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tjon901 « Burns is back »
Published on 02/02/12 at 08:09Burns guitars was originally a guitar company in London back in the 60s. They eventually went out of business but in the 90s someone took the name and restarted the company. Now they are a pretty big guitar company and they have a large portion of their guitars made in Asia to keep the prices down. The quality of the original Burns guitars was never that good so there is now loss in quality now that they are made in Asia. The quality is probably better now. The overseas made guitars are called the club series. They still have a line of handmadde guitars made in England but they are very expensive. This is one of their current models the Burns Cobra. This is one of the models they make overseas. This is their more strat style design. The guitar has a basswood body with a bolt on maple neck. The neck on this example had a rosewood fretboard with 22 frets. If has 3 tri-sonic single coil pickups. The controls are typical strat with a master volume with a bridge tone and a neck and middle pickup tone knob. The bridge is a Fender style tremolo with a slightly improved design.
UTILIZATION
This guitar basically feels like a strat. It has the typical strat shape overall. The tremolo is the biggest difference. The tremolo has a beefier design and it tends to hold tuning better than a typical strat tremolo. It will still go out of tune though. With a guitar like this the problem usually isnt at the tremolo its at the nut. Without a locking nut the strings will bind on the nut if you stand on the tremolo a lot even if the tremolo is a great design and always returns to the same position. A junk tremolo with a locking nut will hold tune better than a great tremolo with no locking nut.
SOUNDS
According to Burns these pickups are similar in design to the Brian May pickups. They sound like nice single coils to me and I am not the biggest fan of strat style single coils. These pickups are very quiet which is nice for a humbucker person like me. The sound from these pickups is more refined than raw. The top end is big but not harsh and the tone is well balanced string to string and position to position. You get a nice bell tone from the neck position. The bridge position has a good twang going on like you would expect from a single coil in the bridge position.
OVERALL OPINION
These guitars are very well priced. They are selling on this side of the Atlantic for around 400 dollars which is pretty cool for a guitar from a unique company like this. Even though they are made in Asia now the quality hasnt declined one bit. These are not the most complex guitars and are the type of guitars that you want built over there. If you built this guitar in London you would have to charge twice as much and it wouldnt be realistic. If you are looking for a strat style guitar that isnt a strat this would be a good option. Lots of people wouldnt know what it is and it has a very cool funky look to it. If you love being different this is a good guitar to try out.
UTILIZATION
This guitar basically feels like a strat. It has the typical strat shape overall. The tremolo is the biggest difference. The tremolo has a beefier design and it tends to hold tuning better than a typical strat tremolo. It will still go out of tune though. With a guitar like this the problem usually isnt at the tremolo its at the nut. Without a locking nut the strings will bind on the nut if you stand on the tremolo a lot even if the tremolo is a great design and always returns to the same position. A junk tremolo with a locking nut will hold tune better than a great tremolo with no locking nut.
SOUNDS
According to Burns these pickups are similar in design to the Brian May pickups. They sound like nice single coils to me and I am not the biggest fan of strat style single coils. These pickups are very quiet which is nice for a humbucker person like me. The sound from these pickups is more refined than raw. The top end is big but not harsh and the tone is well balanced string to string and position to position. You get a nice bell tone from the neck position. The bridge position has a good twang going on like you would expect from a single coil in the bridge position.
OVERALL OPINION
These guitars are very well priced. They are selling on this side of the Atlantic for around 400 dollars which is pretty cool for a guitar from a unique company like this. Even though they are made in Asia now the quality hasnt declined one bit. These are not the most complex guitars and are the type of guitars that you want built over there. If you built this guitar in London you would have to charge twice as much and it wouldnt be realistic. If you are looking for a strat style guitar that isnt a strat this would be a good option. Lots of people wouldnt know what it is and it has a very cool funky look to it. If you love being different this is a good guitar to try out.