bart.childers wrote:Red Pig - pretty decent Plexi IMO.
I kind of recently (re)discovered the Red Pig while exploring all the 12" guitar speakers, and it is pretty great sounding. (I'm still a bit confused as to why the default matching cab uses Brit 80 speakers, though that sounds cool enough, and it's also fun to try different cab/speaker combos with the Red Pig.) And it does sound much more "plexi-ish" than, say, a Fender Twin or a Mesa Dual Rectifier
though technically the Marshall Majors (on which the Red Pig model is based) had a significantly different circuit (and tubes) than the #1959 Super Leads. The Major preamp is very loud and clean; that would seem great for pedals, except that real Majors apparently tend to blow up
when boosted. Not a problem in the digital-model realm, of course!
IMO, it's very cool to have the JH Gold and the Red Pig -- and all the rest of the actually fairly extensive collection of Marshall-based (or even Marshall approved) amp models -- in Amplitube, though I would like to see a good ol' EL34-based #1959 Super Lead model myself.
Still, Brian May is not a Marshall guy, so no such model should be expected in a Queen/May collection. The old AC30-based models are from the same era as the British Lead S100, and so it will be well worth seeing them updated.
There's actually quite a bit of info online about May's AC30s -- at least how he uses them at present -- though I'm not sure how much real difference there is with his rig in the past since it's so basic: Rangemaster (or similar) into AC30(s).
- Regarding the treble-booster, May used a (stock?) Rangemaster on earlier Queen records, then a Pete Cornish boost pedal with silicon instead of germanium transistors and greater (and less trebly) "boost", and more recently a Greg Fryer booster that is likewise silicon-based but somewhere between the Rangemaster and Cornish units in terms of amount of boost and trebly-ness. Technically, I think the Fryer boost circuitry is currently encapsulated in a lightweight enclosure clipped to his guitar strap, since May uses wireless units, but the boost apparently doesn't like being behind them.
- I gather May's touring amps are basically gutted so that just the "Normal" channel of the original amp is active, and the only functional control is the volume knob. (This would be to improve onstage reliability by eliminating unneeded components.) I believe there was at some point a Brian May signature model AC30 that essentially reproduced this kind of configuration, though it's not currently in production. I also understand his current touring amps replace the original GZ34 valve rectifier with a solid-state (transistor) rectifier, though (those who should know) claim the tone is basically unaffected by this alteration. I don't know the antiquity of this change.
- Then, at present, he seems to have a mix of Celestion Blue (i.e. Brit Alnico B in Amplitube) and G12H Anniversary (i.e. Brit Anniversary 1 or 2 in Amplitube) speakers going on. (Though the G12H Anniversary speakers appeared in 1994, they presumably weren't on "classic" Queen recordings, though of course the original G12H speakers appeared in the 1960s and existed in a few variants during the 1970s as well. I'm not really sure how similar or different the originals and the "anniversary" reissues may sound!).
Since I've long agitated for Amplitube to include at least
some kind of treble booster
I'm very keen to see what we get in a May/Queen bundle: whether it is basically his current unit or whether earlier boost options (Rangemaster, Cornish) are somehow there as well. Still,
any version of the boost ought to be appropriate for use with a whole range of '60s/'70s Brit-style amp models (JH Gold, Red Pig, HiAmp, OR120, etc.).
Also, I sort of wonder whether Amplitube versions of May's amp(s) will strictly reproduce the "all unessential electronics removed" configuration, etc. of his touring amps (for hyper authenticity), or whether more "standard" AC30 controls/channels will return (for a bit more versatility), or whether this might be switchable, or there are different amp models, etc.
It should be interesting to find out!