Brian May's Red Special Guitar Switches

Brian May from Queen's Red Special guitar has been the source of much wonder and analysis for decades. The way it is build almost seems intentionally to be married with a treble booster and a roaring Vox when the innovative switching system is used with that guitar rig.

In today's episode of Musician's Midlife Crisis I look at what these switches do for Brian May and how I use them in a Queen tribute band.

This inspired me to something quite radical with a Les Paul style guitar which is coming next so subscribe so you don't miss it!

00:00 Brian May's Red Special Overview
02:33 The money sound - bridge and middle in phase
03:58 The neck pickup's a Killer Queen
04:18 Neck and middle in phase - A kinda humbucker?
05:25 Bohemian Rhapsody guitar sound - neck and middle out of phase
07:00 Keep yourself alive guitar sound - bridge and neck out of phase
08:37 The gig panic out of phase mode - all on with neck out of phase
10:26 The lesser spotted 1980s clean tone - neck and middle out of phase