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In terms of mass production Red Specials: Guild made replicas in the 80s/90s, Burns in the early 00s and Brian May Guitars from around 2004 onwards. All of these have significant differences from the original in order to make them cost-effective to manufacture.
The Burns and BMG are very similar to each other and are closer than the Guild (which had a Kahler trem, solid mahogany body and DiMarzio pickups). However, the body is chambered mahogany (rather than oak and blockboard), the neck join is set neck rather than bolt in, the trem is a Wilkinson rather than Brian’s unique design, the fingerboard is ebony instead of oak, and the neck is much slimmer than the original.
Proper replicas - including the proper materials, bridge design and massive neck of the original - are made by Dansan Guitars and Carpinteri Guitars, and are apparently excellent. An official BMG Super replica was available, but the waiting list is closed (and those on it have been waiting years). KZ Guitars in Japan also made a superb reproduction.
I suppose the single John Birch replica made for Brian in the 70s deserves a mention as well. Didn’t sound right, wouldn’t hold its tuning, and was eventually destroyed by Brian throwing it off the stage in a fit of rage and frustration.
https://dansanguitars.com/the-red-psecial/
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I wish that people would stop going on about The Red Special, this is going to cost me money.
I've fancied one of these for a long while. I'm not particularly a Queen fan but, having met Brian May about 10 years ago, I'd made a point to hunt one down. On a trip to London found one and, despite being so right for me on paper, it was instant disappointment the moment that I picked it up. It just felt wrong.
I've continued to like the look of them and last year I made a visit to Andertons where I got another chance to try one. My tastes in necks have probably changed in the intervening years, plus I had lower expectations this time around, but this time it felt fine. The trouble is that I don't need another mid-priced 6 string electric yet the itch won't go away.
Even though I know it was a poor copy, and I can’t stand John Birch’s work either, if I ever wanted a BM guitar it would be that yellow colour - I’ve always thought it was the best-looking version. My first visual memory of Queen is seeing it in the We Will Rock You video... it was below freezing outside when it was filmed and Brian didn’t want to risk damaging the red one.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
Years ago, I tried using DiMarzio BHM pickups on an ash/maple host guitar. It did the basic Brian thing but lacked some of the detail … as did my playing!
Given that Mr. May does not actually use all of the available coil and phase permutations, it might be wiser to have a Freeway selector switch wired to provide the most useful ones.
apparently the original plan was to carve the neck down to something similar to other electric guitars but the wood was so hard to work (only using hand tools) Brian stopped when he got to something he thought was playable even though it was bigger than most necks