THE BRIAN MAY FRYER TREBLE BOOSTER

At Fryer Guitars our aim is to produce the finest quality guitars and guitar products available anywhere in the world. We are extremely proud to be able to work closely with Brian May in order to produce the Brian May Fryer Treble Booster.

Great care and attention to detail have gone into the making of this Treble Booster. It is of extreme importance to both Brian and ourselves that the performance and sound of this product matches the high standards of quality that have gone into its manufacture. It is our hope that the result is great musical enjoyment for you, the musician.
 

DESCRIPTION

The Brian May Fryer Treble Booster is an integral part of Brian May's distinctive guitar sound. The essential core of Brian's sound, whether it be for recording or live work, consists of three parts: Brian's "Red Special" guitar, Treble Booster and VOX AC30 Amplifier.
In the studio Brian sometimes uses the "Deacy Amp", a 1 watt Germanium transistor amplifier made by John Deacon, Queen's bass player. Examples of this unusual sounding amplifier can be heard on "Procession", "God Save the Queen" and on many areas of Brian's guitar multitracking work.

The Treble Booster is used to achieve two main things:
1. To tonally shape the sound coming from the guitar, and
2. To greatly boost (by around 30db) that signal into the VOX AC30's Normal (flat response) channel which is run at full volume.
The AC 30 is driven extremely hard in this situation, with its sweet sounding small bottle EL84 power tubes being pushed to their maximum but importantly, delivering a harmonically rich, sustaining singing sound unobtainable by using other amplifier types. This unique combination of guitar, treble booster and amp can be heard clearly on most of Queen's famous tracks including "Bohemian Rhapsody", "We Will Rock You", "Killer Queen", and "We are the champions".
 

BACKGROUND

The Brian May Treble Booster evolved from the earlier Rangemaster Booster which was used by Brian until the early 1970's. The design was then altered at his request to produce a richer, sweeter sound compared to the grittier, rawer Rangemaster pedal. The Brian May Fryer Treble Booster keeps faith fully to this later single transistor circuit design and also features reduced noise and hiss. Power is supplied by a 9v battery. An AC adapter has not been chosen because of its detrimental effect on sound quality.

In reproducing exactly the tonal qualities of Brian May's Treble Booster the most critical component for tone, noise and gain has proven to be the transistor itself. Because great tonal variation can exist between a handful of supposedly identical transistors, during 1999 at Fryer Guitars we developed a rigorous selection process. Each transistor being evaluated is plugged into a testing treble booster unit and then actually played in full Brian May mode through a VOX AC30 amplifier (at full volume) using the Fryer Red Special Replica guitar "Paul", in order to establish the transistor's tone, noise and gain characteristics. This process allows us to choose only the very best transistors for use in our Brian May Fryer Treble Boosters. When fully assembled the finished units are then given a final sound evaluation using the same equipment.
 

TREBLE BOOSTER USE

The Treble Booster is always first in line, and both it and the AC30 are set on full volume, thus giving maximum presence and sustain, with the overall volume controlled from the guitar. This gives a flexible range of tone and distortion choices, starting low down on the guitar's volume control with sparkling clean tones and as the volume is increased, sliding smoothly into the creamy compressed overdriven sound that Brian is famous for.

Many players have also found the Treble Booster particularly useful with conventional electric guitars and other types of tube amplifiers. Whilst many well known guitarists like Brian May, Hendrix, Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Van Halen and others have achieved their tone by using amplifiers run at full volume, please be aware that this practice is not without risk. Great tone and warm harmonic sustain are sometimes achieved at the cost of damage to tubes and speakers.

And finally, may we suggest that you endeavour to maintain a musical spirit of adventure and creativity when using the Brian May Fryer Treble Booster, to strive to create your own individual sound from your musical expression.

Greg Fryer
 
 

All Brian May Fryer pedals feature:

1. True hardwire bypass, so that the guitar’s tone is not messed up when the pedal is bypassed.
2. Quality USA Switchcraft jacks.
3. Quality heavy duty USA Carlingswitch footswitch.
4. Everything carefully handmade with pride at Fryer Guitars, Sydney Australia.

At Fryer Guitars our aim is to give the musician the worlds finest handmade guitar products.