ChangeYourStrings

Brian May's guitar strings: the Red Special rig, sourced

Queen · reviewed by the Change Your Strings editorial team ·

Brian May uses Optima Gold Brian May Signature strings (.009–.042) on his hand-built Red Special, the guitar he and his father built in 1963. Earlier in his career he played Rotosound round-wounds and famously experimented with banjo strings to get lighter gauges; he settled on Optima Gold as a more reliable .009-gauge set that survives his pick attack. He uses a sixpence coin instead of a plectrum, which dramatically increases string-breakage probability, the Optima Gold's plating is part of why it survives.

Who Brian May is

Brian May is the founding guitarist and a co-songwriter of Queen, the British rock band whose catalog runs from Queen II (1974) through Innuendo (1991), built on harmonized layered guitar work, theatrical arrangements, and one of the most identifiable lead-tone signatures in rock. He plays a guitar he built with his father in 1963 from reclaimed materials, using a coin instead of a plectrum, with strings that have to be plated in 24-karat gold to survive his attack across a tour.

What he plays

Optima 24K Gold Brian May Signature strings (.009, .011, .016, .024, .032, .042) on the Red Special. The Optima signature is sold via his own Brian May Guitars storefront, endorsement is formal and the set carries his name.

His sixpence-coin pick attack is the key variable behind the gauge choice. Per his guitar tech Pete Malandrone, they moved him off the lighter .008 gauge to .009 specifically because .008 strings broke too often under the coin's sharp edge across a Queen-set length performance.

Why this fits the rig

The Red Special is a 24-inch scale-length guitar, substantially shorter than a Strat's 25.5" or a Les Paul's 24.75", which means strings sit at lower tension at any given gauge. The .009-gauge Optima Gold set on a 24" scale gives him bend-light feel without the pitch-stability cost a longer-scale .009 would have. The 24K Gold plating buys him chemical stability under the coin's metal-on-metal contact and across the heat of stage lights, both of which would dull plain nickel-plated steel quickly.

The custom Burns Tri-Sonic pickups in series with the phase switches give the Red Special its distinctive nasal, vocal upper-midrange, the part of his tone that the gauge supports but doesn't create. The strings are the back half of the system; the front half is the guitar he's been playing for 60+ years and the coin he grew up using because plectrums weren't available where he did his early playing.

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