Brian May Red Special Review

As a Queen (and Brian May) fan, the fabled Red Special was always beyond criticism… until the day I bought the Brian May Guitars Red Special.

The Brian May Guitars Red Special is, of course, an ‘affordable’ version of the real thing, not even comparable to the ‘Supers’, let alone the official copies made by Greg Fryer, but sharing many common features.

So, before we get onto the negatives, what’s great about this particular version of the Red Special?

24 Frets

One of my favorite Queen songs to play is Bijou, in fact, it’s formed part of my practice noodlings for over 20 years now. The simple fact is, for this and many other Queen songs, Brian May’s style incorporates a LOT of very high-fret bends, and having 24 frets allows you to nail them all.

24-inch scale length

The shorter scale length and resulting floppier tension is also welcome, giving you the path of least resistance to those massive bends mentioned above.

No other guitar is better for playing Queen

A pretty obvious one. But if you want that screaming out-of-phase neck and middle Bohemian Rhapsody tone, no other guitar will even come close.

More than that, the in-series combinations, and in particular Brian’s favored bridge and middle get you most of the way to his massive rhythm tones too.

The Brian May Red Special’s legendary versatility

Semi-acoustic body, 24 frets, tremolo system, 14 pickup combinations (including a kill-switch) comprising of single-coil, humbucker (in-phase) and out of phase settings. The Brian May Guitar Red Special has the most features and options of any guitar I’ve played.

Hardware

Grover locking tuners, Burns tri-sonic pickups. Wilkinson bridge. Hardware-wise, you get a lot for your money (around £699). The electronics and controls also seem solid.

Construction.

Aside from the switching, the ebony fingerboard is the centerpiece of this guitar, and it’s as smooth as you’d hoped with the 24-frets being finished well.

…. And then the novelty of emulating Brian May wears off and you begin to look at the instrument critically, playing it for other non-Queen applications.

Sorry, Brian. You’re my guitar hero, and the way you put together your own guitar (with its many innovations) was a real inspiration, but there are downsides…

The Tremolo system is a compromise.

Probably a little unfair, as costs obviously needed to be cut, but this generic floating Wilkinson system is not even close to the famous ‘frictionless’ system of the original and higher-end copies.

In truth, with the locking tuners, it actually holds it’s tuning remarkable well, but I’ll guess I’ll never know the cost tone-wise.

The Brian May Red Special’s famous switching system doesn’t work in practice.

No excuses here. This is the same system as the original, and unfortunately, it’s cumbersome and frustrating.

Sure, in a controlled environment. Recording, for example, it’s fine, there’s no need for fluent changes. For live playing though, it’s a total nightmare!

The problem is the switches are just too small and fiddly, and, as they’re on-off switches, you effectively need to make 2 moves to switch pickups, turn one on and the other off. Either that or flick them on and off at the same time (difficult).

Practice makes perfect, as they say, but why make excuses for a badly designed system?

Both the Fender 5-way blade and Gibson 3-way toggles are much easier to operate in the heat of the moment.

The controls are too far away and too close together.

Although I really like the solid metal design and feel of the volume and tone controls, they are positioned too far away for violining techniques etc. Again, Brian can work with it, but why do you need to bother when there are other better-designed guitars out there.

The Brian May Red Special’s neck is too big

Just a preference thing I know but this is an absolute tree-trunk and will cramp up your hands if you aren’t used to big necks. Like the electronics and the controls, I’m sure this is something you could get used to, or like me, save time and play something with a nicer playing neck.

24 frets on a 24-inch scale length are too cramped

A 24-inch scale is great for a floppy, easy playing experience, but that doesn’t mean it’s a better playing or sounding experience. When you add 24 frets to the above recipe, the spaces between the higher frets are tiny. So yes, you can play Bijou, it’s just not much fun!

The zero fret.

Many believe a zero fret to be the easy way out of a well-cut nut. Personally, I don’t like them, there’s an audible scratching sound on low bends as the strings scrap over it, and well, it just doesn’t look pretty or sound as good.

Zero frets are supposed to make open notes sound like fretted ones, but give me a well-cut nut and the personality of open strings any day.

The Brian May Red Special out of phase sounds aren’t versatile

Simply put, the out-of-phase sounds are great for screeching lead playing, a Brian May facsimile, but nothing much else. They sound awful clean or for rhythm.

Indeed, the out of phase sounds are either terrible or cliche. Take your pick.

The in-phase sounds are underwhelming

A Fender Strat has better single-coil sounds. A Gibson Les Paul has better humbucking tones. I A/B’d them to prove it.

The Brian May Red Special is a bit of a jack of all trades.

As above, the Red special can sound huge, but not as huge as a Gibson Les Paul or a Gibson ES335. It’s got a decent tremolo system but with that neck, it’s not exactly a speed machine.

This guitar falls between many stools, not knowing what it really wants to be.

It’s made in Korea and feels a little cheap for £699

£699 is a lot of money for a Korean made guitar. That’s almost Gibson Les Paul Tribute territory (a much better US-made guitar).

I’ve nothing against far-east made guitars, but my Chinese made Epiphone ES-335 PRO was of a comparable build and was only £299.

All of the extra money couldn’t have gone on the hardware, it doesn’t add up which makes it look like a bit of cash-in on the Brian May/Queen brand.

In truth, it feels a little, well, plasticky?

The Brian May Red Special is only really good for playing Queen.

… Which leads us back full circle. This guitar is great for playing Queen. Perhaps the only guitar that can do it convincingly. But sadly that’s all it excels at.

So if all you want to do is play Queen, get this, a sixpence, a VOX AC30, a treble booster, and go for it!

Conclusion

When I first picked up this guitar I plugged in, played Queen, and was in heaven. It absolutely nails those out-of-phase tones which are the highlights of many Queen songs: Bohemian Rhapsody, Save Me, It’s a Hard Life….. the list goes on. But this guitar is really only about Queen and unless you’re in a Queen tribute band it becomes a little pointless and silly.

You’re not going to play in your originals band or non-Queen covers band with it, and there are better guitars out there for the same or less money that have superior core sounds and playability.

Songwriting is out too. It just seems wrong to be creating music using someone else’s vision and tool. But then again, I suppose that’s what signature guitars are all about.

All in all, like Brian May himself, it’s a bit of an enigma. A strange mix of the old-fashioned and modern without any real focus on either.

But if Brian could have afforded that Strat, maybe there wouldn’t have been a Queen!

What do you think? Drop me a comment below…

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