Updating a Brian May guitar?

[DrDespair]

Hi everyone.

I recently bought a New BrianMay Red special.
All Mahogany, short Scale, Fender-style Tremolo.

I consider the Pickups as muddy and a little lifeless. Wireing them in Series Is Cool for All kinds of May-ish Higain, but unusable (to me) for everything else. And they hum a lot.

So I want a 3-SC-sized Combo that is more open, ringing midrange, harmonics, no mud and a Deeeep but direct Dry Bass. and no hum.

I once had Vintage Rails/cool Rails etc tested in my other guitars. no my taste. to much humbucker sound on the VR, the cool/hot Rails to thick.

maybe:

the new stacks
little screaming demons
maybe 3x parallel axis SCs?
Live Wires (hmmmmmm)

any Ideas?

 

[zionstrat]

Re: Updating a Brian May guitar?

Ever considered spin a split to thin out a dual rail? Works wonders for me!

 

[Kommerzbassist]

Re: Updating a Brian May guitar?

Welcome to the forum Doc!
The new Stack+ pups could be a cool idea... stratty sound with no hum... there are some clips at the tips & clips section

 

[idsnowdog]

Re: Updating a Brian May guitar?

Who is the BM guitar from? It is my understanding that most of the BM style guitars don't have that good pickups. They tend to use the same generic oem crap as everybody else. The pickups on them aren't TRUE burns style singles which is probably part of your frustration. I don't think that going to a strat style pickup will solve your problems because that might be the problem to begin with.

If your looking for Brian Mays tone you should probably look into getting some tri-sonic reproductions from kent armstrong or possibly the Brian May set from SD or Dimarzio. The SD oem set made for guild are hard to find but they are out there and the dimarzio set do come up on ebay pretty regularly. I have the dimarzio BM neck and middle set. They are totally different from a strat pickup!

This guy is supposed to be the tri-sonic guru the clips sound good. http://www.adeson.co.uk/Left side.htm

Snowdog

 

[the guy who invented fire]

Re: Updating a Brian May guitar?

The Duncan BM Set can be ordered from the custom shop...FWIW, Burns and most Burns copies are not "standard" single coil size so finding a replacement might be a tricky

 

[BillG3]

Re: Updating a Brian May guitar?

If it's a Burns guitar, the pickups used should already be the authentic Tri-Sonics.

As for the muddy sound, I believe that is one of the reasons Brian May uses the treble booster for everything. In fact, on the Star Licks video, he mentions how the sound can become somewhat "wooly" and that the treble booster cleans that up.

Remember, the reason to get a BM copy is mainly to get closer to May's sound.

 

[DrDespair]

Re: Updating a Brian May guitar?

It´s the current Brian May, sporting three original Burns trisonics.

I already use a treblebooster.

I really dig this guitar for its playability. fits my hands just perfectly, build for me. I´m not trying to b a May-Clone. that could backfire : ).:bowdown:

I´m going to wire this thing parallel, just like a strat, with a 5-way.
acoustically this guitar really rings. Tele-Like, actually.

standard.SCs could to little midrange. hm.
I usually use the neck for soloing, quite a lot of gain.

has anyone evr tried the parallel axis SCs?
I once had Quarterpounders. to little cut.

maybe I just throw in three mini-HB Customs and wire them parallel…

come on give me some mad ideas
DrDespair

 

[BillG3]

Re: Updating a Brian May guitar?

Rather than just wiring it parallel, there are some wiring mods that allow you to keep the serial configurations and add a number of the strat-type parallel ones.

Try following IDSNOWDOG's link in his previous post. I believe one of the mods can be accessed from that site.