Vox VBM1 owner manual Details History, Use and Design Philosophy

© Richard Gray

DETAILS: History, Use and Design Philosophy.

As stated in the FOREWORD, the original Deacy amp was made by Queen’s bass player, John Deacon, sometime in 1970/1971, whilst he & Brian were studying at University. The compact combo he built boasts no controls

what-so-ever and, according to legend, was put together from parts the bassist managed to salvage from a rubbish skip (a large garbage container)! The amplifier circuit-board* John used consisted of a simple, solid-state design that dates back to a Mullard circuit that was published when tran-

sistors first became popular and was almost definitely “rescued” from what was once a car radio.The resourceful Mr. Deacon mounted this amp board into a compact, 1960’s “bookshelf” HiFi speaker cabinet and used it to drive the small woofer and tweeter combination the cabi- net contained. When connected to a 9 Volt bat- tery the Deacy produced a massive 0.45 Watts of power...RMS of course!

*NOTE: for more technical details regarding the original Deacy please refer to the “Tech- nical Talk” section at the end of this manual.

The two friends quickly discovered that when the Deacy was coupled with Brian’s homemade Treble Booster pedal (which actually accentuates the upper-mid frequen- cies to be exact), and his world-famous, homemade “Red Special” guitar, the result- ing tone was both extremely pleasing and unique. As a result of the great sound it produced this 100% homemade set-up was used to record a large amount of Brian’s lead and guitar orchestration work on Queen’s vast catalogue of hit albums and singles.

Obviously the original Deacy is a very unique and, due to its age, irreplaceable amplifier. Not surprisingly, Brian treats it with due reverence, as it is part-and-parcel of his signature sound. Unfortunately, the electrical components it employs are long gone from production, as is the speaker system it uses and, for that matter, the batteries it requires are not readily available! Also, the original is extremely limited because it has no controls and is also never used purely by itself — Brian always uses it in conjunction with his homemade Treble Booster.

Because of all these truths, after consulting with Mr. May, it was decided that the Brian May Special should be a variation of the original Deacy “system” (the Deacy amp plus his homemade Treble Booster) that, in addition to emulating its unique sound, offers a number of features and controls that the original doesn’t have. Brian was also very keen for the resulting product to be as affordable as it is practical, so that its sound could be brought to as wide an audience as possible. Hence the format of the VOX Brian May Special recording amp you’re now the proud owner of...

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