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Show us your Burmans


pete.young
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A former band of mine, Sign Language, in the 80s at the Welly Club Hull. The guitarist Pete Cox is the one with the Burman 501. Why oh why did he sell it? I'm the very thin looking bass player. To the right of my legs you can just see a Marshall Super-Bass 100 valve top and a Fender 2 x 15 Dual Showman cab

[attachment=60014:Sign_Language.jpg]

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[quote name='ShergoldSnickers' post='970378' date='Sep 28 2010, 09:34 AM']A former band of mine, Sign Language, in the 80s at the Welly Club Hull. The guitarist Pete Cox is the one with the Burman 501. Why oh why did he sell it? I'm the very thin looking bass player. To the right of my legs you can just see a Marshall Super-Bass 100 valve top and a Fender 2 x 15 Dual Showman cab

[attachment=60014:Sign_Language.jpg][/quote]

Haha nice. It's a shame the Welly club is so sh*te these days though.

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This is the funniest thing that i have read for ages.Great story.



[quote name='Crazykiwi' post='798513' date='Apr 7 2010, 11:16 AM']Howard, I asked Gregg about that cab and this was his reply which I felt compelled to share (with his permission):

[b]So did you remember making that 4x18 cab for Bumper Brown? Did it ever get an airing at a gig? [/b]

[i]Where do I start? We built it in our first workshop in Handyside arcade, no 59. It had a inch and a half front and the same for the back which was built like a safe door. We fitted the loudspeakers with the cab lying on the floor of the workshop and fitted the "safe door" back. We could feel the pressurised air in the cab hissing out as the back slowly seated in. We then realised that we couldn't lift it! We had to wait until the next day when 6 arcade workmen could help us lift it upright and then we tested it.

We used a Burman SL100 powerpack, pre amp and a Fender Precision bass. We connected everything and I hit the bottom open E string and the whole system went dead. (Were the loudspeakers too much for the amp or what? The amp was still on so what was the problem?) Then we could all smell gas! The pressure of air escaping from the sealed cab had 'spat' the jack plug out of the socket on the back of the cab! I think we were then one of the first companies to use EP series XLR connectors to our big cabs. The high pressured stream of air had blown out an industrial gas fire about 8 feet away in one split second long, quarter inch wide jet of air.

By the way, try and get a copy of 'The Nice' book, Keith Emerson's bass player mentions his 4x12 and 4x15 in 1 cab as well! The cab was his idea but I got the blame from their roadies! When they were on tour I would get calls in the middle of the night from Baz Ward (tour manager) obviously at the gig. The phone would ring, wake me up, and all he would say was

"Burman, you're a bastard", and then he would hang up!

Anyway, a local band called 'This Years Girl' wanted to try it so they took it to the Lacarno Ballroom in Sunderland for a gig. I gave strict instructions DO NOT SWITCH IT ON UNTIL I GET THERE! As I arrived the bass player had switched on the amp, plugged in his bass and was about to pluck the bottom E string.

Ahhhhhhhhhhh!!! Everything went slow motion as i moved towards him. He hit the string and all the glasses of the previous nights drinking just disappeared from the top of a grand piano. I don't mean vibrated off the top, they actually disappeared and smashed to the floor!! Light fittings in the ceiling fell out and crashed to the floor! Worse still, people standing by the bar at the back of the room looked like they were vomiting beer!!

I turned from the stage area and ran towards these people. As i ran from the stage to the bar, an distance of about 20 yards, i could feel the air waves of low frequency going up and down my body which made me feel nauseous. At the bar, the bass was punching and hitting everyone including me in the throat! I discovered that the people at the bar weren't being sick as such, they were physically incapable of swallowing their beer!

I managed to reach the main switch behind the bar and everthing came to an abrupt end. Of course the bass player turned round oblivious to the mayhem and destruction that had happened. To him the sound on stage had sounded normal but the cab was producing ultra low frequency that is unaudible to the human ear but can destroy your internal organs at high volumes! I can't remember Bumper Brown taking delivery of the cab! In fact I can't remember much at all after that episode - it's a blank.[/i][/quote]

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[IMG]http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b69/Incarante/burmanGX3001.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b69/Incarante/burmanGX3002.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b69/Incarante/burmanGX3004.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b69/Incarante/burmanGX3006.jpg[/IMG]

Still figuring how it works with other amps, there are lots of switches and no manual. Works pretty well with the bridging channels trick, but through this, to give lots of gain into the bright channel with bass going straight through the clean, using the Sound City 200, but its not up there with the sound of the two heads together. Seems a bit thin straight into the power amp section alone, might be a setting though.

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[b]*ZOMBIE THREAD ALERT*[/b]
Don't know how I missed this thread - it's nigh-on FIVE YEARS since the OP!! :lol:[size=4] But I don't care. So:[/size]

[b]Burman MPA & SL100 Powerpak[/b]
Greg Burman built this preamp and power amp by hand in 1972 to an extremely high standard. [size=4]Inside the MPA... Mullardy goodness. These are the original 40-year-old preamp valves:[/size]



Inside the SL100 - new JJ EL34s. I still have the original Mullard EL34s, but they are a [i]bit [/i]tired. Yes, those transformers are massive in every way. They're not Partridges; Greg Burman tried them and found them wanting, so he had these wound to his own specification.



Outside the MPA Pre. I have the inputs bridged and wind them up for a lovely smooth, creamy harmonic distortion that no pedal or valve-pre SS power amp can emulate. Sounds utterly fantastic with bass and has the 'all-valve bounce'.:



Outside the SL100 Powerpak. This is the troublemaker, weight-wise. :)



There's magic in them glowing bottles, I tells ya! :)

Note: For the record, these two items together weigh 35kg and NOT 45kg or even 70kg as erroneously stated elsewhere! [size=4]Still heavy enough to bust your guts if you carry it wrong, though. I've had one hernia repaired already, so I try to get someone else to haul it when possible. ;)[/size]

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