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Burns Owners Club

Milles excuses pour mon très mauvais anglais cher monsieur
Je n’essaye pas de vendre quoi que ce soit.

No problem, but you said yourself :

"so I have to sell it."

Milles excuses pour mon très mauvais anglais cher monsieur
Je n’essaye pas de vendre quoi que ce soit.

If you look at the for sale listings on TalkBass (or pretty much any forum / Reverb / Craigslist) you'll see there's a tradition of hyping up every aspect of (particularly vintage) instruments, to ignite GAS / justify the price, before going on about it being the greatest instrument they or anyone else could ever hope to own - but they're selling it anyway, to fund / make space for a 5 string fanned fret abomination.

I thought it very funny, refreshing, and honest, that you were taking the opposite aproach :thumbsup:
 
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I have a couple of Burns reissues as far as basses are concerned.
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New scratchplate and (admittedly cheap clone) pickups for my 1962 Burns Sonic bass to return it from my adolescent mutations (left) to something a little closer to the original look (right). I'm not going to paint over that rather pretty mahogany (probably Sapele judging by the stripes) body and neck though. This was my first bass and I make few apologies for what my teenage self did to it about 40 years ago!

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Officially adding pictures of my Baldwin / Burns basses to the woodpile.

Baldwin Baby Bison with La Bella 760FS-M Deep Talkin' Stainless Steel Flat Wound Standard Medium Scale Bass Guitar String. The strings in this picture were not the correct size or type. I use this bass for more brutal, guttural a'la JJ Burnel of the Stranglers. It can really punch through.

2 Baldwin Baby Bison BassIMG_5108.jpeg


Burns / Baldwin GB 66 with Rotosound RS88LD Black Nylon Flatwound Bass Guitar Strings. Thanks @Muck Luto for his videos. These strings seem to be the right match for Ultrasonic pickups. The strings with the pickups kind of sound like a rubbery, black balloon rubber band. Sonically, it's bouncy and percussive. The black nylon strings almost act like a noise gate. The strings have a short cutoff and not a lot of ring, so you get that nice click with bass tone. I don't know if @Muck Luto experiences this, but the pickups are slightly out of phase creating a pleasant chorus effect.

Baldwin Burns GB66 with black rotosound IMG_8400 2.JPG
 
I use this bass for more brutal, guttural a'la JJ Burnel of the Stranglers.
Far from @Dave Richmond 's tone, the bass sound on Rattus Norvegicus remains one of my favorites, too.
Unnecessary personal anecdote : I live in France in the city where his family comes from.

I don't know if @Muck Luto experiences this, but the pickups are slightly out of phase creating a pleasant chorus effect.
On the Bison, the unfamous "Wild dog" setting is the bridge pickup wired out of phase with the two others, resulting in a perfectly useless sound i never use !
 
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Far from @Dave Richmond 's tone, the bass sound on Rattus Norvegicus remains one of my favorites, too.
Unnecessary personal anecdote : I live in France in the city where his family comes from.


On the Bison, the unfamous "Wild dog" setting is the bridge pickup wired out of phase with the two others, resulting in a perfectly useless sound i never use !

The Baby Bison with the Bar-O-Matik pickups can really nail that Burnel sound. I was thinking about stringing it with black Rotosounds like the GB66 bass, but it is nice to have two Burns bass guitars with very different flavors.

I have 2 Baldwin Split Sound guitars and a Burns Vibra Sonic, but I never use the Wild Dog setting. Treble and Jazz are fabulous, especially Jazz. Some people switch the out-of-phase wiring on Wild Dog and prefer the sound. I haven't tried that.

Burns Baldwin Split Sonic 1965.png

Burns Vibra Sonic.png
Baldwin Burns Jazz Split Sonic.jpg
 
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Hello there, I just wanted to contribute, here's my (quite rare) 6 string Split Sound bass from 1964. Years after nerding out about it in the Melody Nelson thread, I finally found one ! I am truly in love with it, it's a secret studio weapon for sure. Currently located here in France. The vibrato arm is a newer model, and I'm still desperately looking for a bridge cover that fits. I have one but the hole for the vibrato arm is not at the right place (two versions of this bridge exist as far as I know, and I have...the wrong one).

Cheers !

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Hello there, I just wanted to contribute, here's my (quite rare) 6 string Split Sound bass from 1964. Years after nerding out about it in the Melody Nelson thread, I finally found one ! I am truly in love with it, it's a secret studio weapon for sure. Currently located here in France. The vibrato arm is a newer model, and I'm still desperately looking for a bridge cover that fits. I have one but the hole for the vibrato arm is not at the right place (two versions of this bridge exist as far as I know, and I have...the wrong one).

Cheers !

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If you are on Facebook, there are a couple of Burns groups there where sometimes original parts turn up, and it might be worth asking. One is called Burns of London Guitar Appreciation, another is called Burns Guitars and Amplifiers. There may be more, but those two have some folks “with connections.”
 
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Thanks a lot, I have deleted all of my social media accounts but I did used to follow this group, and that’s where I bought the replacement vibrato arm. All of the bridge covers I’ve seen online are of the wrong kind. I might as well take the one I have and have it machined to accommodate the arm.