Guild Brian May Pro

The 1993-1994 USA made BHM guitar was Guild's 2nd attempt at a Brian May replica and they got it right this time. The guitar is all mahogany including the 24-fret neck (ebony fingerboard) and is nice and light and easy on the back. The three Seymour Duncan designed pickups wired in series give about 21 different tones, try that with a Strat, Les Paul or even a PRS! Both of mine are red and the finish is quite nice with no problems. The Schaller tuners work well and the guitar stays in tune unless you go crazy with the tremolo bar. The only reason I would not recommend this guitar is if you have short little fingers, the neck is so wide you won't be able to make certain chords. For normal hands the neck is perfect and fast with lots of room for bending strings. I have mine setup with DR 9.5 - 44 strings and am very happy with this combination. The Guild case that came with the BHM is very well made and I do NOT recommend carrying this guitar around in a gigbag. It's much too fragile...

As mentioned earlier this guitar is capable of a wide variety of sounds, and is able to emulate a Strat, a Gibson ES-335, a Rickenbacker, a Gretsch and others. I use it with both Vox and Marshall amps and find it capable of both a fat dark tone (neck pickup) all the way to a screaming bright tone that will cut through any mix. Because of all the choices there is nothing I don't like about the sound of the BHM.

I purchased both of my BHM's used so I have no idea how these were setup at the Guild factory. I do my own setups and find the guitar very easy to get right. I am a fan of Schaller products so I like the tuners and bridge. The Duncan pickups have a very wide magnetic field and work great. The six white on/off and phase switches are impossible to get (I tried) so make sure these work BEFORE you buy one of these or you will have to replace all of them with black switches. Not a big deal but it will lower the value of the guitar.

The only thing I hated about this guitar were the strap buttons which were too small and secured to the guitar via a 1/2" screw. DANGER! I changed these to PRS strap buttons and no longer fear the guitar hitting the floor during a solo. I have used the BHM live but always have my old PRS Custom 24 with me and alternate between the two guitars. I would never bring one guitar to ANY gig and find that the Guild is just as reliable as the PRS which is my trusty little workhorse.

Warranty, what warranty? (LOL) I do my own setups and repairs and would never send out my BHM's. So far neither of them has had problems that I couldn't handle.

I have been playing guitar and bass for over 30 years and own two 1994 BHM's, a 1988 PRS Custom (I owned 5 PRS at one point) a 1970 Gibson EB3 Long Scale bass and a 1980 Zemaitis bass. If any of these were stolen I would have to replace them somehow.

I have owned and played almost every guitar ever made and prefer the PRS and the BHM. Between these two there is no sound that I want to get that I can't. If I find yourself in a slump with one guitar, I switch to the other for a breath of fresh air. It's that easy.

I don't know any other guitar that has this many tones

If you can't find the sound that you like on this guitar, then play an acoustic

The guitar plays like a million bucks, but...the high E string sits too high on the tuning peg. As a result the string doesn't lay properly on the "zero" fret causing a buzzing sound with the string played open. The string also has a tendency to pop out of the slot in the graphite nut.

As much as I love this guitar, I would never play a gig without a backup. It has severe tuning problems and it breaks the high E string. If I didn't use the whammy it might not have these problems. I use a Guild Brian May copy made in 1984 as a backup. It doesn't sound as good, but it has a Kahler tremolo which is more stable and doesn't break strings.

Fender hasn't been much help. They seem to have removed their email address from the web site. And they don't seem to have much interest in Guild.

I have been playing for about 30 years and I have lots of guitars, amps keyboards etc. In spite of it's flaws, this is the most incredible guitar I have ever played. I have two of these and I will probably find and buy more later.

1993, USA built guitar. 24 frets, solid top, 1 vol, 1 tone, 3 on/off switch (one per pickup), 3 in/out of phase (one per pickup).S/S/S. Pickups are Brian May Signature made by Seymour Duncan, passive electronic. All Mahogany, except for fingerboard, made of Ebony. Bridge: Tune-o-matic (roller, made by Schaller), with Brian May tremolo system (also made by Schaller). Non locking tunners by Schaller. Neck is Fat with jumbo frets. 24" scale. with case.

I think is more versatile than a start or any other guitar, if you learn how the pickups works, you can get any sound you like. I'm using the Guild Brian May treble Booster and Zoom 4040. It have some noice (less than normal pickups) in some configurations. I like it very much?

You can't regulate the pickups...they just there.Everything was great, a jewelery work.

This guitar is incredible. The only problem are the extremly little strap buttons, but I use Lockstrap system...and everything is 100% right....Yes! I did use it without a backup live

I have never got in contact with Guild, but some freinds that have tried, said to me that they just want to delete all the BM info there...not help at all!

It's just a perfect guitar, but you must be aware of some things: The guitar is VERY different from all others...so you must think if you're willing to have a different feeling, sound, etc.

This is the reissued or 2nd series Brian May made by Guild, USA in 1994-95. This guitar has lots of great features, through the body neck construction, mahogany neck and body with hollowed out chambers, 3 Seymour Duncan single coils wired in series instead of parallel, ebony fretboard with big frets, 24" scale with 24 frets and a zero fret, graphite nut, 1 volume, 1 tone, 6 pick-up switches that allow in and out of phase combinations for single coil/humbucker sounds, schaller tuning keys, and a schaller whammy bar. The neck also is different in that it's almost as wide at the nut as it is at the 24th fret. Great for complex chords around the 1st fret, especially if you have big fat fingers.

This guitar does not sound like anything else. The 3 single coils are very bright by themselves. The neck pick-up in a single coil mode kind of sound like a Fender but not quite, a good blues sound, especially with a clean amp. The bridge/middle combination is a solid hard rock warm humbucker sound, great for distortion. The neck/middle combination is warm jazz. All of the pick-up are fairly low power and subsequently clean up very nice when you back off on the guitar volume. The out-of-phase sounds are really weird. Think "Keep yourself alive" that trademark Queen sound is the guitar. One nice thing is that all of the pick-ups are potted in epoxy, so no squeal no matter how high the amp volume is. The hollowed out sound chambers also add massive amounts of feedback at will, Ted Nugent-style, but more controlled than a full hollow body. One other thing is that, the more I play this guitar the better it sounds. When it was new it had more of a brittle sound. 3 years of playing and it's warming up. I think this guitar is going to age well, in that the older it gets, the sweeter and warmer it sounds.

I have the action low but use very somewhat heavy (11-50) gauge strings. This is possible because of the short, 24" scale. Coming off a strat, this can feel kind of weird, but I can bend strings to the moon. The finish is actually my only complaint. When I got this guitar there were some bad voids and spots under the finish. I had to send the guitar back to Guild to get it repaired, which they did, for free. It still isn't perfect but there's nothing else they could do. The finish also dents if you breath on it too hard, I have to be very careful not to bang it. I'm afaid to use guitar stands and you cannot lean it up against the amp. I'm more use to Fenders that you can drive your truck over and not even dent it.

Outside of the soft finish, this guitar should last. The chrome hardware has stood up to 3 years with no sign of problems. I oil the fretboard once in awhile to prevent cracking. I don't see any fret wear at all, and I play every day. I haven't had any electronics problems at all. One piece broke off the whammy bar, but it was my fault.

I've had warrenty work done twice in three years. Once under the Guild Co. for the finish, and once under the Fender Co. (they now own Guild) for a broken piece on the whammy bar. Both times no problems, they took care of the problem free of charge. This guitar came with a lifetime warrenty that Fender now takes care of. I only gave them an 8 because of the length of time it took to send it back to Guild the first time. The second time it was repaired at the local Fender authorized shop in less than a week.

I,ve been playing for 20 years, and I like this guitar more than any I've owned (even PRS). In fact now it's my only guitar, I sold off everything else. If it was lost, I couldn't replace it since they only made 1000 total units, of which only 415 were the Pro model. I have #27 and it's see-thru-green in color, which is even more rare (most were red like Brian's guitar). The only reason I bought this guitar was that I liked the feel and the sound and it's different than anything else, and I'm so sick of the SRV/Hendrix strat sound. I really never even liked Queen all that much and I don't want to sound like Brian May. I want to sound like me and this guitar is the best I've found to do it. The bonus is that it's a collectable as well.