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Renaissance/Turner Basses Club

This bass is incredible, beautiful tone all around, very comfortable to play, and crazy deep low end, love it! :)

70199ED2-CD87-415E-A9CE-ABACB66E6D59.jpeg
 
This bass is incredible, beautiful tone all around, very comfortable to play, and crazy deep low end, love it! :)

View attachment 5205291
That interesting, RT used a Wilkins bridge on yours. Both of mine have a Hipshot, just different generations of Hipshot. Perhaps it was easier to fit the reference piezos to the Wilkins saddles at that time?

That's just an interesting bass all-around. No control electronics or anything... piezo-only, and straight-through output. I reckon it must have an onboard preamp and I'll guess a trimpot to set the gain.

My black EL-434 fretless is like the polar opposite of RV's; totally passive, no piezo, magnetic only... but with controls, Volume/Tone, and a coil-tapped Bartolini.
EL-434 (angled).jpeg

I think on these first few EL's Rick just tried a buncha' stuff out.
 
Think I'm going to take the ol' Black Knight, 'Lancelot' here to a practice session tomorrow. It's for a more-or-less traditional bluegrass gig coming up next weekend, but I'm just feelin' it, in a fretless kinda' way. I'm sure the guys won't care, and the audience we're playin' for next weekend won't know the difference either.
 
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That interesting, RT used a Wilkins bridge on yours. Both of mine have a Hipshot, just different generations of Hipshot. Perhaps it was easier to fit the reference piezos to the Wilkins saddles at that time?

That's just an interesting bass all-around. No control electronics or anything... piezo-only, and straight-through output. I reckon it must have an onboard preamp and I'll guess a trimpot to set the gain.

My black EL-434 fretless is like the polar opposite of RV's; totally passive, no piezo, magnetic only... but with controls, Volume/Tone, and a coil-tapped Bartolini.View attachment 5205430
I think on these first few EL's Rick just tried a buncha' stuff out.
Heck, there's a couple NOS Electroline basses at the shop right now from the mid 2010s that have different bridges from both of yours. Rick kinda used whatever was available for parts
 
The black fretless and burst fretless in this photo both have Wilkins bridges. The five string fretted has another kind of bridge. All three sound amazing :)

View attachment 5213809
That's a Hipshot A-style bridge. I have put those on a couple of Zons (and the 4-string version on a couple basses. Great bridges. I still have one 4-string A-Style bridge in my parts box, and the two Martin Keith Elfin 5 basses I have sport them.
 
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07-2551 has that bridge as well. (and came with an aftermarket mute...)
#07-2551 ref.piezo bridge, and mute assy..jpeg


...the serial number stamp always tickled me on this one too... OOPS! (I would've stamped the rest of the numbers 90° counterclockwise too, and called it good. :laugh:)
#07-2551 stamp.jpeg
 
RT friends... Here's something I've never seen before:

An early Electroline with a Fender-style headstock. Seems like a piece of RT history from way back. Have any of you seen this before?

Pretty cool! This prompted me to go back and skim a couple of articles on Rick Turner's history and Alembic's history. I'm in awe every time I read all of this. Amazing stuff! I'm sure many of you feel this, but it really is an honor to own and play any of his instruments.

Rick Turner Custom frettless bass 1989 - Natural | Reverb

Electroline Early Proto.jpg

Check out the names on the internal preamp (18V!!!):
Electroline Early Proto Preamp.jpg


https://reverb.com/item/76007111-rick-turner-custom-frettless-bass-1989-natural
 
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RT friends... Here's something I've never seen before:

An early Electroline with a Fender-style headstock. Seems like a piece of RT history from way back. Have any of you seen this before?

Pretty cool! This prompted me to go back and skim a couple of articles on Rick Turner's history and Alembic's history. I'm in awe every time I read all of this. Amazing stuff! I'm sure many of you feel this, but it really is an honor to own and play any of his instruments.

Rick Turner Custom frettless bass 1989 - Natural | Reverb

View attachment 5254322

Check out the names on the internal preamp (18V!!!):
View attachment 5254323

ok if this truly is a super early proto Electroline that's cool as hell. Gonna do some digging within the company to learn more about this