The White Strat

[jgoatcher]

I am curious about the white strat used from mid 1963 to Feb 64 when the Burns took over, and I would welcome other members opinions. As we all know there has always been some controversy concerning which guitar was used to record certain numbers during that transition period and there are a number of sources of information on the subject. Roberto in his book comes firmly down on the Burns side but i think he may not have been entirely correct. For instance I have it on quite good authority that Shindig, Its a mans world, even Chattanooga were done on the white strat and even more. What interests me is how does that white strat come to sound very like a Burns , when the other two red strats were fairly easy to identify. Was there something in its construction, materials etc or perhaps the pickups which gave it a distinctive sound, or could it have been due to the recording processes at the time and the addition of post recording effects. I have enjoyed chatting to Liquorice recently on this subject and he actually said he had revised his opinion on several numbers _ he mentioned Geronimo specifically which he now thinks was done on the Burns . He also said that Hank had used the Burns in live situations before 1964. A lovely chap he is, but I think his memory is perhaps not 100 %, and who can blame him after all this time !
Sorry to ramble on a bit, but Im a bit like CPJ a stickler for the detail and should I be chasing after yet another strat !!

[RogerCook]

I've heard a theory that the white Strat may have had Burns pickups in Fender covers!

[jgoatcher]

Wow, road testing the Burns sound in a Fender chassis - very interesting theory, but any evidence ?

[David Martin]

I am firmly of the opinion (having played Burns for many years with Legend) that most of the characteristic "Burns" sound comes from outside the guitar... First, the setting of the Top Boost (full bass, treble till it bites), second, the DeArmond tone and volume pedal left permanently in circuit and left on treble, third, virtually no echo at all on most numbers, but reverb used instead, and fourth, heavy dollops of studio compression... and, finally, the heavy use of the neck pickup, or the neck/middle blend, on many numbers...

But the Burns does have a slightly different tone to a rosewood board Fender, and I put that down to the use of aluminium for the bridge and trem, as opposed to the steel used on Fenders...

[jgoatcher]

David, thanks for your input. Totally agree regarding the essence of the Burns sound, but given that very distinctive sound how do you explain the fact that several of those numbers recorded in late 63, supposedly on the white strat , sounded so ' Burnsy', or do you subscribe to the view that the Burns was actually used.

[roger bayliss]

Most likely the AC30 Top boost settings used ... they started using a more nasal sound around then. I think this was a transition period where settings on the amp were changed. Before that they were using the Top boost amps with different settings which tended to employ the treble around 50% and varying degrees of bass. So the amp settings are probably the key element in that period.

The tone controls on the AC30 TB are very interactive affecting the Mids around 800hz and the later settings they employed hollowed out the sound and made it more nasal sounding .. So a scooped 800hz sound is were it starts ... if you own other amps you may need a graphic eq to get this effect because the other amps have different tone stack behaviour.

[David Martin]

David, thanks for your input. Totally agree regarding the essence of the Burns sound, but given that very distinctive sound how do you explain the fact that several of those numbers recorded in late 63, supposedly on the white strat , sounded so ' Burnsy', or do you subscribe to the view that the Burns was actually used.

I "feel" that the Burns was used for Atlantis, for example... but given the tone shaping available in a studio, they could just as easily have been all Strat...

Perhaps we'll have an experiment session at the South Lincs Club, and I will demo the Burns sound on a Strat, and vice versa...

[Tab]

When I first got my Burns it sounded more like a Strat than my Strats did and I couldn't get it to sound like a Burns until David suggested the amp settings as posted above thus confirming that the sound is more to do with the amp than the guitar.

[Gatwick1946]

A couple of things have always struck me about the white Fenders used by the Shads 1963/64:-

(a) from a distance, or in some photographs, they look quite like the Burns ie white with dark scratchplates, (for this reason it was some time before I noticed that the Shads had new guitars!).

(b) albeit they were only used for a short time, I have not seen many photographs of the Shads playing the white fenders.

If the photo's have not been posted on this website (I have seen a few), then I doubt that many exist.

Thanks guys for raising an interesting thread.

Kindest regards

Christopher

[Didier]

A couple of things have always struck me about the white Fenders used by the Shads 1963/64:-

(a) from a distance, or in some photographs, they look quite like the Burns ie white with dark scratchplates, (for this reason it was some time before I noticed that the Shads had new guitars!).

Could they be Strats copies made by Burns, and later modified to the usual Burns look to avoid problems with Fender ?

Didier