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Burns Marquee Club Series Electric Guitar

 

Burns Marquee Guitar reviewed by The Man in the Jar

Mr Burns has taken time off from the Power Plant to re-issue his once famous electric music contraptions. I flipped sector 5 onto autopilot and reached for my big, square glasses...

Features of the Burns Marquee

Tuners - Sealed, Burns branded minis in gold. Smooth and accurate.

Headstock - Distinctive scrolled design reminiscent of a violin or cello. For most guitarists this will seem a trifle odd at first because it is such an idiosyncratic feature of the Marquee, but give it a chance and it will grow on you. It certainly sets the guitar apart from the Stratocaster, which I suspect was the original intention behind the design. 

Nut - This is a plastic "set in slot" type which was black on the model I saw but seems to be white in the above picture. The important thing about this nut is that it serves as a string-spacer only. The action is set by a zero-fret which sits right in front of the nut. Zero-frets have their pros and cons. On the plus side the extra fret eliminates intonation or action problems caused by wear at the nut. It also produces the same tone for open strings as fretted notes elsewhere on the board, so open chords are even in volume and tone with their barred cousins. The downside is the zero-fret will wear quicker than any other fret because it is always in contact with the strings. This won't become apparent for a number of years and even then the replacement of a single fret is not problematic on an unbound fretboard. 

Neck - Slim maple neck very reminiscent of the lovely hand-finished necks that Norman Houlder used to fix on the London-made Shergold range. Immediately comfortable and beautifully playable - very impressive. 

Fretboard - Smooth medium-dark rosewood with an attractive grain (picture above shows a maple fretboard variant). The rosewood sports traditional white dot-markers. 

Frets - Medium rounded and well polished.

Action - Nice and low from the box, and it looks like careful adjustment could take it slightly lower if preferred.

Body - This is practically bang-on identical in shape to the Stratocaster. I compared it side-by-side with two Strats and the only difference I could find was the lower horn on the Burns is slightly more pointy. The Marquee was designed to sell head-to-head with the Strat on its initial release so this similarity is not surprising. It's a good thing that Fender didn't share Gibson's touchiness about body shapes! The guitar is quite light but is perfectly balanced on the strap. 

Bridge - Gold Burns Deluxe floating vibrato. The bridge is fixed by and pivots around three screws across the front of the bridge. This is one of the original designs for vibrato and is not as robust as modern engineered units. A tone bend up is considered reasonable and not a great deal further down would be advisable. Dive-bombing is not, repeat not recommended. Incidentally it's worth tightening the screws on this type of bridge periodically as part of your care and maintenance programme.
Each saddle is individually adjustable for height and intonation. The strings dive through the saddles to be anchored in the vibrato block. Through the string access hole in the back cover I could see the vibrato block is secured by four springs instead of the usual three, thus providing better tuning stability.  

Pickups - Three single coil Burns Rez-o-matic pickups are all at the same offset angle normally seen on the Strat's bridge pickup. 

Controls - Five-way switch gives Bridge only - Bridge and Middle - Middle only - Middle and Neck - Neck only. There's a master volume with one tone for the bridge pickup and one tone for the remaining two pickups. One of my beefs with the Fender Strat is the fact that the volume knob lives under the first string (in my opinion if you are into "violining" you should consider buying a violin). The controls on the Marquee are situated in a far more sensible position.

Pickguard - A very distinctive three-parter with the en-scribed legend "Handcrafted by Burns London". This replicates the original wording, but it should be remembered that the guitars are now made in Korea. The pickguard is fixed with gold screws to compliment the gold hardware - nice touch.

Strap-buttons -Medium sized but secure. 

Output Jack - Situated on the front in the scratchplate.

Finish - The finish is excellent throughout.

 

Sound of the Burns Marquee

In deference to the pedigree of the guitar I picked one of the Line 6 clean channels - no guitar with three single coils was ever meant to be a metal monster. The pickup configuration, switch options and body shape invite direct comparison to the Stratocaster, and the Marquee comes out very well from the scrap.

Bridge pickup only and bridge and middle positions are where the Marquee will earn its money. The bridge pickup is ecstatically bright with crystal highs. Punching in the middle pickup deepens the sound considerably. I get the impression that the offset on the middle and neck pickup give the voice of the Marquee an added growl compared to its Strat rivals.

Middle pickup alone gives a surprisingly pleasant bluesy tone. With a bit of heavy plectrum attack I got some nice "barking" tones with runs on the lower strings. Middle and neck together took me in the direction of some country rhythms where the middly chord sound gelled well with the depth of the bass runs. Neck pickup alone gives a lovely full tone for chords and low runs. There's an undercurrent of almost Tele-like growl in the sound.

The vibrato works nicely and stays in tune well. Remember the scope of movement of this type of vintage design cannot match modern variants.   

 

Overall Impressions of the Burns Marquee

My first proper guitar was a Shergold Masquerader which shares some elements of design and history with the original Burns guitar company. Consequently there was a lot about the Marquee that felt comfortable and familiar to me. The Marquee scores very highly where is matters with a superb neck and high quality pickups. The shape is, of course, comfortable and easy to wear. There's no escaping the idiosyncratic design elements of the headstock and the scratchplate and I suppose they will put this guitar into the "love it or hate it" category. But for the showmen and women amongst us the flamboyance of this guitar alone would put it firmly on the wish-list. But look beyond the cosmetic features and what you'll find is a well-crafted, highly playable guitar with a wealth of sonic options. In fact what you'll be holding is a creditable alternative to a Mexican Strat.   

Buy the Burns Marquee Club Electric Guitar also available in Green

Visit the Burns Guitar Museum and the Shergold website

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