Queen Sound

  • Thread starter Thread starter 69 SG
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Brian May's vibrato generates a lot of sustain. Of course he built his guitar so his whole setup was geared to his playing, but I think if you can develop a vibrato that adds energy, and then layer guitars in harmony, you'll be along the way.
 
Lot's of compression and an Octavia every now and then. Class A amps probably help too.
 
he used ac30's, and sometimes pushed the front end with a solid state homemade amp.

point is, the vox amp, and playing loud, and having a semi-hollow guitar, is what gave that sustain.

add into that, technique and phrasing, the 'treble booster' and the 'deacy' preamp......


you can hear many of his recordings, where the guitar is dry as a bone, but still sustains...... it's obvious he's sitting close to the amp, playing it loud enough to interact with the strings and guitar body.
any good tube amp pushed hard will give you this effect, you don't need fancy pedals or compressors.
 
Maybe no help with sustain, but on the VH1 classic album show for "night at the opera", brian may mentions how his 2 pickups are wired out of phase with each other which helps create that feedbacky crunchy squelch.
 
ggunn said:
That's a joke, right? Any single ended amp has no choice but to be class A.
Click to expand...

Nope, some idiot over there would pipe up and correct anyone that said "class a". I asked him what's up with that and he threw a bunch of mumbo jumbo at me. I tried to argue but I don't know shit about amp electronics, only what sounds good.
 
guys that are into 'pure electronics'.....
and guys that design tube amps, and give em names..........



they don't hang together at the party.

LOL
:p
 
He also had a switching set-up on his guitar that allowed him to put all 3 of his pick-ups in series. Usually, pick-ups are in parallel,(like- 2 x 8k ohm strat p-ups in parallel=4k ohm output.) He could do 3 in series, which would give him REALLY high output.
 
jonnyc said:
Nope, some idiot over there would pipe up and correct anyone that said "class a". I asked him what's up with that and he threw a bunch of mumbo jumbo at me. I tried to argue but I don't know shit about amp electronics, only what sounds good.
Click to expand...


can you put up a link???? i wish i had seen it.... pathetic...
 
If it wasn't for the price, I'd have a Vox AC30, or at least an AC15. I've played through both, and the built-in tremolo is to die for! Another issue that I haven't seen mentioned, concerning sustain, is string gauge. Lighter strings (8's, 9's) will sustain longer than heavier strings (11's, 12's). I'm more into rockabilly and surf instrumentals, so I don't really need a lot of sustain. Eventually, all of my electric guitars will be strung with nothing lighter than 11's, and I'll even give 13's a try on 1 or 2. I have a couple of original songs that use a bit of sustain at the end of the chorus, so I'm basically going to see how heavy I can get away with before I lose that, then back down to the last gauge before I lost sustain.

Matt
 
Yea... He's guitar was custom-made, of some wood dried in front of a fireplace for some 200 years,,, plus the electronics... I read someplace.
 
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