Rick Turner

Who is Rick Turner?

Rick Turner is an American builder of guitars and basses. He co-founded Alembic in 1970 and was involved in the design and construction of the Alembic instruments. He founded Rick Turner Guitars in 1979 and joined Gibson in 1988 where he served as president of Gibson Labs West Coast R&D Division.

Turner left Gibson in 1992 and ran a guitar repair shop at Westwood Music in Los Angeles where he developed piezo pickup designs, working with Jackson Browne, David Crosby and others. He later co-founded Highlander Musical Audio, manufacturer of piezo pickups for acoustic guitars. He continues to design and build guitars for many professional players including Lindsey Buckingham, Ry Cooder, David Lindley, David Crosby and Andy Summers. He is also a regular columnist for Acoustic Guitar magazine and was a former columnist for Bass Player, Frets and Guitar Player magazines. His present company is Renaissance Guitars and he has partnered with Seymour Duncan to form D-TAR.

The Model 1 electric was designed by Turner for use by Fleetwood Mac guitarist Lindsey Buckingham, who continues to use the Model 1 to this day.

Turner helped engineer the Grateful Dead's "Wall of Sound."