PRODUCT REVIEW
Fryer Sound Ltd.
BRIAN MAY
Treble Boosters
BY CHRIS BURGESS
Right from the begining, on Queen’s earliest recordings, Brian May’s sound had his
signature on it. His tone was immediately
as distinctive and recognizable as his style
of playing, but the key to his overall sound
was always in its range of expressiveness.
With only a guitar, a treble booster, and an
amp, May could (and still can) go from the
chiming, delicate ring of strummed chords
and jangly arpeggios to lean, bluesy riffs
and singing, melodic leads (sometimes
accompanied by an orchestra of guitars
singing along) to squealing bends and
gliding, operatic vibrato, and from there
on to something that sounds very much
like a jet plane crashing to the ground—
often in the space of a single song. While
it’s never a perfectly “clean” sound, even
in its most blistering and phased-out
moments, it never loses its definition and
string clarity. To be sure, you need good
gear for this. But you also have keep in
mind that good gear is not sufficient; for
this you also need singular technique.
Greg Fryer’s Brian May Treble Boosters
fall into the latter category; they are in
fact expressly accurate. One of them, the
Touring booster, is part of May’s current rig.
The others, aimed to faithfully reproduce
the tones of Queen records past rather
than present, do seem like they’re up to the
task—when used with a Red Special guitar
and an AC30, at least. Fryer is after all the
one who restored the original, irreplaceable
Red Special, and then made the backup
replicas used by May; designing and building custom pedals and amps for May’s use
has surely given him a unique insight into
what makes that signature tone possible.
treble boosters have plenty of both clarity
and sensitivity to offer, but each provides its
enhancements in a different way.
The allure of that sound, however, has made
May’s tone a sought-after commodity by
guitarists of all skill levels. And there have
been some successes. For many players, the
simplicity of May’s signal chain is a big part
of its allure, especially because it contains
the x factor of a homemade and very special guitar (and often on recordings it also
includes a one-off, handmade amp). And
though May’s tone must certainly be counted among those that are worth chasing, the
nature of the rig itself has to be somewhat
responsible for the fairly brisk trade in May-oriented gear currently available—which if
it isn’t aimed at making his tone available
to you affordably (and by other means),
it is designed to reproduce, with varying
degrees of accuracy, May’s actual rig.
The boosters are available in three flavors:
the Deluxe, the Plus, and the Touring.
I’ve had more luck telling them apart by
color and by sound than by name: they are
purple, blue, and bright red, respectively.
It may go without saying that all three
battery-powered pedals (no AC jack) are
simpler than most boosters—as simple
as boosters come, in fact. Aside from the
label, nothing but Switchcraft In and Out
jack sockets, Bulgin 9V-battery drawers and
rubber feet adorn their exterior. Inside each
enclosure is only a small PCB with a few
components, all painted black. Simplicity is
an important part of the recipe, especially if
you’re trying to achieve the same stunning
sweep from the warmly jangling, almost-liq-uid sound of May’s “cleans” to the muscly,
fat rhythm tones and searing, raw overdrive
that evokes something like a Concerto in
E-Minor for violins and rocket artillery.
Such boosters would also require exceptional
clarity and sensitivity, since if you’re running a
VOX or similar amp flat out, you’ve really got
only the guitar to control every tonal variation
of this rig. You can bet that all three of these
Treble Booster Deluxe
The regal, purple-colored one provides
35dB of gain and is aimed at May’s mid-
seventies Queen tone. With single-coil
guitars such as a Nash S- 63 Strat-type and
a stock Fender Road Worn Telecaster, I
pushed the almost-dimed AC30H2 into
a sizzling overdrive, while retaining the
punch and definition of the picked notes
and barre chords. Think “Tie Your Mother
Down,” but leaner. Rolling back the vol-
ume on those guitars cleaned up the tone
beautifully to a pleasing, bright shimmer.
The humbuckers on a Gibson LP Studio, a
Fender Contemporary Tele and a Hamer
Talladega Pro all bit much harder in the
mids, retaining all the punch and clarity,
but showing little sparkle at the top end.
It was a pair of P-90-equipped guitars—
a Deusenberg MC Signature and an
Eastwood Airline Tuxedo (of all things)—
that produced the most sensitive, fuzz-like
leads and ringing, harmonic sustain of
songs like “Brighton Rock” and “Stone
Cold Crazy,” though both guitars, being
hollow in some part, tended to feed back
too easily.
