nailing down the tone in the Bohemian Rhapsody solo

  • Hey traqq,


    thank you, too! And while smart assing I almost forgot to say that I also like your excerpt a lot! Cool tone and playing!!


    It's the good side of modern times that now those isolated tracks are available. It's such a valuable thing to pay attention to tiniest details of players like Brian. This is timeless music.


    I think there is no emulation of ghosting in any modeler or the KPA because it's too unpredictable and random by nature. But I might be wrong of course. Sagging parameters are a good idea too approximate the feeling of a full blown amp a bit. But honestly, playing such amps with untamed volume is the real deal. It's such an organic thing that simply does inspiring things to your playing. Those guitarists of that 70ies era of amps established this and that's the downside of modern hi-gain amps - you might sacrifice that musical tone interaction with all this loudness control and lack of pure energy. So let's play loud again! I love my Kemper through a Matrix GT1000 through three 4x12 cabinets!


    Cheers, Josse

    Edited once, last by Josse ().

  • I've been trying to get as close as possible to Brian May's screaming tone

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    Dang! Excellent work

  • Very interesting exercise Traqq. Given that you're not Brian and not using his equipment, I think you've got it as spot on as is humanly possible.


    Can I ask you at what volume you played, i.e how much were the power amp and speaker being driven. I've always imagined there was some sort of feedback element in the original sound?

    Sterling Musicman JP150, Fender USA Strat
    Kemper Powerhead & Remote > ElectroVoice ZLX12-P | Palmer 1x12 Cab(G12M) | Sennheiser HD558
    Audient iD14 > Reaper

  • Very interesting exercise Traqq. Given that you're not Brian and not using his equipment, I think you've got it as spot on as is humanly possible.


    Can I ask you at what volume you played, i.e how much were the power amp and speaker being driven. I've always imagined there was some sort of feedback element in the original sound?

    Thanks man, thanks to everybody for the kind words. Much appreciated!


    Actually there's no interaction with the amp here, the volume was so low that there was no question of feedback or anything like that. Sadly - I agree that having to really crank your amp still is closer to "the real deal" :)
    Here, I think the harmonic content of the sound is to a large extent determined by the pickup combination. With that in place you don't need feedback to pull weird overtones from the notes , they're already there.

  • all right, here's one last video to complete the study, playing the whole thing with the "right" amp model but different pickup combinations and then the "right" pickup combination but different amps - I added the VSP Vox model that sounds pretty close, the "Wet Queen" patch and a Marshall JCM900 from the Ace pack. All the patches are staright as they come (no tweaking), I just switched off the effects in "wet queen".


    I had to redo the solo played on the strat since I didn't record the dry guitar in the previous version and I couldn't reamp it.. Actually, in terms of playing I think I like this new performance best. (#3 in this video)


    Hope you find this comparison useful:

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