Hi, all you RS-fanatics this is a test report out of a german musician magazine from 1994. SOLO 2/94
Guild BM Signature
- limited to 1000 copies
- Price 4890,- Deutsche Mark
- Made in USA
I'am sorry but my (guitar) technical english is limited. So if you are a native speaker or someone with good skills in german, feel free to do a translation. Please do not use a translation generator ( they often didn't hit the point)
Otherwise I will provide something like a basic translation over the weekend.
They were very nice well made guitars. It's just a shame at that price Guild decided not to make a more accurate looking guitar. Everything was there and it wouldn't have taken much more tweaking to get to where the Super is now. I believe BM fell out with Guild because they decided to build so many other versions of the guitar which, apart from the shape, had little to do with the original guitar.
Surprisingly my 'technical'english did not increased very much in the last few days. But no one else was doing the job, so here is my attempt.
Please remember it was written in 1994 !
"I WANT IT ALL" GUILD BRIAN MAY SIGNATURE - by Gregor Hilden ( tester/ writer)
Page ONE
So called 'Signature'guitars'are a special case. The guitarist may say " Mhhh...do I want to play a guitar wich has big letters on it wich say 'BB-King,Gary Moore,
Eric Clapton,Jeff Beck, SRV ? ...will I look like a fool or is there an opportunity to use the positive charakter of such an instrument for the good ?
Well I have to admit, to step on a stage with this very unique 'Signature-Series' guitar - you will need a healthy self-estem.
The Legend...
The 'mother'of this mystical guitar was build by Brian May( at that time a student at the University of Hampton Middlesex, England) and his father back in 1964.
The unique sound of this hand crafted guitar appears on Queen multi-million seller album wich were loved by their fans, and it 'wakes up' the interests of many guitar players.
There were several attempts of japanese companys in the past, but they have failed because of the bad quality of their products.
In 1984 - GUILD, a company with a lot of tradition, teamed up with Brian and put a limited series of 316 guitars on the market. Even a lot of details didn't match with the
original Red Special like the Pickups, Vibrato(Kahler) and a different choise of tone- wood - these guitars sells like hot cake and collectors are willing to pay around 3.000. US Dollars for a copy.
Concept..
Body and neck were each made of a beautiful piece of Mahogany. The Body is equiped with five 'Bindings' wich are easily visible under the transparent red paint. The good quality of the
tone-wood and the easy weight give us a hint that this guitar isn't a solid body guitar. Two large " resonance chambers" were cutted into the body. These are well covered by one of the 'Bindings'
mentioned above.
The good choice of quality parts continues as we take a look at the 'fretboard' it is made of 'ebony wood' and you couldn't see a single "pore" - just to compare the original RS fretboard is made of oak wood !
They use mid-sized Jumbo-Frets - everthing is well crafted. The guitar can't hide were it came from - some things are typical for a guitar made in the swinging- sixties. And the 'zero fret" is one of the links to the sixties.
The DOTs are a bit distracting. There is a double DOT at the 7th "fret" - wich is usually in the 12th and so on ( take a look at the picture). It is not hard to get around with that fact. More time consuming
is the fact that the broadness of the neck is about 47mm at the 'saddle' - most guitars are sized with 40 - 43 mm at that point.
Very interesting and quite unusual is that the strings are almost "parallel running" The broadness at the bridge is only 49mm. The flat D-shape and the short "scale" of (61 cm) results in a comfortable playing experience.
The deep cut down to the 21th "fret" allows you to almost unlimited playing, but it brings a negative side effect - The guitar is a bit "top-heavy".
Page two will follow..
The Vibrato
With the development of this vibrato-system - Brian May was clearly ahead of his time back then.
For the first time he builds a guitar that had a bridge with rollers and the friction on the saddle was minimized because of the parallel running of the strings up to the machine head.
The vibrato of our test guitar hold it's position because of two springs just like the original RS( they used springs from a carburetor). The complete Vibrato is build by "SCHALLER"
and works very well. The lever is smooth to operate - detuning appear only under heavier use.
