Borrowing the profile from our Electroline basses (but shrunk down a bit), the guitar variant uses a trio of our unique single coil pickups, fueled by an active Scott Walker Buffer Booster preamp. Scott’s preamp brings a clarity, depth, and power, paired with Rick’s pickups, that we continue to produce in-house. It is the perfect 9v preamp to compliment the Electroline Guitar. With the boost disengaged the guitar has a distinct voice and buffered fidelity that grows to a robust roar upon activating the gain-adjustable boost circuit. These full-sounding pickups stay present in a band mix, and utilize a unique slant that makes switching between pickups intuitive and with a focused set of tonalities.
The Electro-Gator is a variation of the Electroline based on Jerry Garcia’s famous Alligator strat, which was assembled and modified by Rick Turner. Using our own single-coil pickups and Scott’s preamp, the Electro-Gator brings back the look and feel of the original Alligator, down to the hammered brass control plate, maple fingerboard and neck, open pore finish, ash body and scalloped brass nut.
Three knobs include tone (passive), volume and gain control for boost.
Available in hardtail or vibrato-equipped models.
In the spirit of the Model 1, these guitars are exploring beyond their inspiration and platform, and with Rick’s signature inspiration and innovation.
“I’ve probably played 500 different guitars in my life. Out of those 500, maybe a couple of dozen appeared to have some kind of spirit inside them, that seemed to be able to play the music for me. This guitar was that special kind of rare guitar with a spirit living inside of it. It requires no effort to play, yet collaborates with me in discovering music that I never could have found with the guitar’s special shamanic help” — Henry Kaiser
DEFAULT SPECS:
Finish: gloss
Color: natural (custom colors and finished available)
Body wood: Alder (options include ash, mahogany, or laminated top)
Neck: maple (options include mahogany, laminated maple, torrefied maple, etc)
Fingerboard: ipe (options include royal blackwood, rosewood, maple, ebony)
Tuners: Planet Waves locking tuners
Bridge: Wilkinson tremolo or hard-tail
Pickguard: custom-cut white (custom colors available)
Scale length: 25.5″
Nut width: 1 11/16″
Electronics – The Electroline features a three single-coil pickups, wound here at Turner Guitars, uses a larger wire than most single-coil pickups and Alnico 5 magnets resulting in a low DCR (CD resistance) but maintaining strong output and a clear tone. The design originates from the coil in the horseshoe pickup of the Turner Model T, and Rick modified it for this guitar. Shielded for low-noise and selected with a 5-way blade switch. Uses one 9 Volt battery.