Fender Burns
The Burns Tri-Sonic is a single-coil electric guitar pickup, with ceramic magnets and a chrome cover. The arrangement of the coil and magnets is significantly different to most other pickup designs. Tri-Sonics are wider than the more popular single-coiled pickups, such as used by Fender, so if Fender pickups are replaced with Tri-Sonics physical changes to the guitar may be required, such as routing the body or altering the mounting mechanism. There is also a mini Tri-Sonic, designed to fit directly into Fender style pick-guards. Construction The construction of a Tri-Sonic pickup is unconventional. The coil is not held in a rigid shape on a bobbin, as in most guitar pickups, but wound into an oval and fitted directly around the magnets. There are two magnets joined end-to-end by their magnetic attraction, and placed onto the flanged metal base. A cover is attached which fits over magnetic flanges running either side of the base. There are six holes in the pickup cover, through which can be seen a piece of black plastic which is glued to the inside. These are simply for appearance, not being any kind of pole piece. The effect of the flanged base is that the magnetic field is produced all around the coil, not simply in the center. The Tri-Sonic gets its name from the three points where the sounds is picked up from. This is claimed to be unique in guitar pickup design and to be responsible for producing a richer harmonic sound than pickups wound in the conventional manner.