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To complete the picture please see attached of the four pickup configuration showing the rows of six coils positioned under each string, sandwiched between the two rows of four magnets (secured by the white tape).

Graylion wrote:Thanks for posting my original scan of the advert Bill! Cheers, Lionel

Lionel,

Aha, so it was you that scanned it and gave it to'Dusty Frets' to put on page 16 of his 'work of art' 'The Burns Book'! I wondered where he got that from, now I know -I think.........

Anyaway, here's a three pickup Bison in action with the Australian group 'Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs (it says 1966 but it is actually 1964)-Vince Melouney on lead (later BeeGees).

Here is John Mayall's much mutilated 1961 Burns Bison with 4 pickups.

I have recordings that we made live in Germany. In fact so many with the BB. It was an awesome guitar, and I wish i still had it, but I am still using Burns even now in Chicago. I have a Marquee Special and a Hank Marvin plus a BB Bass. I have many pictures of the BB also. It was an amazing guitar. I used a Fender Showman Amp and a Baby Binson Ech. Sometimes I would tune it down to D to get a great bottom end.
I was playing 7 night a week and sometimes 8 hours a night and it beacme too heavey for me, so I traded it in on a Guild Duane Eddy that I still have, and that is also a colectors item. But I miss the BB.

cockroach wrote:Brian,

I'm sure I read somewhere that the 4 pickup Bison had low impedance pickups?

Unless it had an in-built active battery powered pre-amp (like say, a later Burns TR2), or adjustable output impedance with an inbuilt transformer (like the Gibson Les Paul models such as the Personal, Professional and Recording models) then its pickup output through a normal guitar amp would be far lower than normal high impedance electric guitar pickups?

Does this make any sense to electronics tech minded folk?

The low impedence pickup had quite a bit of volume. I never had a probelm with it playing live.
Peter C. Budd

My 4 pickup BB was black gloss with gold plating.

Burns low impedance pickups came with these little transformers, as in this picture of a couple of Tri-Sonic-style pickups from a Split-Sonic guitar

From the view of the panel in message #17, it would seem that the Bison has six transformers. Quite how they were used for four pickups would only become clear by tracing out the circuit diagram. Can Harry confirm if only two of the four pickups were actually made with split coils, or were they all made with split coils but with only two wired for splitting?

Ray

Pickups number 2 and number 4(bridge) have 'split coils' for the 'Split Sound' and there are a total of 4 transformers.

Though the pickups are 'single coils' as apposed to 'humbuckers', each pickup is constructed with 6 bobbins, around which individual coils are wound (ie. a coil for each string or put it another way, 24 coils in total). So, all 4 pickups have the potential to be wired as 'split coils'.

Thanks for that explanation, Harry.

Looking again at your pic in message #17, there are three transformers visible across the front of the mounting-boad and what looks like connecting posts for another three behind. Are two of those positions empty? If yes, why would that be? If there are four transformers, why did Jim B not have them on a smaller, square board?

Or is the perspective of the photograph deceptive?

Ray

Ray,
I hope this second picture clarifies your issue.