The Renaissance line of guitars and basses has never been "for everybody". Rick Turner has designed and built each model to fill a specific need. You won't see these guitars in every club, at every studio and on every stage...instead you'll find them in the hands of a few discriminating performers who have discovered that they can solve real-world problems with intelligent, superbly musical solutions.
The Renaissance Semi-Acoustic Guitar and Bass concept is simple.
No matter how unplugged you appear, the truth is that your acoustic sound must be electronically sensed and amplified for recording or live performance. Taking a dreadnought shaped instrument and sticking on a pickup isn't the answer...unless you want to kill off a great deal of frequency spectrum to avoid the inevitable feedback!
Rick Turner has designed the ultimate answer to the unplugged dilemma: How can we produce premium acoustic tone as an amplifiable recodable electronic signal? This goal dictated every facet of the design, from the premium electronics to the solid centre block crafted into the thinline body. The end result is something you have to hear to believe...beautiful acoustic tone at the output jack ready to record or amplify!
The Renaissance Semi-Acoustic Guitars
These guitars serve the very real need to reproduce full-frequency acoustic tone in electronic recording and performance settings - a job that, ironically, true acoustics are not cut out for! The thinline body is built like a fine acoustic guitar, but with an added mahogany center block to cut feedback. A Turner piezo bridge pickup feeds full-spectrum signals to an 18-volt DTAR Timberline pre-amp. Available in 6-string steel or nylon classical, 12-string steel, and 6 or 12-string baritone.
The Renaissance Semi-Acoustic Basses
These basses provide a rich palette of tones from realistic upright to cutting rock. Compared to traditional basses, they deliver a much broader frequency range, allowing a variety of expression limited only by your fingers. Models include 4-string 34" scale and 5-string 35" scale with fretted or fretless fingerboards. Thomastik-Infeld Acousticore strings deliver melodic, punchy tones right down to a thunderous low B. As with the guitar versions these basses use the DTAR 18-volt Timberline preamp. All this in a package that weighs less than 5.5 lbs!
The Electroline Basses
The Electroline series is designed to be the most flexible solid-body bass in your collection. It's secret is the Turner "Reference" piezo bridge system, which provides an individual under-saddle pickup for each string. This system provides such a broad frequency spectrum that many players use it alone; however, you can mix enhanced traditional tones into your sound as well with the addition of Turner "Diamond" or soapbar magnetic pickups. Models include 4-string 34" scale and 5-string 35" scale with fretted or fretless fingerboards. This bass will deliver 'P', 'J', 'MM' and 'modern' tones and beyond to satisfy the most demanding bass junkie!
The Model T Guitar
The Formica-topped solid body was built to cry the blues. Its strong retro vibe combines influences from the late 20's Kay Kraft designs, 30's electronics and 50's design sensibilities. But it's not just skin deep - the Turner "Rick" double-horseshoe pickup delivers accurate vintage lead tones through modern electronics, and an "all controls bypass" switch serves up a direct, load-free signal to the output jack. Slide and bottle-neck players swear the T's tone was designed just for them.
The Model 1 Guitar
Ever since Lindsey Buckingham took delivery of #79-003, the Model One guitar has been highly sought after for its combination of Old World aesthetics and modern, full-bodied tonal range. Played clean, it sounds incredibly acoustic and detailed. But when the volume kicks up, it screams louder and longer than any guitar you've played...without unwanted feedback or breakup.
The Compass Rose Ukulele
Find your way home with a Compass Rose Ukulele. The highlight of these Ukuleles is their availability in Walnut or Santa Cruz Sycamore. During development, Rick stated that "it was a real surprise how good both woods sounded, neither one considered a traditional tone wood."
NEW! The Compass Rose Series of Guitars
With these exciting new Compass Rose Guitars, Rick Turner is proving again why he’s a leader in the field of string instrument design and research and these instruments offer action-adjustable neck and floating fingerboard, flying butress internal bracing, and a sound port. Truly beautiful instruments to play.
