Greg Fryer guitars, amps & effect pedals

Below is a ‘history’ about my interest in music, guitars, pedals and amps; and my career in guitar repairs, building guitars, amps, effect pedals, and guitar pickups:

Music influences: The Beatles were the band that first captured my attention at the time they toured Australia when I was about 7 years old. It was their unique personalities, combined with unique sounding songs, vocal melodies and harmonies that I loved to start with. Later I came to appreciate just what great musicians and songwriters John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and George Harrison were. On TV, the Beatles cartoons further cemented their popularity with their young fans.

George Harrison is one of my very favorite guitarists, and his playing with The Beatles was perfect no matter what the song.  I also love George’s  lyrical, emotional and beautifully understated slide guitar style that he developed – seemingly out of nowhere just after the breakup of The Beatles – which first appeared on his 1970 triple album ‘All Things Must Pass’. This album was a worldwide smash hit and was very influential to my generation of school kids.

Recently I was asked who my favorite guitarists are. This is a difficult thing to answer because there are so many wonderful guitarists to choose from. However to me it is almost the wrong question to ask – for me the most important thing is the music that is created and how it moves you – not whether someone is a good instrumentalist or not.

Though inevitably we do focus on individual personalities. After some thought and apprehension, I would list my favorite 3 guitarists as: Harrison, Hendrix and May – but there are so many other great guitarists who I love to listen to in the context of great music.

Learning to play guitars and music: in 1973 I bought my first guitar when I was at high school. This was a cheap Japanese Stratocaster copy electric guitar which I bought from my schoolfriend Earl Montague for $AUD45.00

It was exciting to have a fantastic looking electric guitar and I began taking guitar lessons and learning to play. For some reason back then, I wasn’t interested in acoustic guitars and only had eyes for electric guitars.

After I left high school and started working at my first full time job, I worked with Peter Rochfort who was an experienced amateur guitarist and bass player. Peter had the largest record collection of anyone I had ever met and encouraged me to play more guitar.

I was amazed that Peter owned a real USA made Gibson Les Paul, a USA made Fender Stratocaster, as well as a USA Fender Twin Reverb amp. At that time all I could afford was a cheap Japanese made ‘Navarra’ Les Paul copy guitar and a modestly priced Australian made Vadis 40 watt amp.

In 1977 we formed a band which played cover versions of songs. The band soundproofed an old room that we rented from Inner City Spares in a run down industrial estate at Alexandria Sydney and we practiced as often as we could there in our own ‘rehearsal studio’. We thought our studio was wonderful and often held parties there. We had a great time with this band which featured the effervescent Les Waterhouse on lead vocals.

Sydney had a vibrant live music scene in the 1970s, 80s and 90s, and all of us in the band regularly visited many of the great rock venues around Sydney at that time such as The Bondi Lifesaver, Selinas Coogee Bay Hotel, Stagedoor Tavern and many more. We became regulars watching the many great bands around Sydney and hoped to get our chance playing in those venues.

Guitar repairing and pedal/amp electronics experiments: in late 1978 I began playing guitar semi-professionally in other rock bands in the Sydney area. At that time I also began experimenting with guitar repair/making and with making treble boosters after instruction in those areas from my friend Nick Thurn. Nick was the first guy I ever saw playing a Strat through a Vox AC30 and was a very good professional guitarist. He knew a great deal about guitar pedal and Vox AC30 electronics, and also knew about guitar repair and modification. Nick lent me books about guitar repair and taught me a lot.

In 1980 I started working with the well known guitar repairer/maker Romney Godden at Brookvale on Sydney’s northern beaches. Romney was Sydney’s best guitar repairer at the time, and was also very knowledgable about guitar amplifiers. Romney taught me a great deal about guitars and amps, was a master craftsman and was a very talented and generous person.

In December 1982 Romney Godden closed his guitar workshop at Brookvale in Sydney and moved to Kempsey which is a town situated on the mid north coast of New South Wales 345km north of Sydney.

In May 1983 I was asked by Farrells Music at Brookvale to set up a guitar repair workshop at the back of the same building where Romney previously had his workshop. Farrells Music was one of the best music stores in Sydney at that time.

From the mid 1980s I started to become known throughout Australia for my guitar work for local and international touring acts such as Midnight Oil, INXS, Cold Chisel, Pink Floyd and others.

It was in the mid 1980s that I began to think about having my own unique guitar ‘brand’, and in 1988 I developed my ‘Fryer’ logo which is a stylised graphic image based on my signature.

The development of the Fryer ‘brand’ happened in small steps over several years – beginning with my guitar and pickup making in the 1980s and 1990s, and then developed into the other areas of effect pedal and amplifier making after my return in August 1998 from working for Brian May in England.

In 1988 I began doing guitar repairs and modification work for well known Australian guitarist Ian Moss from the legendary band ‘Cold Chisel’. This led to me building custom handmade Stratocasters for Ian in 1989 and 1996. It brings me great joy that these are still amongst his favorite instruments.

In 1996-97 I made 3 replica guitars for Queen guitarist Brian May, these were replicas of his legendary home made Red Special guitar. On 21st November 1997 I arrived in London with my Red Special replicas and brought them to show Brian at his studio Allerton Hill.

After playing the guitars and comparing them to his own Red Special, Brian said that my guitars were the closest that anyone had ever achieved to replicating the same feel and sound of his own unique Red Special guitar. Brian asked me to stay in London and undertake a major restoration of his priceless Red Special guitar, and said that he would complete the recording of his album ‘Another World’ using my guitars.

For his recordings on the ‘Another World’ album Brian also used my treble booster.  I worked for Brian at his London Allerton Hill studio on the Red Special restoration and on several other of his projects from December 1997 to August 1998.

During early February 1998 Brian and I discussed the idea of opening up and examining in fine detail his legendary Deacy Amp and making a photographic record of it. We also thought it would be worthwhile to explore the idea of making replicas of the Deacy Amp amp in the future, both as a backup for Brian’s own use and possibly for commercial sale to guitarists. It was my view that guitarists around the world would be overjoyed to have such a wonderful unique sounding little amp available to buy.

On 6th February 1998 Brian gave me the OK to open up his legendary Deacy Amp.  Brian said that the Deacy Amp had not been opened since the time in the early 1970s that John Deacon brought to along to Queen rehearsals. It was a daunting honour for me to be the first guy to ever open up, photograph and take apart this famous amp, also an honour that came with much pressure because of the unique and irreplaceable nature of the amp.

On 22nd July 1998 I interviewed Queen bass player John Deacon about the origins of his ‘Deacy Amp’. Between June and August 1998  David Petersen and I made 3 replica copies of the Deacy Amp. They were good sounding first attempts at a replica, but I knew we had a long way to go before we would replicate the distinctive tonal nuances of the legendary Deacy Amp.

When I returned to Australia in August 1998 I intended to continue making  guitars and bought a lot of specialist timber for this purpose, however unforeseen events changed the course of the work that I later pursued.

In mid 1999 with the help of Colin Bloxsom, I began to make the Brian May treble boosters and other guitar pedals. In late 1999 I began further Deacy Amp research and development with Colin.

In August/September 2003 Brian May and the Australian ‘We Will Rock You’ theatrical production asked me to develop a solution for the bad reliability problems the production was encountering with their Vox AC30 amps.

The guitarists in the WWRY show were running their AC30s at full volume (like Brian May does with his Vox AC30s in his Queen guitar rig) in order to achieve the authentic Brian May/Queen sound. However running the amps like this greatly increases the risk of amp failure due to the overstressing of EL84 power valves and other components. After the Melbourne Australia WWRY show began in mid 2003, the production began to suffer a great many amp failures.

I was asked by Brian to a) improve the reliability of the Vox AC30s, and b) to  improve the sound that the 2 guitarists were getting in the WWRY Production – to make it closer to Brian’s full volume Queen Vox AC30 sound.

I decided the solution lay in firstly redesigning the guitarists’ pedal chain. Secondly and more importantly I told them that the amps were not going to survive in such a demanding professional stage environment run night after night 8-10 shows per week (incl matinees) with the Vox AC30 TBX amps being run at or near full volume – without a complete redesign and rebuilding.

This job meant that I drew up my own layout of the Vox AC30 amplifier circuitry, with the emphasis on over-rated components and drawing heat away from sensitive components and sensitive areas of the amp. A system of safety fuses for the EL84 power valves was designed. The EL84 power valves can often suffer in an AC30 from being overstressed and then consequently fail when the amp is run at full volume the way that Brian does with his Queen Vox AC30s rig. The handmade mains choke and output transformers made by Martin Mell, Tortech, and Paul Voller were a very important part of the rebuilt amps. Sydney vintage amp guru Martin Kell was very generous and helpful with his advice. The project was successful because of Martin.

For the We Will Rock You show guitar setups, the pedal chain had my new intermediate drive/boost pedal (Tone Station) which was kicked in for solos, and I also designed a new Splitter pedal for the dual AC30/Vox Pathfinder or Deacy Amp – the latter was used for feedback effects in the WWRY show.

This new WWRY guitar pedal/amp template proved to be successful in the Australian production from late 2003 into 2004, and from 2004 many WWRY productions throughout the world began using my handbuilt Vox AC30 amps and guitar pedals.

In 2003 I invited UK based Nigel Knight to be part of my Brian May Deacy Amp replica development project. We experimented with the circuit and made several prototypes between 2003 and 2008.

In 2004 I contacted specialist UK pickup maker Adrian Turner (Adeson pickups) and we began working on developing an authentic sounding and looking Burns Trisonic pickup set for the Brian May Red Special guitars, and also with a view to having the Brian May Red Special set of pickups available for general sale.

In 2005 I handmade 3 Vox AC30s for Brian May. These amps used a different design and layout than the WWRY AC30s, although there were many similarities. The BM AC30 design was simpler than the WWRY AC30, and the amp was run harder to achieve the full volume Brian May Queen Vox AC30 sound.

Amongst the similarities between the BM AC30s and WWRY AC30s were the handmade Mains Output and Choke transformers, over rated components throughout mounted on tagstrip, better ground path layout than the standard Vox AC30 for lower overall noise floor, safety fuses on the cathodes of the two pairs of EL84 power valves.

For Brian’s amps in 2005 I also introduced a new speaker arrangement: 1 Celestion Alnico Blue and 1 Celestion G12H speaker. This is a combination that Brian has liked and is still using currently favoring (as of 2024) in the later AC30s made for him after around 2014 by Hill and Knight. It was USA studio producer Oliver Leiber who told me about this speaker combination in 2004-05. Oliver said that he had been impressed by a ‘Divided By Thirteen’ amp which used this combination and recommended it to me. In 2005 I built a handmade Vox AC30 for Oliver.

In March 2007 I visited Brian May and arranged a meeting at his Allerton Hill studio to showcase my ‘mid priced’ Red Special guitar concept. I brought with me a Kz Guitar Works produced ‘Kz Junior’ guitar to show Brian the type of quality Red Special guitars that Kazutaka Ijuin was producing in Japan.

At the meeting at Allerton Hill were several people who had never met before including some people who were business rivals. The people were: Brian May, myself, Pete Malandrone, Barry Gibson (Burns UK), Adrian Turner (Adeson pickups UK), and Barry Moorhouse (BMG/House Music UK).

The mid priced guitar idea was warmly supported by Brian and soon after he  named the instrument the ‘Brian May Super’ guitar.

At the meeting it was decided that the ‘Brian May Super’ mid priced Red Special guitar would be made in Japan by Kz Guitar Works, and that all parties would work together to produce this new quality Brian May Super Red Special guitar.

In 2007-08 Nigel Knight and I formed a UK based company called Fryer Sound Ltd with the objective to manufacture in UK my Brian May/Fryer treble boosters and other pedals, plus the Brian May Deacy Amp replica that Nigel and I had been developing.

The company started well but unfortunately as time progressed Nigel Knight and I did not see eye to eye on many issues. This resulted in me resigning from our company in late 2010.

From late 2011 until 2014 I took a break from the guitar business and worked in the marine industry.

In 2014 I returned to producing guitar pedals with my newly developed Treble Booster Super and an improved version of the Treble Booster Deluxe pedal.

In 2015 I developed the Mayday overdrive/distortion pedal which was designed to give the full volume Brian May Vox AC30 sound at lower amp volume levels when driven by a treble booster.

In 2016 Roberto Magdalena from Thundertomate pedals in Spain produced the first run of my Treble Booster Special pedals. These pedals were produced in black colour. Roberto was extremely helpful and good to work with, and makes great quality products.

In 2018 I began making the redesigned layout blue Treble Booster Special pedal. I also began making the new colour versions of the Treble Booster Touring, Treble Booster Super and Treble Booster Deluxe pedals. I decided to discontinue the Treble Booster Plus.

January 2020 marked the 40th year of my being in the guitar business.

In mid 2023, I began further development of my ‘Astronaut’ guitar with Kazutaka Ijuin. Astronaut is my redesign and re-imagining  of Brian May’s Red Special guitar – but in Fender Stratocaster 25.5″ scale length –  and is a design which I began drawing in 2005.  The first prototypes are due to be completed in March 2024.

In late 2023 the Fryer/Di Marco Treble Booster was released. This is a treble booster pedal made for both strap mounting and floor use, and was developed with leading Italian guitarist Marco Giuseppe Di Marco.

In January 2024 I continued to design and build guitar effect pedals, including some new designs in conjunction with Shaun Klinger from Melbourne Australia. Shaun is a prominent Australian guitar pedal builder and brings much experience and knowledge to our jointly made products. He is also an experienced professional guitarist, and we look forward to producing some interesting new pedals in 2024.