Guitar-music-my soul

Brian Harold May, CBE, (born 19 July 1947) is an English musician and astrophysicist most widely known as the lead guitarist of the rock band Queen. As a guitarist he uses his home built guitar, "Red Special", and has composed hits such as "Tie Your Mother Down", "We Will Rock You", "Who Wants to Live Forever", "Hammer to Fall", "Save Me", "Fat Bottomed Girls" and "I Want It All". Currently the Chancellor of Liverpool John Moores University, May lives in Surrey.
He was made Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2005 for "services to the music industry".
May was ranked 39th in Rolling Stone magazine list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".

As A Musician

Brian May has been referred to as a virtuoso guitarist by many publications. He has used a range of guitars, most often the "Red Special", which he designed when he was only 16 years old, It was built with wood from an 18th century fireplace. His comments on this instrument, from Queen In Their Own Words (ed. Mick St. Michael, Omnibus Press, 1992, p. 62) are:

I like a big neck – thick, flat and wide. I lacquered the fingerboard with Rustin's Plastic Coating. The tremolo is interesting in that the arm's made from an old bicycle saddle bag carrier, the knob at the end's off a knitting needle and the springs are valve springs from an old motorbike.

In addition to using his home-made guitar he prefers to use coins (especially a sixpence), instead of a more traditional plastic plectrum, on the basis that their rigidity gives him more control in playing. He is known to carry coins in his pockets specifically for this purpose.

May's early heroes were Cliff Richard and The Shadows, who he says were "the most metallic thing out at the time." Many years later he gained his opportunity to play on separate occasions with both Cliff Richard and Shadows lead guitarist Hank Marvin. He has collaborated with Cliff Richard on a re-recording of the Cliff Richard and The Shadows (then known as The Drifters) 1958 hit "Move It" on the Cliff Richard duets album Two's Company which was released on 6 November 2006. On Queen For An Hour 1989 Interview on BBC Radio 1 May listed Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton as his guitar heroes.

Equipment

Guitars

Most of May's guitar work was done on the Red Special. However, he has used a number of other electric guitars, including a Burns Double Six ("Long Away"), a Gibson Les Paul (as a backup during the early tours), a Gibson Flying V (spare during Hot Space tour), a Fender Telecaster (Crazy Little Thing Called Love), a Stratocaster copy in the "Play the Game" promo, an Ibanez JS (Nothing But Blue),a Greco BM90 (featured in the promo video of "Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy", but was not actually used in the studio), a Tōkai Hummingbird Acoustic (on some recordings), a Parker Fly ("Mother Love") and a Jackson Randy Rhoads in the video for "Princes of the Universe".

Acoustic guitars

For acoustic guitars, he mostly used Ovation 12-Strings, Martins, a Godin Thinline A-12 for the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert performance of "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" and a Gibson Chet Atkins for nylon-string parts. He created the unique "buzzing" tone heard on "White Queen (As It Began)" and "Jealousy" by placing pieces of piano wire under the frets. His ukulele was Aloha. Pianos he recorded include Bösendorfers, although in concerts he relied on Freddie Mercury's Steinway. May used Yamaha DX7 synths for the opening sequence of "One Vision" and the backgrounds of "Who Wants to Live Forever", "Scandal" and "The Show Must Go On".

Amplifiers

May has used Vox AC-30 amplifiers almost exclusively since a meeting with his long time hero Rory Gallagher at a gig in London during the late 60s/early 70s.[citation needed] His choice is the model AC30TBX, the top-boost version with Blue Alnico speakers, and he runs the amp at full volume on the Normal channel. He also customizes his amps by removing the circuitry for the Brilliant and Vib-trem channels (leaving only the circuitry for the Normal), and this alters the tone slightly, with a gain addition of 6-7dB.[citation needed] He always used a 'treble booster' of some kind which, along with the AC-30, went a long way in helping to create many of his signature guitar tones. He used the Dallas Rangemaster for the first Queen albums, up to A Day at the Races. Then, effects guru Pete Cornish built for him the TB-83 (32dB of gain) that used for all the remaining Queen albums. He switched in 2000 to the Fryer's booster, which actually gives less boost than the TB-83.

Live, he uses banks of AC-30 amplifiers keeping some amps with only guitar and others with all effects such as delay, flanger and chorus. He has a rack of 14 AC30s, which are grouped as Normal, Chorus, Delay 1, Delay 2. On his pedal board, May has a custom switch unit made by Cornish and subsequently modified by Fryer that allows him to choose which amps are active. He uses a BOSS pedal from the 70s, the Chorus Ensemble CE-1, which you can hear in In The Lap of The Gods (Live at Wembley '86) or Hammer to Fall (slow version played live with P. Rodgers). Next in the chain, he uses a Foxx Foot Phaser (We Will Rock You, We Are the Champions, Keep Yourself Alive, etc), and two delay machines to play his trademark Brighton Rock solo.