How to sound like Brian May: reproducing the Bohemian Rhapsody solo tone

[@tomjackson1630]

Dude, your vibrato is spot on! Sweet job

[@TraqGuitars]

thanks man! doing my best :)

[@SuperZiggyCraft]

This is still the closest tone I’ve seen on KZbin and I’ve been searching for months, almost spot on!

[@TraqGuitars]

thanks, man :)

[@lukahmad5683]

This is the most honest, straight to the point, simple and easy to understand, I like how you presenting this. Thank you Master :D

[@ben9830]

That bridge pickup though. Love it! An unexpected and underrated tonal shift if I do say so myself. Subbed!!

[@benscott8111]

I seen your original post on the Kemper forum which brought me here. Brilliant tweaking and absolutely stunning playing. You totally nailed his phrasing and vibrato! By far the closest rendition I've ever heard.. And I've probably heard it covered over 1000 times. Congrats!

[@TraqGuitars]

thanks man, I appreciate the kind words :) I did put quite a bit of energy into trying to nail it

[@bushibayushi]

I love the format of making "experiments" and reamping the same part, great job on that!

[@TraqGuitars]

thanks, I wanted to do a little bit more than just give a recipe and actually show the process :)

[@ffs_auggie]

could you please post the schematic of the blue guitar?

[@TraqGuitars]

I looked online and the closest I could find is here: www.1728.org/guitar3.htm , the bottom one ("Phasing for all 3 pickups"). This is the same configuration that I used in this guitar, just add volume & tone knobs and you're good to go :)

[@senti_mental7]

wow this is breathtaking

Very good. The tone is spot on! Subscribed ;)

[@TraqGuitars]

thanks! glad that you think that, this is as close as I managed to get :)

[@DaffierPig6843]

Sounds spot on

[@alekseimizenin5235]

How do you make this wonderful sound!

[@johncecilia4517]

Is scale length more important to matching his tone or how neck is attached, neck thru vs bolt on?

[@traqq]

I pretty sure neck attachment has nearly zero impact on this, and scale lenght has very little (bordering on imperceptible). What's important is what pickups are used, in what combination (in this case) and where they are placed along the string. In fact mine are not placed in the same places as Brian May has them so I'm not getting everything right. Probably compensating with EQ to some extend, but EQ will only take you so far (pickup placement changes frequencies depending on the notes, EQ is static)

[@johncecilia4517]

@Traq | Piotr Traczyk So if you wired a Strat with similar pickups, it would sound close to the Red Special? It would be cool to try. Like a strat with humbuckers doesn't sound like a Les Paul and vice versa, Les Paul with single coils sounds different from a Strat. So I didn't think that would work, but that would be cheaper

[@traqq]

@@johncecilia4517 Well the guitar that I used in the video (both of them) are essentially strats with custom wiring. So I got close to the Red Special tone by changing the wiring, essentially. If on top of that I switched to the Bourns pickups and had them in the right places under the strings I imagine I'd be 99% there. But the point I'm making in the video is that MOST of the characteristic tone is in the pickup wiring, in particular the phase-canceling combination used here. I'd argue that a strat with humbuckers sounds much closer to a LP than to any strat with single coils. And vice versa, if anyone routed a LP body for three singles and put them in I don't think you'd be able to tell by ear that it's NOT a strat. I don't have any evidence to back this up though, never tried myself.

[@SuperZiggyCraft]

The first try thing with the bridge pickup is closer than I’ve been able to get with anything.

[@ffs_auggie]

That guitar is wicked cool, im thinking about doing that to my strat

[@speediablo]

Your guitar is triggering my OCD. Lmao

[@lifeofarick]

Loooolllll I KNOWWW

[@jazzram_]

Lmao

[@emefcue]

I really enjoyed this video!

[@Maurizio70GilmourFan]

Great great profile and sound, really difficult to achieve, you've done it perfectly!

[@TraqGuitars]

thanks man!!

[@noahbenson585]

How to - buy a kemper and make it sound like brian may

[@SuperZiggyCraft]

10:48 coil splitting in a nutshell

[@natnat1975]

This is not "How To Sound Like Brian May." It is "Breaking Down, Studying, And Explaining What Is Behind Sounding Like Brian May." In other words, if you're looking for a quick example of settings, etc......this is not your video. But, if you are looking to LEARN and UNDERSTAND sounding like Brian May, this may be for you.

[@TraqGuitars]

hah yea you're right, I probably dragged this out beyond what the title suggests :) I can't help it, I prefer to explain things rather than just give a quick solution.

[@serviciosmultimediaara9782]

Wow! This out of phase explanation is the key. IS there any chance you provide the diagrams for the out of phase wiring?

[@TraqGuitars]

there's many ways you can do it, depends how much you want to alter your current setup and what your current setup is. What I did here is similar to the wiring described on this page (found by quick googling of "on/on/on brian may"): guitargeargeek.com/red-special-wiring-schematic-using-only-3-on-on-on-toggle-switches-ptb-tone-control-solo-switch

[@Mr.Eikka34]

Can you use any kind of booster and amplifier?

[@vincentryanborres]

That's really helpful. Especially the explanation behind why it sounded like that. What's happening with the pickup, etc. As a simple guitarist, can I use a phaser effects pedal and a vox amp simulator to get that sound? Just a hypothetical question. Thanks again!

[@TraqGuitars]

thanks! part 2 might answer some of your questions, I show how normal pickups sound though a VOX sim or how the "right" pickup combination sounds through a different amp. Why do you want to add a phaser? There might be some phasing added in post in the recording (I can't tell for sure), or on some other solos by Brian May, but a phaser pedal won't reproduce the phase cancellations that this pickup combination gives, if that was your goal.

[@vincentryanborres]

Traq Guitars thanks for the answer. It didnt. I tried it. The phaser pedal was too much. I used the detune effects and it was a bit closer plus vox amp sim and hall reverb. Thank you so much. Your video helped me a lot.

[@TraqGuitars]

@@vincentryanborres yea, phases is really closer to a chorus in what kind of texture it creates, out-of-phase pickup wiring just removes certain harmonics from the sound, so shapes the tone in a way that's hard to reproduce with FX (though technically possible if you have a per-string piezo signal and clever electronics). Anyway, I'm glad the video was useful :)

[@vincentryanborres]

Traq Guitars totally agree. Impossible to recreate with pedal but can probably do a close resemblance of the sound but not tone or shape.

[@jamespaulbretherick4832]

Really liked the video - I have a Kemper too! I also liked the video of how you coloured the guitar by dipping into marble colour! Thumbs up! Jim.

[@TraqGuitars]

thanks man, happy to hear you liked them! The Kemper is an awesome beast no?

[@jamespaulbretherick4832]

The Kemper is truly a very versatile sound production component. It’s great for all levels of player. Worth saving up for.

[@thomasfleig1184]

That fret board is crazy. I've never seen frets angled like that. I wouldn't even think you could get the proper notes that way. I noticed that the bridge is angled, which would make sense, but I would have expected all the frets to be angled the same way, all the way down the neck. Anyhow, the guitar is awesome. Especially how you put switches in to switch the pickups in and out of phase, like Brian. I think he has something like 21 different combinations he can choose from on his guitar.

[@TraqGuitars]

Thanks :) I think there's 13 different pickup combinations possible here (3*3*3=27 switch positions, but you can get the same sound twice by flipping the phase of everything, and one is silent so 27 = 13*2 + 1). As for the frets - the place where each fret needs to be under a string is some fraction of the string's length - so if you change the string length by angling the bridge or the nut (or both), the frets will have to also become angled, but will remain straight.

[@Emiroj]

Is it possible to pay you through for example paypal for custom IR requests from a song and another artist?

[@americareal3]

Outstanding

[@hackerzae101pzs3]

Can you watch Bohemian Rhapsody | (ISOLATED) Guitars TONE COMPARISON cause it sound just like it for some Reason

[@poppyh9709]

when I want to be cheered up I watch this from 2.20 when he’s like ‘I’m not Brian May’ and it makes me cry with laughter

[@emanueleservadio8791]

Nice job, great tone!

[@TraqGuitars]

thank you, sir :)

The file is deleted

[@TraqGuitars]

My fault, sorry. I was doing some housekeeping on dropbox and didn't notice I broke the link. I changed the link in the description, the new one works. Thanks for the heads up!

@@TraqGuitars thank you so much bro!

5:55 If I want to recreate the frequency adjustments made to the cab in an EQ plugin, what were the specific frequencies that got adjusted (in terms of levels and widths)?

[@TraqGuitars]

hmm it would be tricky to replicate with an EQ plugin. The curve is rather nasty. I think the only reasonable way to get that EQ is to use an impulse loader with the impulse that I made

Which i fortunately downloaded@@TraqGuitars By the way, why was there a time when the files were unavailable?

[@TraqGuitars]

@ I'm hosting them on dropbox which I stopped using almost entirely. But the other day I went there to look for some old stuff and felt a sudden urge to do some cleaning up. At which point I accidentally broke the link that's linkned to this video, without knowing. Fortunately someone complained and I fixed that :)

At least you noticed and brought it back@@TraqGuitars🤩🤩🤩

[@bailey32121]

Hey man awesome video could you do a video on a eric johnson cliffs of dover tone?

[@PaolaCatapano]

Love the queen and misisng Freddy!

[@Particle67]

Great content. Thanks for sharing

[@tristanavakian]

Nice playing. That’s the bit that matters, which is something I explore thoroughly with my own channel. For anyone who doesn’t want to get into modding their guitars to achieve the out of phase sound, I suggest playing with static flange: put on a flanger with no modulation and play around with the delay time to find the sweet spot… a few milliseconds makes a huge difference here. It’ll probably be very specific to this solo - as you mentioned, really nailing one highly idiosyncratic tone makes it almost useless for anything else, so make it a preset you can get into and out of easily.

[@TraqGuitars]

thanks! interesting idea with the static flanger. I agree you can probably get a similar pattern of overtone cancellations with some luck. What makes doing this with pickups fun is that now this is dynamic along the neck - the tone changes as you move up and down. It's certainly fun, though I have yet to utilize it in any creative way :)

[@DarkBlackReaper]

Great video!

[@TraqGuitars]

thanks!

[@GazcoybUTFT]

THE GUITAR NEED TO BE A RED SPECIAL THAT SOUND LIKE THE ORIGINAL JUST YOU KNOW THE CHORDS SO SOUND LIKE SIR DR BRAIN MAY

[@ravelitschimo]

Great solo 👍🏻 What does Phase or out of Phase mean?

[@TraqGuitars]

thanks! well here is bascially means flipping the polarity in one of the pickups. So changing the places for + and - connections. This results in subtracting instead of adding the two signals. In consequence, frequencies that normally would be amplified are attenuated, and ones that would be choked by combining two pickups are emphasized.

[@ravelitschimo]

Traq Guitars thanks for the answer. I appreciate it. Does it mean some frequencies are swallowed? And a kind of hollow sound is the result?

[@traqq]

@@ravelitschimo precisely. Which frequencies exactly get cancelled out depends on which pickups you're combining and which fret you're at, making the tone change as you move across the neck. In some spots you will for example get almost complete cancellation of the fundamental freqency, making is sound almost as if you're playing harmonics all the time (the notes will sound an octave above what you're playing)

[@traqq]

@@ravelitschimo yes. In short, that's pretty much what's happening.

[@ravelitschimo]

Traq isn’t it paradoxically? Phase for missing some frequences and boosting it with a treble boost?

[@arturartur991]

poland?

[@owenthunderguns3608]

Fanned frets make me dizzy! ha

[@cincinnatipedalsteel4347]

Your 1st piece of advice is the best advice any musician can heed; LISTEN! You cant tab emotion. Nice job brother.

[@donald-parker]

Great playing and great sound, but a hell of a lot of work. Another approach is the buy a BMG Special.

[@kingqrthurr]

Very funny. You can take off your disguise, Brian.

[@cho.115]

Fanned frets :)

[@TraqGuitars]

yea, I did dump a few ideas into a single guitar build, the Brian May wiring was only one of them...

[@philbooth6372]

I think the sixpence is a bit of a red herring,you manage to sound as good as(or better than) Brian May without it!

[@billidentiala6641]

dude’s talkin’ like elon musk

[@jcthemuffin]

😂😂😂

[@spivvo]

uh dammit... I now have to buy a kemper and rewire my guitar...

[@johncecilia4517]

You cheated, you just made a guitar to his specs, scale length, neck thru wiring. Still cool video But it looks like from your video, normal strat is closest out of common guitars.

[@blueissonice4566]

Has anyone told u that u sound and look like Louis C. K ?

[@TraqGuitars]

nope, who's that? :)

[@bayubastian4199]

Next video, I request... "How to buy a Kemper if you are a poor guy..."

[@andreslugo9947]

So so so f- first- t- the- the p- play- player b- b-b-b brrrian m- m- may

[@zaggaleaf7863]

If elon musk played guitar

[@Logan-df4lu]

Don’t think u can get a 6 pence coin lol

[@TraqGuitars]

strangely, it appears that you can: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixpence_(British_coin) :) (it even mentions Brian May)

[@breakingmad2645]

7 mins of stuttering 😭

[@WHALEx3]

The mouth noises sound gross. Thanks for the vid though.

[@guitarguru8275]

You should have put in the name of the video word "Kemper". That way you wouldn't waste time of all of us who doesn't own the profiler!