Brian May: using Vox AC30s for Bohemian Rhapsody

Brian May in an interview with Guitarplayer.com on getting the right tone for Bohemian Rhapsody

It’s all about Vox AC30s and the [Dallas Rangemaster] treble booster, which was all inspired by Rory Gallagher. There’s really very little else on my guitar. There are no effects boxes as a rule. I used delays and stuff, but the fundamental tone that you hear is the guitar and the treble booster and the AC30.

And the AC30 gives it that incredible throat, which is variable. The more you turn it up, the more it goes into saturation. It doesn’t distort that much, and you’re still in the position at about nine and a half, where you can still play chords and they still sound like chords. It doesn’t sound like a big fart.

So it’s a unique thing and we know why that is now, because the AC30 is fundamentally a Class A amplifier, and because of the way the valves are used. They’re biased halfway up, so they don’t distort until you drive them very, very hard, and then they go smoothly into that distortion. So that’s the whole thing. I get so used to that being the way that the guitar speaks, I take it for granted.

» brianmay.com