NGD - Something 'Special'...

Nomad

...and Red.

http://i1279.photobucket.com/albums/y521/Nomad_Zamani/Misc/RedSpecialoverall_zps6e7e646e.jpg

http://i1279.photobucket.com/albums/y521/Nomad_Zamani/Misc/RedSpecialbody_zps3c7981b6.jpg

http://i1279.photobucket.com/albums/y521/Nomad_Zamani/Misc/RedSpecialheadstock_zps6e3c7993.jpg

I've been looking for a single coil guitar to complement the Lemon Drop for a while, and had previously tried a Strat, a CV Tele and an Ibanez pointy thing, but wasn't keen on any of them (well, the CV Tele was quite nice, but didn't quite grab me). Since then, I've veen eyeing the Red Specials on and off and found that the local GG had them in for less than they are on the BM Guitars web site. So I went for a play. An hour and a half later, I walked out with the above example.

Had a good twang on it last night, but the action was a bit high. Tonight, I lowered it and tweaked the truss rod after fitting Elixir 10s, and it's playing much better. I should mention that I'm not interested in playing Queen covers (don't know any), or in pretending I'm Brian May, although I'd quite like to get a BM sound dialled into the Zoom G3X to see what I do with it. In the main, I'm interested in the variety of single coil sounds available. The things that appealed to me about it (apart from years of being curious about Brian's guitar in a general sense) are the range of sounds, the fretboard and the whammy bar (never had a whammy bar guitar before).

The neck is quite chunky, but not overly so - maybe similar to the CV Tele that I tried. The body is quite light and it's definitely neck heavy compared to the Lemon Drop, but a wide leather strap seems to stop any tendency to dive. The shortish scale 24-fret ebony board has slightly wider string spacing than normal, and seems to fit me - feels natural. Chords are much more comfortable than on the Lemon Drop. Tuning stability with the whammy is good - I'm not EHV, so I haven't been silly with it, but it seems to hold tune very well. It's also a floating trem, so the pitch can be raised as well as lowered, and I've been messing around with Jeff Beck-style phrasing. The bendy arm is quite good for getting under the hand and doing nice shimmers while playing single notes or strumming gentle chords (get it under the palm with the end in the crook of the thumb, and it can be pulled up as well).

I'm still working my way through the sounds, and tweaking amp settings as I go. Some of the out of phase sounds are pretty sharp, while others are okay. They're generally better with distortion (pinch harmonics are pretty easy). The bridge pickup on its own is surprisingly like a Tele. The pickup pairs (bridge & middle, neck & middle) are pretty smooth sounding, but I get the feeling they're different from the Lemon Drop's humbuckers (need to do a direct A/B). The neck pairing played clean is certainly more toppy and still more akin to a single coil sound, but a warm and smooth one. Closer to a neck humbucker type of sound when using heavy distortion - nice and creamy, but still with that slightly brighter tone.

Came with a well made gig bag, and the nice man in the shop was happy to give me a set of Schaller strap locks. Also came with allen keys and a spare spring for the trem - when I put the 10s on, the string tension was too high, so I put the 4th spring on and slackened the claw a little to get it balanced again.

I'm well pleased with it. It offers a sort of strat-like guitar in terms of sounds (and whammy), but with dimensions that work much better for me.

Alnico

I'm so jealous.

I would love one of these guitars. Brain May is a massive influence on me and this has been one of my dream guitars for a long time.

Well done man. I hope you really enjoy it.

racefaceec90

i would love one of those also. have played one at my localish guitar shop and really liked it,but out of my price range unfortunately. my new squier vm jaguar will have to do (i do love it).

one day i plan on saving up for one of those. 

Flanging_Fred

Was expecting a Mr Tumble signature spotty guitar. I am disappoint.

not_the_dj

Flanging_Fred said:

Was expecting a Mr Tumble signature spotty guitar. I am disappoint.

Same here 

gubble

I lusted after one of these for ages, saved up, bought one.

For some reason I didn't get on with it and was gutted.

Brian May is the reason i picked up a guitar in the first place and owning a red special was a dream come true. They're great guitars - but in my hands it just wasn't right.

 

It came with an excellent quality gig bag though !

Niallmo

Still very happy with mine. I expected the lustre to wear off but it's a great guitar. I'm loving the wider nut width and don't understand why 42/43mm became standard. It's much easier to play and now I've found a happy strap height for it its all working very well. Some of the out of phase sounds only work with huge fat gain or fuzz as they are so raspy but the in phase sounds are ace.

Lexie1

A word to the wise if I may?  Just try each pickup on its own, tapping it gently with a screwdriver. The reason I mention this was simply that when mine first arrived, the pickups had been put in the wrong places, Bridge Unit was in Middle etc and once I had switched everything around so that it worked properly, the Out Of Phase sounds came alive.

I'm sure it was just mine, until a Mate in Switzerland got one and hey presto, same thing!!

Worth taking a couple of minutes just to check.

Dave_Mc

Nice

Nomad

Pickup and switch positions seem to match up okay. Something I noticed, though, is the hum cancelling - on bridge/middle, it cancels when in phase, and does the same in phase on middle/neck, but I was under the impression that the middle/neck hum cancelling was supposed to be when out of phase. (Or is that just the original but not the signature guitars?)

Tried the adjacent pairings out of phase with the fuzzes in the Zoom G3X, and I have to say, I still couldn't get on with them - there seems to be nothing but extreme top end. Maybe I could tweak the pickup heights a little to influence the balance.

All of the other combinations seem to be fine - bridge/neck OOP works well. Still quite bright but much more usable. Quite like having all three on and selecting which is out of phase for more or less trebliness (brightest of these seems to be neck OOP, and bridge OOP is thickest). All three on with any one out of phase is generally warmer than the just bridge/neck OOP.