# Brian May Stack



## GuitarsCanada (Dec 30, 2005)

A shot from a recent show. Playing Toronto tonight


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## 5732 (Jul 30, 2009)

Did not realize that AC30s were that unreliable.


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## kat_ (Jan 11, 2007)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_TwDJJFhVA is worth a watch. It's from a previous tour but I doubt much has changed.


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## hardasmum (Apr 23, 2008)

[video=youtube_share;vyyTBeAmZIc]http://youtu.be/vyyTBeAmZIc[/video]


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## ezcomes (Jul 28, 2008)

i rmember watching these vids...very cool...

for some reason i was thinking they were all mixed for the different delays...


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## cheezyridr (Jun 8, 2009)

i was also unaware of this reliability thing. ive never heard anyone else mention it. i woulda thunk one of the folks here would have talked about it at sometime, but i don't remember reading such. i get the impression he's not talking about tubes getting rattled in transit between gigs. they sure do sound sweet, either way.


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## GuitarsCanada (Dec 30, 2005)

I am not aware of any major reliability issues with the AC30 amps


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## keto (May 23, 2006)

Yeah, the old ones I have read did have reliability issues plus I think we all know EL84's are not the most reliable tube, and AC30's run *hot*.


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## zurn (Oct 21, 2009)

That pic appeared on Premier Guitar's Facebook page. Here is the attached text that went with it:

"Here is Queen guitarist Brian May's wall of Vox AC30s. The top row are dummy cabs that only contain speakers for backups. The middle row is host to the functioning backups. And the three slanted combos on the floor are live and cranked to 10. The middle combo is dry, but the left one has a 800 ms delay on it and the AC30 on the right rocks a 1600 ms delay. Greg Fryer modded all of the combos by removing the tremolo and reverb circuits so their signal paths are as simplistic and pure as possible. May plugs into the normal input on all of his amps."


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## Pewtershmit (Jun 13, 2014)

I'm not that big on the AC30 sound, but that stack of amps looks AWESOME!


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## TWRC (Apr 22, 2011)

Old AC30s are reliable as long as you take good care of them (like anything else). Personally, the biggest issue I have with old ones are heat related because as we all know, they run very hot! I had my 70's AC30 modded to have a standby switch along with a fan to circulate the hot air out of the chassis (both mods are reversible if need be).


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## High/Deaf (Aug 19, 2009)

Pewtershmit said:


> I'm not that big on the AC30 sound, but that stack of amps looks AWESOME!


Personally, I think BM has one of the best rock tones going. Smooth, singing, biting when he wants it to. 

And completely unique. There weren't 2 bars into the opening song when I heard the preview for the movie they did 25 years ago, and I said to my pals "that's Brian May". Hadn't heard of the movie or the fact that Queen had done the music for it (this was way pre-internet).

Although I can't get that sound out of an AC30, I now it's in there somewhere.


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## kat_ (Jan 11, 2007)

High/Deaf said:


> Although I can't get that sound out of an AC30, I now it's in there somewhere.


The coin he uses as a pick really makes a difference. My bandmate has a stash of them which I discovered one day when I commented that he was sounding like Brian May. Out-of-phase pickups helps too.


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## Louis (Apr 26, 2008)

I'm not a Vox player but I prefer those
over a fake wall of Marshalls


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