixpence, as a normal pick has no serrated edge. Brian does use a normal pick for certain sounds on an acoustic.

Treble Booster

Next up is the Treble Booster, placed inline between the Red Special guitar and Brian’s VOX amplifier (see below). By adding a gain boost to the high frequencies while reducing the low frequencies, the Treble Booster pushes the amplifier to produce a very distinctive and warm tube overdrive. Brian’s original unit was the now rarely seen Dallas Rangemaster. After leaving the original behind on a gig back in the 1970s, Pete Cornish made improved, low-noise versions of the original for Brian. Today, three models of the Brian May Treble Booster (Plus, Deluxe, and Touring) are made by Nigel Knight (Knight Audio Technologies) and are available through Fryer Guitars in the UK.

VOX Amplifiers

Brian is a longtime VOX amp user. He was originally led to VOX after meeting the late Irish blues guitarist Rory Gallagher, who at the time was using a VOX AC30 and a Dallas Rangemaster treble booster. Brian shared the story with us.

So we wait behind one night after a TASTE gig, [Rory’s 1960s trio with Charlie McCraken and John Wilson] hidden, until the Marquee club empties, and we sneak up — a couple of kids; me and my mate — to Rory, while he’s packing up his gear (himself!) and say 'How do you get your sound Mr. Gallagher?' and he sits and tells us — basically a guitar, a treble booster, and a VOX AC30. So I owe Rory Gallagher my sound. Of course he was using a Strat, and I use my own very different-sounding guitar… but the principle is the same.

Brian May has been a diehard VOX fan ever since; and the AC30 remains his amp of choice. In an interview from 1984 interview in Music U.K. explains his amp choice: AC30's from pretty early… By then I had played some of my friends' AC30s and that's what I was drawn to. I got a secondhand AC30 pretty soon after that, and I've stuck with the AC30's ever since.

In 2000, Brian elaborated a bit more in a Guitarist magazine interview:

I discovered that AC30s were the thing, and I still love them - better than anything. For me they sound best if they're just given that extra kick by this little treble booster. It doesn't do anything as far as adding distortion of changing the sound, except to cut out a bit of the low end so that you can drive the amps a bit harder.

With Brian May so closely identified by his VOX amps, and with VOX always associated with Brian May, it seemed only inevitable for collaboration or two to take place. Released in 2002, the VOX Brian May Special (VBM-1) began as a recreation of the legendary “Deacy” amp. According to Brian, this solid state (germanium transistor) combo amp was built by Queen bassist John Deacon in the early 1970s, using parts from a bookshelf Hi-Fi that Deacon had fished out of the dumpster. Brian used this amplifier to produce many of the “guitar orchestrations” which have become part of his trademark sound. This amplifier is often overlooked, but it undoubtedly contributed substantially to many classic Queen tracks.

Five years or so later, the second collaboration between Brian May and VOX was far more ambitious: The VOX Brian May AC30 Custom Limited Edition. This amplifier was designed to recreate the complete sound of Brian’s AC30 plus the treble booster that Brian used with his amp. The VOX Brian MayAC30 Custom Limited Edition featured just a single volume knob on the striking front panel. On this point, Brian was quite firm:

I wanted the simplest possible configuration. No frills. Just ONE KNOB! ‘Who needs more?’ as we said in the ad.

However, the VOX Brian May AC30 Custom Limited Edition amp had its secrets! Located on the back panel one could find a micro slide switch for boosting the preamp gain, mimicking the Treble Booster that was part of Brian’s rig. A second back-panel switch cut the power from 30 Watts down to 15 by dropping two of the four EL84 power tubes. This circuit also changed the value of the output-cathode resistors that bias the output tubes, and then changing the impedance of the output transformer for full-power tone at half power. Finally, a third switch activated the famous VOX Top Boost circuit. Sound was handled by a pair of Celestion 12” Alnico Blue speakers.

Looking Forward; Looking Back

Fast forward to 2012. Brian May continues to share his musical talents with the likes of Lady GaGa and Kerry Ellis. His efforts on the behalf of animal rights have led him to a Patron position with Dr. Hadwen Trust for Humane Research (DHT), the UK’s leading non-animal medical research charity, and Brian remains Chancellor at Liverpool John Moores University. And on top of it all, Brian continues to act as shepherd for all things Queen, along with Queen drummer Roger Taylor. When asked about the book and the attention being given to 40 Years of Queen, Brian responded in a recent interview:

You're looking at the 40th anniversary of the genesis of Queen and 20 of those years have been without Freddie and I guess we're busier than ever he says.

It's incredible. We do work and we love to work and there's a lot of outlets apart from touring. Of course, we did a couple of big tours with Paul Rodgers so there is that opportunity, but there are other opportunities to take the music to different places. One is the musical We Will Rock You. We're in our 10th year in London, which is incredible.  I cannot believe it myself, but we have many of them round the world now which are doing very well so that is a great outlet for the music and something that is very live. It's not a fossil. You've got young people playing music and it's real band and real singers, something I take a continuing interest in.  We [Brian May, Roger Taylor, and Ben Elton] fathered that project.

So what’s next for Brian May and Queen? Deluxe CD Releases of the first five studio albums. New recordings from May and Taylor hint at possible directions for the band. The musical We Will Rock You is being developed into a movie, as is the Freddie movie mentioned in our introduction. Let’s end by wishing Brian May and Queen many more busy years filled with great music.

From Brian May:

VOX AC30's have been a part of my life and work for 40 years now, and they always give me exactly what I need in terms of sound; I have no need to look elsewhere.

For more info on this legendary artist, visit www.brianmay.com