(Soon I intend to make a video which describes these things and shows examples)

Q: Why did I design the Astronaut guitar? Short answer:

A: So that Fender® players (but also others) could enjoy the wonderful innovations designed by Brian and Harold May between 1964-66 in the unique Red Special guitar.

Over the years many Fender® players (and also players of other conventional guitars such as Gibson®, PRS®, Ibanez®, Gretsch®, etc) have told me that they couldn’t adjust to using a Red Special – even though they said they loved its sound.

This was also my own experience, having played either Fender® Strats® or Gibson® Les Pauls® since the mid 1970s.

Q: So why do these guitarists struggle to play the Red Special, and to use it with the setup of pedals and amps that works with their Fender® or Gibson® guitars ?

1. The neck is too large for most players: compared with a Fender® Stratocaster®, the Red Special has an extremely thick deep neck, approx 1/4″ or 6.5mm deeper all along the back of the neck compared to a vintage Strat® neck. This can be VERY challenging for Fender® and Gibson® players. And others.

2. In addition to the very deep neck, the Red Special’s neck is also unusually wide at the nut end – approx 3/16″ or 5mm wider than a vintage Strat® neck.

3. The Red Special’s short scale length (24″) feels strange to many players who are used to the Fender® Strat® and Tele® longer scale length of 25.5″

4. Pickup switching frustrates and defeats most Fender® and Gibson® players: the Red Special has 6 white slide switches. Each pickup has its own on/off switch, as well as its own in/out of phase switch. If you haven’t spent a LOT of time playing a Red Special, on stage it can be difficult to quickly and easily change pickup selections.

5. The Red Special’s pickups are connected in series, unlike almost all other conventional guitars like Fender® Gibson® PRS® Ibanez® Gretsch® etc which have their pickups connected in parallel.

This means that the Red Special’s pickups sound different to all those other guitars. The Red Special’s pickups often (but not always) produce very fat, rich and full sounds – which then need the addition of electronic devices such as a treble booster to modify the guitar sound like a graphic equalizer, so that the sound can be fed into and amp to produce a balanced sound. Without using a treble booster, the Red Special can often sound overly muddy and out of balance.

For players using Fender® or Gibson® guitars, the need to incorporate a treble booster first in line whenever they plug in a Red Special guitar creates an obstacle for their live playing setup. The players often also find that they need to change their amplifier tone controls radically so that the Red Special plus treble booster will sound in balance.

To be continued…….