Jamie Humphries Axis Sport/Red Special Hybrid

I thought I’d show my newest guitar. As some of you may know I’ve had a long association with Queen, playing in the Brian May band, and performing with Queen and in the We Will Rock You Show. I also perform in the Live Nation Sweden show Champions of Rock. I love the Red Special guitar, especially the mid 80’s Dimarzio loaded Guild, of which I own a replica. For a long time I’ve wanted to combine a Red Special in an Axis, so when performing on non official Queen shows I could use an Axis, which is my favourite guitar in the world!!
For my 20th anniversary with Music Man, Music Man built me a single coil Axis Super Sport. I use to own an old single coil Axis years ago but had to give it back as it was demo stock. My favoured pickup choice is single coils and hot rails. After receiving my custom Axis a friend on Facebook offered me a 90’s single coil Axis for a VERY good price. After a chat with a fellow Queen guitarist I decided to convert the Sport, making it two guitars in one. First off Andrew Guyton who builds Red Specials for Brian, as well as renovating the original Red Special and building the guitars for the movie, refinished the old orange Sport in trans black to match my custom Axis. Then Nigel Knight of Knight Audio carried out the conversion. Nigel is a genius, I met him when I was in Brian May’s band. Nigel builds and designs Brian’s treble boosters, plus builds his custom Deacy amps, his switching system, and maintains the electronics on the Red Special. Nigel built my strap treble boosters and designed and built my rack.
I contacted Dimarzio and they agreed to custom wind me a set of 80’s BHM pickups that were in the BM Guild. Nigel rerouted the guitar so the pickups were the same distance from the bridge as the RS. He redesigned the scratch plate to resemble the Red Special. He routed out the body cavity for the six pickup selectors and phase switches. He also installed a small onboard treble booster activated with a push pull volume pot. The tone pot is also push pull for series/parallel options. With everything pushed the guitar is an RS, with everything pulled it’s a Music Man, but with the six switches there are many tonal options. Nigel also moved the tone and volume, positioning them the same as the Red Special and fitted the RS style aluminium knobs. This guitar has been in planning and building for more than a year, and I’m very pleased with the end result. The Axis for me is the best guitar in the world, and I especially love the single coil loaded Axis. Now I can perform Queen music with an Axis!

I hope you guys like this guitar.
Jamie

Click these links to see pins of the guitar.

This is an old mid 90’s single coil Axis Sport I had modified and converted into a Brian May Red Special Hybrid. It features an on… | Musicman guitars

My Axis/Red Special Hybrid | Musicman guitars

Custom wound BHM Dimarzio pickups, six switches for pickup selection and phase. Push/pull volume and tone for engaging the KAT treb… | Musicman guitars

Custom wound Dimarzio BHM pickups. | Musicman guitars