If there was a Mount Rushmore of British guitar heroes, undoubtedly, Queen's Brian May would grace that mountain. We caught up with May and his longtime guitar tech Pete Malandrone on Queen's summer tour with Adam Lambert to talk about his minimal effects, Vox amps, and of course, the Red Special.
Guitars
Brian May's entire career has been almost exclusively spent with the guitar that he and his father built in 1964. “Red Special" is a three-pickup, double-cutaway guitar with Burns pickups and a very unique (at the time) switching system that allows May to cover a huge range of tones. According to May, everything on the guitar is still original from when it was built except for the tuning pegs and the rollers on the bridge.
During a typical show, May switches guitars during two songs. “Fat Bottomed Girls," which is in dropped-D tuning, is played with a Red Special replica that's green and was built by British luthier Andrew Guyton.
For “Crazy Little Thing Called Love," he uses another Guyton Red Special replica with the addition of an f-hole—which was featured on May's original designs for the guitar—a non-trem bridge, and an internal piezo pickup that is utilized during the opening parts of “Crazy Little Thing Called Love." All his guitars are strung with Optima 24 Carat Gold .009–.042 strings.
May rocks his various Red Special models with the help of sixpence coins because they give him the ultimate touch-sensitivity control allowing him to feel every contact the coin has against the strings. Plus, he enjoys using the serrated edges of the coin for an added bite.
Amps
Instead of hitting a dirt box for distorted tones, May simply uses the volume control on his guitar to wrangle all he needs out of his trio of Vox AC30s. The amps are set up in a wet-dry-wet configuration with the center amp receiving a totally dry signal and both of the outside amps getting a different delayed signal. The ping-pong effect is mirrored in the onstage monitors as well. Each amp has been heavily modded to remove all the unnecessary (at least to May) reverb and tremolo circuits.
Effects
The only real effects May uses is his Fryer Treble Booster mounted on his guitar strap, a Dunlop rackmounted wah, and a pair of TC Electronic G-Major 2 delay units (one set to 800 ms and the other 1600 ms).
Malandrone handles all the switching offstage via a KAT MIDI controller.
- Mod Garage: Inside Brian May's Red Special | Premier Guitar ›
- Electric Etudes: Brian May | 2014-05-08 | Premier Guitar ›
- Mod Garage: Inside Brian May's Red Special - Premier Guitar | The ... ›
- Last Call: John Bohlinger’s Top 10 Rig Rundowns - Premier Guitar ›
- 12 Things Guitar Techs Need to Know - Premier Guitar ›
- Mod Garage: Inside Brian May's Red Special - Premier Guitar ›
- Quintessential Rock Rigs by Decade - Premier Guitar ›
- Rock Guitarist Des Rocs Love for Queen's "We Will Rock You" - Premier Guitar ›
- Brian May Guitars Announces Colourways for Arielle Model - Premier Guitar ›
- Train Rig Rundown Tour of Guitar & Bass Gear - Premier Guitar ›
- Brian May Shares Health Update After Minor Stroke - Premier Guitar ›
EBS BassIQ Blue Label Triple Envelope Filter Pedal
The EBS BassIQ produces sounds ranging from classic auto-wah effects to spaced-out "Funkadelic" and synth-bass sounds. It is for everyone looking for a fun, fat-sounding, and responsive envelope filter that reacts to how you play in a musical way.
Reverend Vernon Reid Totem Series Electric Guitar - Shaman
Silos features six presets, tap tempo, one full second of delay time, and three voices—two of which are styled after bucket-brigade and tape-delay sounds. In the $150 price category, it’s not unusual for a digital delay to leave some number of those functions out. And spending the same money on a true-analog alternative usually means warm, enveloping sounds but limited functionality and delay time. Silos, improbably perhaps, offers a very elegant solution to this can’t-have-it-all dilemma in a U.S.-made effect.
A More Complete Cobbling Together
Silos’ utility is bolstered by a very unintimidating control set, which is streamlined and approachable. Three of those controls are dedicated to the same mix, time, and repeats controls you see on any delay. But saving a preset to one of the six spots on the rotary preset dial is as easy as holding the green/red illuminated button just below the mix and preset knobs. And you certainly won’t get lost in the weeds if you move to the 3-position toggle, which switches between a clear “digital” voice, darker “analog” voice, and a “tape” voice which is darker still.
“The three voices offer discernibly different response to gain devices.”
One might suspect that a tone control for the repeats offers similar functionality as the voice toggle switch. But while it’s true that the most obvious audible differences between digital, BBD, and tape delays are apparent in the relative fidelity and darkness of their echoes, the Silos’ three voices behave differently in ways that are more complex than lighter or duskier tonality. For instance, the digital voice will never exhibit runaway oscillation, even at maximum mix and repeat settings. Instead, repeats fade out after about six seconds (at the fastest time settings) or create sleepy layers of slow-decaying repeats that enhance detail in complex, sprawling, loop-like melodic phrases. The analog voice and tape voice, on the other hand, will happily feed back to psychotic extremes. Both also offer satisfying sensitivity to real-time, on-the-fly adjustments. For example, I was tickled with how I could generate Apocalypse Now helicopter-chop effects and fade them in and out of prominence as if they were approaching or receding in proximity—an effect made easier still if you assign an expression pedal to the mix control. This kind of interactivity is what makes analog machines like the Echoplex, Space Echo, and Memory Man transcend mere delay status, and the sensitivity and just-right resistance make the process of manipulating repeats endlessly engaging.
Doesn't Flinch at Filth
EarthQuaker makes a point of highlighting the Silos’ affinity for dirty and distorted sounds. I did not notice that it behaved light-years better than other delays in this regard. But the three voices most definitely offer discernibly different responses to gain devices. The super-clear first repeat in the digital mode lends clarity and melodic focus, even to hectic, unpredictable, fractured fuzzes. The analog voice, which EQD says is inspired by the tone makeup of a 1980s-vintage, Japan-made KMD bucket brigade echo, handles fuzz forgivingly inasmuch as its repeats fade warmly and evenly, but the strong midrange also keeps many overtones present as the echoes fade. The tape voice, which uses aMaestro Echoplex as its sonic inspiration, is distinctly dirtier and creates more nebulous undercurrents in the repeats. If you want to retain clarity in more melodic settings, it will create a warm glow around repeats at conservative levels. Push it, and it will summon thick, sometimes droning haze that makes a great backdrop for slower, simpler, and hooky psychedelic riffs.
In clean applications, this decay and tone profile lend the tape setting a spooky, foggy aura that suggests the cold vastness of outer space. The analog voice often displays an authentic BBD clickiness in clean repeats that’s sweet for underscoring rhythmic patterns, while the digital voice’s pronounced regularity adds a clockwork quality that supports more up-tempo, driving, electronic rhythms.
The Verdict
Silos’ combination of features seems like a very obvious and appealing one. But bringing it all together at just less than 150 bucks represents a smart, adept threading of the cost/feature needle.
EarthQuaker Devices Silos Multi-generational Time Reflection Delay Pedal
