The result of a fresh collaboration between Dr. Brian May and American singer, songwriter and guitarist Arielle Schwartz, the BMG Arielle is the first original build that the Queen virtuoso has actively contributed to since he and his father embarked on the construction of the Red Special almost 60 years ago.
Inspired by Arielle's own BM-influenced 'Two-Tone' and designed from the ground up by the two musicians as a competitively priced counterpart to the best-selling BMG Special, this exceptional instrument has been brought to vivid life by the House Music team to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their successful, ongoing partnership with Brian May.
This Arielle takes its cue from an affection for classic 20th century guitar design, rocking a sleek, retro-futuristic look, striking burnt orange and translucent blue livery, distinctive raised centre-strip, vintage two-piece pickguard and contrasting switch plate, alongside choice elements from Dr. May's storied, homespun creation — including the familiar 24" scale, distinctive 3-a-side headstock, a trio of series wound Tri-Sonic style pickups, and the maestro's famous switching matrix.
"The Red Special in a parallel universe" as the maestro proudly proclaims, takes Arielle's novel concept to a higher level and, infused with a liberal dose of RS DNA, delivers everything one should rightfully expect from a Brian May Guitar impeccable design, superior quality, pro-spec construction, exceptional playability, and devastating tonal dexterity.
The flamboyant, asymmetric angles of the Arielle's lightweight body, at once timeless and forward thinking, clearly pay homage to radical American automotive and electric guitar designs of the 1950s and '60s, with a distinctive raised centre strip increasing the body mass for enhanced sustain and resonance and a split, 3-ply parchment pickguard and eye-catching, two-tone diagonal finish completing the cool, vintage look.
Employing the short 24" scale favoured by Brian May on the original Red Special, the one piece mahogany neck, in perfect balance with the lightweight body, has been engineered with a decidedly contemporary feel, featuring a generous 45mm nut width, comfortably spacious profile, and wonderfully smooth 24 fret ebony fingerboard with Arielle's choice of abalone diamond snowflake inlays in the traditional BM pattern.
Like the best-selling Special, the BMG Arielle features three BM branded Tri-Sonic style single coil pickups, modern replicas of the vintage '60s units so fundamental to the Red Special's powerful and distinctive sonic character with the same series wiring, retro-styling and magnet alignment as the originals.
The unique Brian May designed electronics system is provided by six black DPDT switches featuring high quality contacts mounted on a contrasting 3-ply black control plate. Engaging each pickup individually as well as providing dedicated phase reversal, this familiar configuration gives the BMG Arielle the same astonishing tonal dexterity as the original Red Special itself.
Volume and tone are controlled by 250k pots with a Sprague 0.033μF 'Orange Drop' film capacitor delivering exceptional sonic purity, a nuanced tonal roll-off sweep and, with individual pickups or selected pairings, a pleasingly warm response, without getting too muddy or bright.
Continuing BMG's long association with veteran British engineer Trevor Wilkinson, the Arielle is fitted with his acclaimed WVP 2-point tremolo, a vintage-flavoured variant of the unit used on the BMG Special. With a modern, friction-free design offering one of the smoothest actions of any fulcrum vibrato currently available coupled with a sleek, low-profile surround to eliminate lateral saddle movement, the WVP offers superior comfort, stability and performance.
Additional features include a stamped steel, heat hardened top plate, solid stainless steel saddles, and a "stagger-drilled" solid steel sustain block that provides unrivalled tuning stability, ensures easy and accurate intonation adjustment and improves overall sustain, brightness and top end, resulting in a more expansive, sharper tone.
The distinctive BM style headstock sports 3-a-side locking tuners with an 18:1 gear ratio for precise tuning and a thumbwheel locking mechanism that clamps the string securely. These superb quality machine heads allow for quick and easy string changes, requiring fewer string wraps and maintaining rock-solid tuning stability and more accurate return-to-pitch, even with lots of vibrato and string bends.
A premium quality, padded gig-bag, made from durable showerproof material, with twin rucksack-style shoulder straps, side and front grab handles, dual front pockets and stitched BMG logo, is supplied as standard.
Versatile and bold, the heart of the sound is round, wide, warm and rich, with clean, clear highs and crisp note articulation, even when overdriven. Eminently capable of authentically delivering the hardest of rock or the most intimate dream pop shimmer, the Arielle has clearly been engineered to be a brilliant, one-stop stage and studio workhorse.
For blues and roots styles, there is a pleasing presence and a tight, focused bass response whilst jazz players and country pickers will love the chiming clarity, especially on out-of-phase settings, and the smooth, hollow twang of the neck pickup. Cranking up the gain, combining two or more pickups in phase, the broad Tri-Sonic response and resonant body give crunch chords ample room to breathe and allow lead licks and solos to project clearly and powerfully. In all positions — single coil or humbucking — the Arielle retains a natural brightness with a tight, balanced, low end courtesy of its shorter scale length.
With a fast, modern radius neck, inviting 24" scale, a body shape that balances comfortably whether sitting or standing, and a responsive, expansive tonal palette, this is an instrument designed to be an endlessly rewarding joy to perform with.
Love my Arielle Two Tone... completely unique in every imaginable way and far more versatile than I expected, as well. \Neck takes some adjustment to get used to. If you've played a Firebird, this is a similar feel, particularly when playing seated, everything moves left, but the Arielle's more scaled down body mitigates some of that lurch left of a FB.Comfortable player, plays and sounds great — a real keeper. Thank you, BMG, for taking risks.
I love my new Arielle, so glad you made this - and I found myself one - what a way to start 2022! I think that its classic, yet modern and sleek-looking, is so retro in the cool slanted 2-color scheme, and the Explorer-esque shape. Its sound is the real deal - it's very sweet, clean with the special unique pickups. It sounds really crisp for a 24 inch scale, which has become my favorite neck length. And such sustain - best of my bunch! Along with the super bridge and tuners, they all really go together nicely to keep it in tune. Just thought I'd let you know - I'm digging this, and it is a lot of fun to play!
I’m a huge fan of Arielle and a long-time customer of BMG so I could not miss this guitar. It’s a fantastic instrument. I find the shape extremely comfortable, the neck thickness allows for great playability, and the fretboard is just 'wow'. If you think this is a Red Special in a different shape, well it's not. This is unique. It is also extremely versatile. I published a video on YouTube where I play different genres with different gear and it’s great. You can play anything you want with this guitar, so I highly recommend it.
When you are in the market for a new guitar, there are many decisions to make from any level of player. Cost, features, feel, style/shape, and overall appearance are just a few things being considered.Being a guitar player for over 15 years I have played a variety of guitars. A feature found on the new BMG Arielle guitar that I am quite familiar with on my own guitars is the Grover tuners - they have provided me with the best in tune performance and I am glad to see them featured on this model. Like many features of Brian May's original "Red Special" - the BM switching system and the tri-sonic pickups, just to name a few - bring the most sought after tones and sustained vibratos, leaving any player feeling confident and eager to create unlimited melodies and solos all the while having the advantage to change a sound at their fingertips.The easy to adjust tremolo bridge creates ease when adjusting to any player's liking, and the smooth solid action of the bridge creates long lasting sustain. The body of this guitar boasts unique class with Arielle's own creative two toned color based off of her very own hand built original "Two-Tone" instrument. The fretboard is smooth, with easy sliding and bending to stretch those notes into next week fast. The raised area around the main centerline of the body gives a very unique look and bold presence to this incredibly built scream machine.Seeing Arielle play her own original "Two-Tone" for many years always made me want one to call my own. She has proudly created an incredible instrument and has showcased her talents worldwide with her talents onstage throughout the world. Teaming up with Brian May Guitars was the right choice and collaboration of a marketable item. This guitar has the most uniquely incredible easy adjusting features and quality throughout the components, a sleek, well balanced bright colorful rich body, and the price tag is just right for such an amazing piece. Brian May and Arielle have both created incredible music in there own rights, and have teamed up to embark on a new journey with this guitar.I would completely recommend this guitar to all ranges of players based on what is incorporated in one instrument for a wide range of playing styles. This is a very well packaged instrument from Brian May Guitars, including installed strings, plastic overlay on pickguards, switch system, and hardware, foam wrapping over entire guitar inside the gig bag, and supplied tools and tremolo bar included. Instrument plays incredible and right out of the box stayed 99% in tune. A fine, high quality instrument!
I received a BMG Arielle as a 50th birthday present from my girlfriend, and it is amazing. I’ve been playing for just over 35 years and have encountered many styles of guitars - without question, the Arielle ranks high on my list. One of the most appealing features for me is the ebony fretboard. It is my preferred fretboard material though, in my opinion, isn’t quite as prevalent as rosewood or maple, which makes it special. I love the smooth texture, and your fingers simply glide up and down the neck.In conjunction with this, the 24-fret design is a blast. While I own other guitars with 24 frets, the Arielle is by far the most comfortable due to the expansive neck width. The short scale combined with the added real estate makes those upper frets truly accessible and less challenging to get a solid tone at the higher positions. This is my first guitar with built-in phase switching. I am having loads of fun experimenting with the in-phase/out-of-phase configurations. With each of the three pickups being independently switched, there is a multitude of interesting combinations. The amount of control available through the volume and tone controls is especially evident in many of the out-of-phase setups. The pickups have a great spectrum and the volume pot is smooth throughout the range. Admittedly, I typically don’t vary my volume often while playing. However, this guitar has me exploring volume techniques a great deal more in conjunction with the vast array of phase configurations.Rounding out the technical aspects, I am also a fan of the Grovers and the Wilkinson. I do a fair amount of tremolo work, and the Arielle stays in tune effortlessly. This is the first guitar I have owned with either of these hardware components, and I’m a fan of both. I have not restrung this one yet, but it looks like it will be a snap with the Grovers.Beyond the playability and components, the guitar is stunningly beautiful. The shape quickly grabs your attention, perfectly complimented by the paint scheme and intricate details such as the raised center section of the body and the V-style headstock. The lightweight design makes it easy to play for hours on end.I’m incredibly fortunate, as I had an up-close-and-personal experience with the original Two-Tone. Accordingly, I can attest that this guitar is a great nod to the original, with the added magic that only a BMG model can bring.This is a fantastic instrument, and I highly recommend it. It is a delight to play and will undoubtedly continue as a go-to in my collection.
The BMG Arielle guitar is an extraordinary instrument. I received mine in early April, opened the carefully packed shipping box, took out the BMG guitar case, unzipped it, and saw the guitar that I had been waiting for.I am a fairly new player and found this guitar to be easy, and fun, to play. The design, feel, switch options, tone and volume controls, and the appointments are wonderful. She stays in tune very well and sounds great in any setting. I have only made a few small tuning adjustments in the past several months. The neck fits my hand, and the ebony fretboard is like butter. WOW. It just feels so nice to play - And I play her almost every day. The BMG Arielle guitar is worth every penny and will be great as your first electric guitar or as an outstanding addition to your collection. So, what are you waiting for? Do yourself a favor. Treat yourself and order a BMG Arielle guitar today.
This is an amazing guitar that is well thought out and perfectly crafted for every level of guitarist. I am especially blown away by the ease of traversing the neck. I was a little concerned about the pickups and their configuration but no, after a short noodle, I was blasting huge sounds out of my rig in no time, as well as opening all new creative sounds I’ve not explored or heard before. The finish is exquisite and a must-see. I could go on and on, but the bottom line is I absolutely love this guitar and have barely put it down since I got it. Nice job, huge surprise.
I was lucky enough to get one of the first ones from the first batch and the guitar surprised me. Clearly based around the Red Special with its specs, the guitar seems somewhat more versatile and lends itself to all styles of playing. I’m not sure if it’s the wood or construction but you can easily go from '50s blues to hard rock as it’s got it covered with the switching system. I don’t feel the need to plug in a treble booster with it to get the guitar to sing and it goes well with more amps than just an AC30. It obviously does work well there too.The neck is something I always pay attention to and on mine it was beautifully finished with the fret work being fantastic, which makes playing it easy. The modern guitar certainly has a vintage feel to it, and striking looks. Burnt Orange and Blue - don’t let Arielle hear you say it’s red!! The blue section on mine really shows the black limba grain beneath and it’s a thing of beauty. Photos don’t do it justice. If you are looking for something to inspire you to make music or play some other styles then I would highly recommend picking one of these up.My only complaint would be lack of black triangle behind the tremolo, and two tone knobs
The Arielle is a quirky yet interesting instrument to play. Its long fretboard oozes a sense of confidence and being to the player, while the Tri-Sonic pickups are sharp, bright and distinctive with their series and in/out of phase controls - the characteristic sound of BMG - as good as ever. The volume, tone and whammy are close to the strumming hand and very accessible. The bridge is also perfectly placed as a rest for picking. This is a stylistically delightful guitar and, in its Burnt Orange and Translucent Blue, a joy to own.
