Brian may vs steve vai guitar collection
Home / Related Biographies / Brian may vs steve vai guitar collection
V is ELATED with his new guitar,” Guyton Guitars adds. “You just allow what’s in your head to go through your fingers.”
All the latest guitar news, interviews, lessons, reviews, deals and more, direct to your inbox!
By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over.Moreover, May believes that, contrary to some, tone isn’t solely about the gear someone uses.
“I think a huge amount of a guitarist’s sound is in the fingers, and in the body and mind, as well as the way it’s played,” he continues.
Construction
Birds-eye maple fingerboard. It's a way of enhancing whatever material you're using.
Electronics
3x Yonderbosk 'Vai-Sonic' pickups.
1 tone, 1 volume.
Series / Parallel switch.
Built in KAT treble booster.
All switching by push buttons and fitted with custom turned, anodised aluminium actuators. the more you look the more you see, it was a seriously fun job and I’m very VERY proud to have been part of the build.”
“Mr.
During his GW career, he’s interviewed Peter Frampton, Zakk Wylde, Tosin Abasi, Matteo Mancuso and more, and has profiled the CEOs of Guitar Center and Fender.
When he’s not combining his passion for writing and music during his day job, Matt performs with indie rock duo Esme Emerson, and has previously opened for the likes of Ed Sheeran, Keane, Japanese House and Good Neighbours.
“I have none of the high technical skill of a Steve Vai or a Joe Satriani.” Brian May says he can’t compete with the world’s best shredders, but his alternative approach means he doesn’t have to
Brian May has the résumé of a rock god, but he doesn’t see himself as a dot on other players' fretboards, and that’s forced him to reconsider his approach to the electric guitar.
He was voted the greatest rock guitarist of all time in a 2020 Total Guitar poll, a feat he also repeated three years later.
There is very little friction in the system. “You own a guitar, play it, and it becomes a part of you more and more as time goes on.
“The sound that people mainly know me for is a guitar that sustains, and something happens to you when you hold a guitar like that in your hands.
“I always used to wonder about that when I was very first starting.
Personally I LOVE it!!!!
From Guyton:
What a pleasure it is to finally be able to share this.
.
Gibson struck up an official partnership with May last year – and, when we spoke to May in June 2024, he dropped a heavy hint about the prospect of US-made Murphy Lab replicas of the Red Special.Matt is the GuitarWorld.com News Editor, and has been writing and editing for the site for five years.
Even the smallest details are exquisite; just look at those Yin Yang fingerboard inlays, cut from mother of pearl and Tahitian black pearl, with 9ct gold dots. Phwoar. “I find that I can connect what’s in my head through the fingers to what’s coming out, and it’s quite a smooth connection.”
His relationship with the guitar — in particular his one-of-a-kind Red Special — is almost telepathic.
“You get to the point where you can almost turn off any kind of thinking process,” he says.
“It’s not every day you get to work for a player rightfully belonging on the pantheon of rock gods”: Steve Vai has reimagined Brian May’s Red Special in his own vision with the help of a UK boutique guitar builder
Steve Vai has partnered with a UK guitar builder to reimagine Brian May’s iconic Red Special, with a few tweaks of his own – and the result is quite something.
The Queenguitar hero’s legendary Red Special is one of the most well-known electric guitars of all time.
So I'm always trying to coax different textures out of it — different sounds, different moves.”
That's why he says he had to fight Freddie Mercury to add a guitar solo to this Queen hit, feeling the song called for the texture some lead guitar would bring. “The tension of the strings is balanced by two motorcycle springs.
Hardware
Sperzel locking machine heads with ivoroid buttons.
Cybershop RS Hardware polished and gold plated.
Aluminium pick-guard, tremolo plate and truss rod cover. It comes with Yonderbosk Vai-Sonic pickups (custom-wound pickups made for Vai that fit the Red Special schematic), and some faithful expansive switching, including Series/Parallel and a built-in KAT treble booster.
Oh, and we should probably say, it looks absolutely drop-dead gorgeous.
Outside of the journalism realm, you can find him writing angular riffs in progressive metal band, Prognosis, in which he slings an 8-string Strandberg Boden Original, churning that low string through a variety of tunings.
To make it visually balanced, the entire guitar is a touch bigger. It was but one piece of a much larger puzzle.
Such a mindset, he feels, outstrips fireworks for the sake of setting fire to something.
I remember people used to sing and play at the same time, the same notes, and I thought: I wonder how that happens?