Compass Rose

Jumbo Concert Howe-Orme Tenor Prototype Baritone Rick Turner has a long and varied career as an instrument maker, Starting his apprenticeship in 1963, he helped found Alembic Guitars in the early 70's, he worked for Gibson R&D for a while but eventually he started Rick Turner Guitars in Santa Cruz California. Currently there appears to be three brands of chordophone he runs, Rick Turner Guitars, Renaissance Guitars and Compass Rose Ukuleles. Though Rick is more known for his work with Electrics and Pickups, the Compass Rose line, (which has included Guitars in the past), is the acoustic  Ukulele brand. The Compass Rose Ukuleles started out with only Jumbo Tenor (as in fat bodied, the scale length is 17 inches), body shape, but in 2014 they introduced Jumbo Concerts, (15¼ inch scale), and they toyed with the idea of Baritones. The Baritone idea was not followed through but they did introduce a narrower bodied Tenor, often with only 12 frets to the body, (but still 17 inch scale), they describe on the website as the Howe-Orme model. Though the make a few models on spec to sell through dealers they also have a full custom shop where you can choose the woods, the levels of decoration and I have even seen a cutaway version.

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