The 2020 Collection No. 2: TRIUMPH OF THE TR2

 

The Burns TR2 (centre) takes its place amongst the collection

During the mid to late 1980s, there were two guitars that I was particularly looking out for. One of these was the Chet Atkins Hollowbody, otherwise known as model 6120. I liked the 6120 for an utterly trivial reason: it was orange. And orange was a colour you didn’t often see on guitars. Now and again, examples turned up in Birmingham’s Musical Exchanges, and I spotted others on occasional excursions down to London. None of them quite cut it condition wise, and they all struck me as overpriced...

Then, one day in the autumn of 1986, on a lunchtime visit to Birmingham’s Musical Exchanges, I found what I thought would make a good substitute for the Gretsch: an orange guitar with a price ticket below £200. The model in question was an old semi-acoustic, dating to around 1964, and its attractive ‘orange’ finish had originally been bright red.

The guitar I’d chanced upon was a Burns TR2 – the name standing for ‘TRansistorised 2-Pickup.’ It was less of a semi-acoustic than a semi-solid: the bottom half of the body being carved out of a solid block of wood, which made it quite a hefty instrument. Its angular, exaggerated styling seems to have originated as an attempt to create a semi-solid version of the company’s successful Bison model (prototypes actually included the same peghead engraving of a stylised Bison). The TR2 was considerably more restrained, yet possessed of the same quirky styling that set Burns apart from their competitors. It also held the distinction of being the first ever electric guitar to be offered with a built-in preamp. And therein lay the trouble.

The TR2 sounded fine in the shop, where there was enough background noise to mask any deficiencies: but as soon as I plugged it in at home, I could detect a notable hiss cutting through the output: no amount of fiddling with the controls would make it go away, and it sounded even worse when D.I.’d into my multitrack recorder. This was a shame, because it had a very good action, and possibly the best neck profile of any guitar I’d played up to that date: small wonder, given that the TR2 was designed in collaboration with noted session player Ike Isaacs.

I’d acquired a copy of collector Paul Day’s seminal ‘Burns Book’ (original copies are almost as sought after as old Burns guitars themselves), so I read up on the TR2. It turned out there was a battery inside; and removal of what appeared to be a mere pickguard revealed it as the guts of the instrument’s cutting-edge (for 1963) electrics. Printed circuits, no less: and in the midst of a baffling array of wiring and solder there was indeed a battery, of a type I had never seen before, nor have I ever seen since. I’ve still got it... and I’d like to bet it’s the last surviving example of its kind.

The 1963 vintage Ever Ready PP4 that came out of my original Burns TR2

The battery was evidently original to the guitar and after nearly 25 years was clearly stone dead. I took it around various electrical shops in Birmingham (establishments of a type that have long since faded into history), and was greeted by looks of bafflement and much head-scratching. The battery had 9v terminals... but on either end. A replacement could not be found. Without it, the guitar still worked, but the hiss remained: and the output, which would have been boosted by the pre-amp, was average to feeble.

Despite its name, the TR2 was hardly a ‘triumph’ for Burns. It remained in production for less than a year, being replaced by the almost identical, but conventionally-wired ‘Vibraslim’. I think I can figure out why: those batteries reportedly ran out of juice rapidly, unless disconnected from the terminals after every gig: and how many players could be bothered to do that? Apparently, they even went dead in the middle of gigs, which would result in a dramatic drop in output from the instrument. Pre-amps were a good idea, but their time had yet to come.

The TR2 was still in my possession when my collection was photographed years later for a magazine feature. By this time (2002) my own collection had become a hodge-podge of unfashionable, neglected makers, a few Gretsches, a Rickenbacker or two, absolutely no Gibsons, and a few items that could be lumped together under the heading of miscellaneous junk. To me, the TR2 belonged in this latter category, and when asked about it, I judged it to have been a ‘bit of a mistake.’ It had also ceased to function somewhere along the line.

Much later, a friend arranged for a guitar tech of his acquintance to restore it to working order, and the same friend, having an interest in old British guitars, took it off me in exchange for a Korean-made Epiphone Casino with a value of no more than £450. Having paid just £195 for the Burns back in 1986, I reckoned it didn’t owe me anything, but I was mildly miffed when, a mere couple of months later, the very same Burns TR2 rocked up on ebay with an asking price of £2000 – a fair amount of money to lay out for a guitar that didn’t even work properly. Later still, I found photos of my old TR2 on a website devoted to Burns instruments. I knew it to be the same from its flamed maple body, and a distinctive shield nameplate that a former owner had attached to the headstock. I began to regret having let it go.

The TR2 had become another ‘one that got away’; and one that I couldn’t readily replace without some pretty hefty expenditure. Occasional internet searches would turn up the usual few suspects, including another ‘orange’ example, almost identical to the one I’d owned, and again carrying a price tag close to £2k (it’s been a regular visitor to ebay over the past few years). Some dealers wanted even more for them... £2,500 and upwards, at which price point they would need to be dead mint examples. As the years went by, I felt the need to atone for my error in ridding myself of that troublesome TR2, and its offset, pointy shape began to loom like a gap in the collection. And gaps need to be filled...

Then, earlier this year, with nothing to do in the locked-down evenings besides trawl the internet in search of guitars, I found another one. It was very clean, all original (except for its case) and was nicely aged in a faded black-to-red sunburst. The price was the lowest I’d seen on a TR2 since giving up my old one, at a ‘mere’ £1399. Only one snag: it was in Amsterdam, but that wasn’t about to stop me: neither was lockdown. Delivery services appeared to be working as normal, and it was only the Whitsuntide holiday in Europe that delayed it in transit. It arrived one rainy morning in June, in one of the most interesting guitar cases I’ve ever seen, faux leather in an attractive shade of coral pink.

Plugged in, I finally got to hear how the TR2 was supposed to sound: because this time, the pre-amp did what it was supposed to do. There’s still hiss, albeit far less noticeable than it had been on the old one, and it only endures for a moment or two after the guitar is plugged in. The treble pickup is sharp to the point of being almost shrill, whereas the tone from the neck is typically more rounded and mellow. It may sound daft, but I’d genuinely come to regret disposing of that old TR2, for all its defects, and in spite of the fact that it was seldom used; and I was pleased to welcome its replacement back into the fold.

The TR2 may not have been a triumph for Burns, but it finally made a convert out of me. Just be aware that you’ll need to spend some time working out if you plan on owning one... these guitars are heavy!