The MiniMay… What More Can I Say, Right? Cary Jun 12th
Hehe… OK, I’ve come across a number of interesting looking travel guitars over the years, but this one is probably the coolest.
Yep, it’s a wee miniature version of Queen guitarist Brian May’s legendary Red Special, built by Brian May Guitars, and aptly titled the MiniMay.
Unfortunately, there isn’t a whole lot in the way of specs available at this point, but from what I can gather the MiniMay features a tiny 17“ scale length, a hardtail bridge, just a single ”Tri-Sonic“style pickup, and single master tone & volume controls.
Which got me thinking––exactly how many companies are building Red Special replicas?
Burns Guitars was well known for their version of the Red Special, last year I did a hands-on review of Aslin Dane’s Bohemian (really nice guitar, too,) at the ‘07 Winter NAMM Show Eastwood Guitars busted out with a few really nice looking Red Special copies (including a gorgeous sunburst,) and now of course Brian May Guitars is producing their official Red Special.
Are there any other Red Special makers out there?
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Howdy! Care to Comment?
June 12th, 2007 at 2:31 pm
Lots of infos on Redspecial.info (yes, .info rather than .com)… I remember the Eastwood one was actually branded as “Star”, but I guess it was one of the asian copies known under different names.
June 13th, 2007 at 5:19 am
Of course Guild produced the first Red Special replicas back in the 80s. These rather alarming sported a Kahler tremolo.
These days Jim Reed Guitars from Italy also offer three Red Special models. See: http://www.jim-reed-guitars.com/eng/prodotti.php
I’m sure I’ve seen other brands too - there are certainly some I’ve seen in some dodgy Chinese guitar catalogue. I also recollect having seen a Red Special BASS too (possibly from the dodgy Chinese catalogue again).