Red Special
Encyclopedia
The Red Special is an electric guitar
owned by Queen
guitarist Brian May
and custom-built
by May and his father. The Red Special is also sometimes named in reviews as the Fireplace or the Old Lady, both nicknames used by May when referring to the guitar. A guitar that would define May's signature style, the Red Special was purposely designed to feedback
. May has used it on Queen albums and in live performances since the late 1960s. The name Red Special came from the reddish-brown colour the guitar attained after being stained and painted with numerous layers of Rustins' plastic coating. The name Fireplace is a reference to the fact that the wood used to make the neck came from a fireplace mantel.
The neck was finished with a 24 fret
oak fingerboard
. Each of the position inlays were hand shaped from mother-of-pearl
buttons. May decided to position them in a personal way: two dots at 7th and 19th fret and three at 12th and 24th.
The body was made from oak
, blockboard and mahogany veneer; the final result was a sort of semi-acoustic guitar—the central block is glued to the sides and covered with two mahogany
sheets to give it the appearance of a solid-body guitar. White shelf edging was then applied as binding. It was then completed with three pickups and a custom-made bridge
. May purchased a set of Burns
Tri-Sonic pickups but re-wound them with reverse wound/reverse polarity and "potted" the coils with Araldite
epoxy
to reduce microphonics
. He originally wound his own pickups, as he had for his first guitar, but he did not like the resulting sound because of the polarity of these pickups: alternating North-South instead of all North.
The tremolo system is made from an old hardened-steel knife-edge shaped into a V and two motorbike valve
springs to counter the string tension. The tension of the springs is adjustable by screwing the bolts, which run through the middle of the springs, in or out via two small access holes next to the rear strap button. To reduce friction, the bridge was completed with rollers to allow the strings to return perfectly in tune after using the tremolo arm (the arm itself was from a bicycle saddlebag holder with a plastic knitting needle tip). For the same reason, at the other end of the neck the strings pass over a zero fret
and through a bakelite string guide.
Originally the guitar had a built in distortion circuit, adapted from a mid-1960s Vox
distortion effects unit
. The switch for this was in front of the phase switches. May soon discovered that he preferred the sound of a Vox AC30
distorting at full power, so the circuit was removed. The switch hole is now covered by a mother-of-pearl star inlay, but was originally covered by insulation tape.
", and "Spread Your Wings
" since he did not want to expose the Red Special to snow. He also opted out of using the Red Special for the "Play the Game" video, using a knock-off guitar based on a Fender Stratocaster
since at one point in the video, singer Freddie Mercury
would snatch the guitar from him and "throw" it back to him (also the reason he used a cheap Satellite-badged copy instead of a real Strat). Another video that did not feature the Red Special was "Princes of the Universe
", where May used a white Washburn RR11V
(for reasons unknown, and this guitar is often mistaken for a Jackson Randy Rhoads
). May also recorded the original of "Crazy Little Thing Called Love
" and performed in the accompanying video with a Fender Telecaster
.
Official replicas of the "Red Special" guitar have been manufactured in varying numbers and in multiple models (i.e. a higher-end full-featured model, and a lower-cost one lacking some of the intricacies of the former) several times during the 1980s and 90s, most often by the Guild Guitar Company
from 1983 to 1985 and again from 1993 to 1995 and by Burns Guitars from 2001 (mass-produced models made in Korea). The Burns model, produced with guidance from May, was awarded "Best Electric Guitar of the Year 2001" by Guitarist Magazine
. Currently 3 separate companies manufacture "Red Special" models, Brian May Guitars (taking over manufacture from Burns), RS Guitars (hand-built in Arizona, US) and KZ GuitarWorks (replica-quality, hand-made in Japan by master luthier
Kazutaka Ijuin). Dillion Guitars (built in Korea) also makes unofficial "Tribute Guitars", in two models.
The Brian May Guitars version differ from the Burns original in a few points; for example, the tremolo was now a two-point synchronized tremolo with rear access plate. The Brian May Guitars models also feature a half moon scratch plate behind the bridge to emulate the original. The switches were also changed from black to white to match Brian's guitar. They still use the Burns Tri-Sonic pickups. 24 guitars were made in a rare baby blue color with a pearloid pickguard and gold hardware. The guitars come in Antique Cherry [a similar color to that of the Red Special] , White and 3 Tone Sunburst with chrome hardware. They also have Honey Sunburst, Black and Gold with gold hardware.
Greg Fryer, an Australian guitar luthier, produced 3 copies of the Red Special in 1996/97 with permission from May, who allowed Fryer to x-ray the body for information on the internal cavities in the body, taking exhaustive body measurements for CAD/CAM reproduction. Fryer named his three replicas John, Paul and George Burns (after 2 members of The Beatles
and the famous American comedian). May has two of these guitars, John and George Burns, while Fryer kept Paul. While the woods used in John and Paul are more faithful to the original, George Burns was built with from new guinea rosewood for a "more aggressive edge" tonally. John is Brian's main back up Red Special, and is tuned to standard. When Brian plays George Burns live, he tunes it to Drop D tuning
, to play "Fat Bottomed Girls
", and occasionally "Another One Bites The Dust
".
In 2004, Andrew Guyton, a guitar luthier
from East Anglia
in the UK, manufactured 50 copies of the Red Special: 40 in red to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the guitar, and 10 in green, as he had previously seen a Guild copy available in green and liked it. May has recently had another Red Special copy made with a scalloped fretboard made by Guyton.
An acoustic guitar, featuring a 24 fret neck and the body outline of the Red Special went into production during 2007. This model is named the "Rhapsody", ostensibly after the Queen song "Bohemian Rhapsody
".
A bass guitar
called the Bri-Bass was announced on Mays' website and is available. It looks like his normal guitar but with four bass strings.
The Guild models of the early 1990s featured three major configurations. Of the three, the "Signature" model was closest to Brian's guitar, though it was made of mahogany (body and neck) and ebony (fingerboard) and sported Trisonic-styled "Brian May" pickups made by Seymour Duncan and hardware (including the unique bridge) from Schaller. The "Special" model featured a stop-tailpiece rather than a vibrato, the middle pickup was moved back next to the bridge pickup for a humbucking look, and the back of the guitar had no binding. The "Standard" model featured a more common Strat-style 5-way pickup selector switch, a longer scale neck, and a deeper headstock angle.
After viewing the replicas and taking note of the wear-and-tear the "Red Special" had gone through during nearly 30 years of constant touring, May had Fryer restore the original Red Special in 1998 using as much original and time-period specific material as possible. Damaged veneer on the back of the guitar was removed and new pieces scarfed in. The binding was removed and various nicks and dents in the top were repaired. Fryer re-finished the neck and body in the original Rustin's Plastic coating used in the creation over the existing finish, and fingerboard wear was repaired and dot-markers replaced. The original electrics were also re-wired and overhauled, and cosmetic work such as wear and holes in access panels, pickup covers (worn by May's use of a sixpence
as opposed to a standard pick) and the front scratchplate were filled in.
The restored Red Special is prominently featured during a series of video interviews with Guitarist
in 1999, in which May also demonstrated its delay capabilities.
At the end of the Queen + Paul Rodgers
tour in 2005, May had several revisions made to his original Red Special, including having the zero fret replaced for the first time (this was judged not to be needed at the time of the 1998 restoration) and making a larger opening for a new jack. Despite all of this work, the original frets (other than the zero fret) have never been replaced.
Electric guitar
An electric guitar is a guitar that uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric audio signals. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker...
owned by Queen
Queen (band)
Queen are a British rock band formed in London in 1971, originally consisting of Freddie Mercury , Brian May , John Deacon , and Roger Taylor...
guitarist Brian May
Brian May
Brian Harold May, CBE is an English musician and astrophysicist most widely known as the guitarist and a songwriter of the rock band Queen...
and custom-built
Custom-made instrument
An experimental musical instrument is a musical instrument that modifies or extends an existing instrument or class of instruments, or defines or creates a new class of instrument. Some are created through simple modifications, such as cracked drum cymbals or metal objects inserted between piano...
by May and his father. The Red Special is also sometimes named in reviews as the Fireplace or the Old Lady, both nicknames used by May when referring to the guitar. A guitar that would define May's signature style, the Red Special was purposely designed to feedback
Audio feedback
Audio feedback is a special kind of positive feedback which occurs when a sound loop exists between an audio input and an audio output...
. May has used it on Queen albums and in live performances since the late 1960s. The name Red Special came from the reddish-brown colour the guitar attained after being stained and painted with numerous layers of Rustins' plastic coating. The name Fireplace is a reference to the fact that the wood used to make the neck came from a fireplace mantel.
Manufacturing
Unlike the primary instruments of most musicians, the original Red Special was built by May himself along with his father, Harold. They began to work on the guitar in August 1963. Most of the wood came from an 18th century fireplace mantel that a friend of the family was about to throw away. The neck was hand-shaped into the desired form; this was difficult because of the age and quality of the wood. According to May, there are two wormholes in the neck of the guitar.The neck was finished with a 24 fret
Fret
A fret is a raised portion on the neck of a stringed instrument, that extends generally across the full width of the neck. On most modern western instruments, frets are metal strips inserted into the fingerboard...
oak fingerboard
Fingerboard
The fingerboard is a part of most stringed instruments. It is a thin, long strip of material, usually wood, that is laminated to the front of the neck of an instrument and above which the strings run...
. Each of the position inlays were hand shaped from mother-of-pearl
Nacre
Nacre , also known as mother of pearl, is an organic-inorganic composite material produced by some mollusks as an inner shell layer; it is also what makes up pearls. It is very strong, resilient, and iridescent....
buttons. May decided to position them in a personal way: two dots at 7th and 19th fret and three at 12th and 24th.
The body was made from oak
Oak
An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus Quercus , of which about 600 species exist. "Oak" may also appear in the names of species in related genera, notably Lithocarpus...
, blockboard and mahogany veneer; the final result was a sort of semi-acoustic guitar—the central block is glued to the sides and covered with two mahogany
Mahogany
The name mahogany is used when referring to numerous varieties of dark-colored hardwood. It is a native American word originally used for the wood of the species Swietenia mahagoni, known as West Indian or Cuban mahogany....
sheets to give it the appearance of a solid-body guitar. White shelf edging was then applied as binding. It was then completed with three pickups and a custom-made bridge
Bridge (instrument)
A bridge is a device for supporting the strings on a stringed instrument and transmitting the vibration of those strings to some other structural component of the instrument in order to transfer the sound to the surrounding air.- Explanation :...
. May purchased a set of Burns
Burns London
Burns London is a guitar-making company originally formed in 1960 as Ormston Burns Ltd. It was founded by James Ormston Burns , who has been described as the British Leo Fender...
Tri-Sonic pickups but re-wound them with reverse wound/reverse polarity and "potted" the coils with Araldite
Araldite
Araldite is a registered trademark of Huntsman Advanced Materials referring to their range of engineering and structural epoxy, acrylic, and polyurethane adhesives. The name was first used in 1946 for a two-part epoxy adhesive....
epoxy
Epoxy
Epoxy, also known as polyepoxide, is a thermosetting polymer formed from reaction of an epoxide "resin" with polyamine "hardener". Epoxy has a wide range of applications, including fiber-reinforced plastic materials and general purpose adhesives....
to reduce microphonics
Microphonics
Microphonics describes the phenomenon where certain components in electronic devices transform mechanical vibrations into an undesired electrical signal...
. He originally wound his own pickups, as he had for his first guitar, but he did not like the resulting sound because of the polarity of these pickups: alternating North-South instead of all North.
The tremolo system is made from an old hardened-steel knife-edge shaped into a V and two motorbike valve
Poppet valve
A poppet valve is a valve consisting of a hole, usually round or oval, and a tapered plug, usually a disk shape on the end of a shaft also called a valve stem. The shaft guides the plug portion by sliding through a valve guide...
springs to counter the string tension. The tension of the springs is adjustable by screwing the bolts, which run through the middle of the springs, in or out via two small access holes next to the rear strap button. To reduce friction, the bridge was completed with rollers to allow the strings to return perfectly in tune after using the tremolo arm (the arm itself was from a bicycle saddlebag holder with a plastic knitting needle tip). For the same reason, at the other end of the neck the strings pass over a zero fret
Zero fret
A zero fret is a fret placed at the headstock end of the neck of a banjo, guitar, mandolin, or bass guitar. It serves one of the functions of a nut: holding the strings the correct distance above the other frets on the instrument's fretboard...
and through a bakelite string guide.
Originally the guitar had a built in distortion circuit, adapted from a mid-1960s Vox
Vox (musical equipment)
Vox is a musical equipment manufacturer which is most famous for making the Vox AC30 guitar amplifier, the Vox Continental electric organ, and a series of innovative but commercially unsuccessful electric guitars and bass guitars...
distortion effects unit
Effects unit
Effects units are electronic devices that alter how a musical instrument or other audio source sounds. Some effects subtly "color" a sound, while others transform it dramatically. Effects are used during live performances or in the studio, typically with electric guitar, keyboard and bass...
. The switch for this was in front of the phase switches. May soon discovered that he preferred the sound of a Vox AC30
Vox AC30
The Vox AC30 is a guitar amplifier manufactured by Vox and known for its "jangly" high-end sound. First introduced in 1958 due to the growing demand for higher-wattage amplifiers, it became an iconic amplifier for British musicians and soon for others....
distorting at full power, so the circuit was removed. The switch hole is now covered by a mother-of-pearl star inlay, but was originally covered by insulation tape.
Appearances
He still uses the original but he has been using replicas in some performances since his own company (Brian May Guitars) builds this instrument. One of the most well known occasions on which the original guitar was not used is in the videos "We Will Rock YouWe Will Rock You
"We Will Rock You" is a song written by Brian May and recorded and performed by Queen for their 1977 album News of the World. Rolling Stone ranked it #330 of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time" in 2004, and the RIAA placed it at #146 on its list of Songs of the Century...
", and "Spread Your Wings
Spread Your Wings
"Spread Your Wings" is a rock ballad by Queen, from their 1977 album News of the World. Written by bassist John Deacon, it was released as the A side of the single Spread Your Wings/Sheer Heart Attack in 1978. It features Deacon on guitar and bass, Freddie Mercury on piano and vocals, Brian May on...
" since he did not want to expose the Red Special to snow. He also opted out of using the Red Special for the "Play the Game" video, using a knock-off guitar based on a Fender Stratocaster
Fender Stratocaster
The Fender Stratocaster, often referred to as "Strat", is a model of electric guitar designed by Leo Fender, George Fullerton, and Freddie Tavares in 1954, and manufactured continuously by the Fender Musical Instruments Corporation to the present. It is a double-cutaway guitar, with an extended top...
since at one point in the video, singer Freddie Mercury
Freddie Mercury
Freddie Mercury was a British musician, singer and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist of the rock band Queen. As a performer, he was known for his flamboyant stage persona and powerful vocals over a four-octave range...
would snatch the guitar from him and "throw" it back to him (also the reason he used a cheap Satellite-badged copy instead of a real Strat). Another video that did not feature the Red Special was "Princes of the Universe
Princes of the Universe
"Princes of the Universe" is a song written by Freddie Mercury and performed by Queen. The song was written for the soundtrack of the movie Highlander and released on the A Kind of Magic album in 1986. This song is the only song which Mercury receives sole credit for on the entire album. Later it...
", where May used a white Washburn RR11V
Washburn RR-V Tour Series
The Washburn RR-V Tour Series is a rare line of solid-bodied electric 'Flying V' shaped guitars produced by Washburn Guitars in Japan between the years of 1985 to 1987.-Models:...
(for reasons unknown, and this guitar is often mistaken for a Jackson Randy Rhoads
Jackson Randy Rhoads
The Jackson Randy Rhoads is an iconic model of electric guitar, originally commissioned by guitarist Randy Rhoads and produced by Jackson Guitars....
). May also recorded the original of "Crazy Little Thing Called Love
Crazy Little Thing Called Love
"Crazy Little Thing Called Love" is a song by the rock band Queen. Written by Freddie Mercury in 1979, the track featured on their 1980 album The Game, and also appears on the band's compilation album, Greatest Hits...
" and performed in the accompanying video with a Fender Telecaster
Fender Telecaster
The Fender Telecaster, colloquially known as the Tele , is typically a dual-pickup, solid-body electric guitar made by Fender.Its simple yet effective design and revolutionary sound broke ground and set trends in electric guitar manufacturing and popular music...
.
Replicas
Guild Guitar Company
The Guild Guitar Company is a USA-based guitar manufacturer founded in 1952 by Alfred Dronge, a guitarist and music-store owner, and George Mann, a former executive with the Epiphone Guitar Company...
from 1983 to 1985 and again from 1993 to 1995 and by Burns Guitars from 2001 (mass-produced models made in Korea). The Burns model, produced with guidance from May, was awarded "Best Electric Guitar of the Year 2001" by Guitarist Magazine
Guitarist (magazine)
Guitarist is a monthly music making magazine published by Future Publishing in the United Kingdom. The magazine features reviews of newly released guitars, amplifiers and other equipment, plus interviews with guitar players, features on the guitar industry, news articles, and features on playing...
. Currently 3 separate companies manufacture "Red Special" models, Brian May Guitars (taking over manufacture from Burns), RS Guitars (hand-built in Arizona, US) and KZ GuitarWorks (replica-quality, hand-made in Japan by master luthier
Luthier
A luthier is someone who makes or repairs lutes and other string instruments. In the United States, the term is used interchangeably with a term for the specialty of each maker, such as violinmaker, guitar maker, lute maker, etc...
Kazutaka Ijuin). Dillion Guitars (built in Korea) also makes unofficial "Tribute Guitars", in two models.
The Brian May Guitars version differ from the Burns original in a few points; for example, the tremolo was now a two-point synchronized tremolo with rear access plate. The Brian May Guitars models also feature a half moon scratch plate behind the bridge to emulate the original. The switches were also changed from black to white to match Brian's guitar. They still use the Burns Tri-Sonic pickups. 24 guitars were made in a rare baby blue color with a pearloid pickguard and gold hardware. The guitars come in Antique Cherry [a similar color to that of the Red Special] , White and 3 Tone Sunburst with chrome hardware. They also have Honey Sunburst, Black and Gold with gold hardware.
Greg Fryer, an Australian guitar luthier, produced 3 copies of the Red Special in 1996/97 with permission from May, who allowed Fryer to x-ray the body for information on the internal cavities in the body, taking exhaustive body measurements for CAD/CAM reproduction. Fryer named his three replicas John, Paul and George Burns (after 2 members of The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
and the famous American comedian). May has two of these guitars, John and George Burns, while Fryer kept Paul. While the woods used in John and Paul are more faithful to the original, George Burns was built with from new guinea rosewood for a "more aggressive edge" tonally. John is Brian's main back up Red Special, and is tuned to standard. When Brian plays George Burns live, he tunes it to Drop D tuning
Drop D tuning
Drop D tuning, also known as DADGBE, is an alternate, or scordatura, form of guitar tuning — specifically, a dropped tuning — in which the lowest string is tuned down from the usual E of standard tuning by one whole step to D.- Uses of drop D tuning :In drop D the three bass strings...
, to play "Fat Bottomed Girls
Fat Bottomed Girls
"Fat Bottomed Girls" is a song by the English rock band Queen. Written by guitarist Brian May, the track featured on their 1978 album Jazz, and also appears on the band's compilation album, Greatest Hits...
", and occasionally "Another One Bites The Dust
Another One Bites the Dust
"Another One Bites the Dust" is a song by the English rock band Queen. Written by bass guitarist John Deacon, the song featured on the group's eighth studio album The Game . The song was a worldwide hit, charting number one on the United States Billboard Hot 100, number two on the R&B charts and...
".
In 2004, Andrew Guyton, a guitar luthier
Luthier
A luthier is someone who makes or repairs lutes and other string instruments. In the United States, the term is used interchangeably with a term for the specialty of each maker, such as violinmaker, guitar maker, lute maker, etc...
from East Anglia
East Anglia
East Anglia is a traditional name for a region of eastern England, named after an ancient Anglo-Saxon kingdom, the Kingdom of the East Angles. The Angles took their name from their homeland Angeln, in northern Germany. East Anglia initially consisted of Norfolk and Suffolk, but upon the marriage of...
in the UK, manufactured 50 copies of the Red Special: 40 in red to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the guitar, and 10 in green, as he had previously seen a Guild copy available in green and liked it. May has recently had another Red Special copy made with a scalloped fretboard made by Guyton.
Variations
In 2006 Brian May Guitars introduced a "Mini May" guitar, based on a scaled down Red Special (even including 24 frets but no zero fret) featuring a single pickup, no switches and a maple neck.An acoustic guitar, featuring a 24 fret neck and the body outline of the Red Special went into production during 2007. This model is named the "Rhapsody", ostensibly after the Queen song "Bohemian Rhapsody
Bohemian Rhapsody
"Bohemian Rhapsody" is a song by the British rock band Queen. It was written by Freddie Mercury for the band's 1975 album A Night at the Opera...
".
A bass guitar
Bass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
called the Bri-Bass was announced on Mays' website and is available. It looks like his normal guitar but with four bass strings.
The Guild models of the early 1990s featured three major configurations. Of the three, the "Signature" model was closest to Brian's guitar, though it was made of mahogany (body and neck) and ebony (fingerboard) and sported Trisonic-styled "Brian May" pickups made by Seymour Duncan and hardware (including the unique bridge) from Schaller. The "Special" model featured a stop-tailpiece rather than a vibrato, the middle pickup was moved back next to the bridge pickup for a humbucking look, and the back of the guitar had no binding. The "Standard" model featured a more common Strat-style 5-way pickup selector switch, a longer scale neck, and a deeper headstock angle.
Restoration
British sixpence coin
The sixpence, known colloquially as the tanner, or half-shilling, was a British pre-decimal coin, worth six pence, or 1/40th of a pound sterling....
as opposed to a standard pick) and the front scratchplate were filled in.
The restored Red Special is prominently featured during a series of video interviews with Guitarist
Guitarist (magazine)
Guitarist is a monthly music making magazine published by Future Publishing in the United Kingdom. The magazine features reviews of newly released guitars, amplifiers and other equipment, plus interviews with guitar players, features on the guitar industry, news articles, and features on playing...
in 1999, in which May also demonstrated its delay capabilities.
At the end of the Queen + Paul Rodgers
Queen + Paul Rodgers
Queen + Paul Rodgers was a supergroup collaboration between Brian May and Roger Taylor of Queen and Paul Rodgers...
tour in 2005, May had several revisions made to his original Red Special, including having the zero fret replaced for the first time (this was judged not to be needed at the time of the 1998 restoration) and making a larger opening for a new jack. Despite all of this work, the original frets (other than the zero fret) have never been replaced.
Unusual features
- Series wiring
- The pickups are wired in series rather than the more usual parallel configuration. The output is also added together when wired in series meaning that with all 3 pickups turned on the output is tripled.
- On/Off switches
- Each pickup has its own dedicated on/off switch. This allows for the additional pickup combinations of "all 3 on" and "neck and bridge on", combinations not commonly available on three pickup guitars.
- Phase Switches
- Each pickup has a phase switch which reverses the pickup wiring therefore reversing the phase of the signal from the pickup. This means that when more than one pickup is active and one has the phase reversed, the resultant tone is what remains after the signal common to the two pickups is canceled out, and only the differences from pickup position remain.
- Controls
- The position of volume and tone controls is transposed compared to most guitars with the tone being nearest the pickups and the volume furthest away.
- Tremolo
- The tremolo is unique and was designed by Brian and his father. The tremolo-system is known as the knife-edge tremolo as it features a knife-edge. The tremolo rocks on a knife-edge that is linked to a couple of motor-bike valvesprings in the guitar. The tremolo-arm itself was made from a saddle bag carrier from an old bike and a knitting needle from his mother.
Specifications
- Body
- Oak and blockboard (with a mahogany veneer), semi-solid body
- Depth: 39 mm
- Neck
- Bolt-On, One large bolt which sits beneath the fingerboard and goes through a hole in the body then a nut is then attached, its also screwed down by two small wood screws at the tenon end which ends just before the bridge pickup. The Greg Fryer, Burns/Brian May Guitars, Guild, John Birch and Greco copies feature a Set Neck
- Oak taken from a two-hundred year old fireplace
- Neck Pitch: 2°
- Headstock Angle: 4°
- Width at nut: 47 mm
- Width at 12th fret: 51 mm
- Depth at 1st fret: 25 mm
- Depth at 12th fret: 27 mm
- Though utilizing a 24-fret fingerboard, the scale length of the Red Special is a short 24" (609.6 mm); compared to the GibsonGibson Guitar CorporationThe Gibson Guitar Corporation, formerly of Kalamazoo, Michigan and currently of Nashville, Tennessee, manufactures guitars and other instruments which sell under a variety of brand names...
standard of 24.75" (628.65 mm) and Fender's common 25.5" (647.7 mm) scale lengths, this creates a looser feel for the strings, which is conducive to May's extensive use of string bending and his wide vibrato.
- Fretboard
- Black-painted oak
- Radius: 7"+1/4"
- Scale length: 610 mm
- Number of frets: 24
- Fret gauge: 24 x 1.2
- Inlays: 3°, 5°, 9°, 15°, 17°, 21° (one dot), 7° and 19° (two dots), 12° and 24° (three dots)
- Nut
- "Zero" fret with Bakelite string guide
- Strings
- String spacing at nut: 41 mm
- String spacing at bridge: 49 mm
- Strings used - Optima Gold Brian May Custom Gauge - .009 .011 .016 .024 .032 .042 supplied by A Strings
- Misc
- Pickups: 3 modified BurnsBurns LondonBurns London is a guitar-making company originally formed in 1960 as Ormston Burns Ltd. It was founded by James Ormston Burns , who has been described as the British Leo Fender...
Tri-Sonic - Tremolo ArmTremolo armA whammy bar, tremolo arm/bar, or vibrato arm/bar is a component of a guitar, used to add vibrato to the sound by changing the tension of the strings, typically at the bridge or tailpiece...
: Self-made from old motorcycle parts - Pickguard/Pickup Surrounds/tailpieceTailpieceA tailpiece is a component on many stringed musical instruments that anchors one end of the strings, usually the end opposite the end with the tuning mechanism the scroll, headstock, peghead, etc.-Function and construction:...
: black Perspex - Controls: Master Volume, Master Tone, On/Off (toggle) Switch for each pickup, In/Out of Phase Switch for each pickup
- Weight: approx 8 lb (3.6 kg)
- Pickups: 3 modified Burns