LUTHIER
Rick Turner Guitars
An acknowledged giant of the modern lutherie scene, Rick Turner has built guitars for some of the greatest names in rock and roll including Fleetwood Mac's Lindsey Buckingham, The Grateful Dead and John Mayer.
The thinline body is built like a fine acoustic guitar, but with an added cedar center block to cut feedback. A Turner Timberline piezo bridge pickup feeds full-spectrum signals to an 18-volt D-TAR Eclipse pre-amp.
ACOUSTICALLY
SOUND DESIGN
Constructed like true acoustic instruments, with bent sides and a braced tone wood top and back, the Renaissance series truly represents the best way to achieve acoustic tone plugged in.
The construction feature that sets our instruments apart is the Western Red Cedar center block that prevents feedback and yet provides an acoustically live foundation for the D-TAR Eclipse preamp and Turner Timberline pickup system.
D-TAR PREAMP
All Renaissance Series instruments feature D-TAR Eclipse, 18-volt preamp and our own Turner Timberline coaxial piezo pick-up system which produces a full-frequency amplified acoustic tone. Our unique instruments are perfect for recording and live performance under any conditions, and they have proven roadworthy around the world. READ MORE BELOW
COMPARE MODELS
DELUXE
STANDARD
SPECIAL
Finish
Full Gloss
Satin with Gloss top
Satin
Top
Cedar, Walnut, Cherry or Redwood
Cedar or Redwood
Mahogany
Back & Sides
Walnut, Cherry, Acacia or Figured Maple
Mahogany
Mahogany
Binding
Rope or Hemp Purfling
Black, Tortoise, or Ivoroid
None
Neck Wood
Mahogany
Mahogany
Mahogany
Fingerboard
Ipe
Ipe
Ipe
Peghead
Veneer Matches Back, Sides or Top
Black Veneer
Black Veneer
Tuning Machines
Schaller or Gotoh
Schaller or Gotoh
Planet Waves
Electronics - We use a D-TAR Timberline pickup system that features a coaxial piezo polymer pickup element mounted in a curve bottomed slot in the bridge with a bone or carbon fiber saddle transferring the string pressure variations from vibrations into the pickup which transduces those vibrations into an electrical signal. Because the pickup senses 360 degrees around it’s core, you get both direct string sound as well as the warmth of the wood of the body. Pickup installation is all about location, location, location, as well as the exact geometry of the saddle/pickup/bridge interfaces, and we have taken great care to optimize installation including tilting the saddle back at an angle of 7 degrees to better split the “break angle” of the string as it goes over the saddle and down into the body.
That pickup signal is matched to an 18 volt preamp which provides a bit of a signal boost as well as conditioning the pickup impedance to run down long cables and match the input characteristics of typical amplifiers. Earlier instruments used two 9 Volt batteries; newer ones use two “AA” cells with a 6X voltage multiplier circuit to achieve the same headroom as with the two 9 volt batteries.