Hi All,
With the new tour of Queen (what left of them) and Paul Rogers I became interested in Queen and Brian May again. Year ago I was a big fan, but with over the year my interest faded away a bit. Off course I know all about the Red Special and the special Pick-up configuration of this guitar. Pickups are in series (instead of parallel, like a Strat) and can be switch on and off and switched in or out phase separately.
Have a look here for more information: http://www.treblebooster.com/brian_may_pickup_mod.htm (http://www.treblebooster.com/brian_may_pickup_mod.htm)
Since I only have a Strat type guitar, I was looking into converting the wiring to the Brain May version, just as an experiment. Initially this looked like a "simple" rewiring project and add some switches, but then I thought about the reversed wound middle pickup in the strat. I was wondering how this pickup will works in the Brian May configuration? Does anybody has an idea?
Thanks,
Joep
The reverse-would middle pickup won't make any tonal difference. The middle pickup in the original Red Special is reverse-would, I believe. All it means is that when you have the Neck and Middle pickups in phase or Bridge and Middle pickups in phase, they will be hum-cancelling- exactly the reason the middle pickup is reverse-wound in the first place, in both the strat and the Red Special. Apart from that, there will be no difference in the tone you get. It's nothing to worry about.