Announcements

May 9 2022

GEAR FOR HOPE – Auctions in aid of humanitarian efforts in Ukraine

The horrific reality of the war in Ukraine is reaching all of us every day in images, videos and through those we know with family and friends still in the country. It’s hard to truly comprehend what the people in Ukraine and those who have fled are experiencing, and it can be hard to understand how to help.

I remember turning on the TV back in 2004 and seeing places completely destroyed by the tsunami, including towns I had visited with my family not long before. We auctioned off a guitar to contribute to the massive worldwide humanitarian response, and while that doesn’t feel like much in the face of such devastation, it is something. You have to believe that every little effort can help.

In the last few weeks, members of the music and guitar industries have already begun raising money to support humanitarian aid for those in Ukraine and for the refugees who have fled the country. The ability of our community to come together when it really matters never ceases to amaze, and some of us started to consider how much larger and better connected our network is these days – and how, with that, we could achieve a lot more than at any time in the past.

As soon as a few of us started to discuss organising something as a community, the response was incredible: within just a couple of hours, musicians, instrument builders, pedal makers and companies big and small were already involved.

Collaborating with Grand GTRs, the team at Guitar Summit/Gitarre & Bass, and with a growing list of names from across our industry, we’ve come together to organise GEAR FOR HOPE, a massive series of auctions featuring instruments and gear to raise money for humanitarian aid in Ukraine. The auctions will include unique and signed items from artists including Billy Talent, Die Toten Hosen, Biffy Clyro, Funeral for a Friend and Snarky Puppy, high-end instruments from renowned guitar builders, popular pedals, amps, accessories, merch and more – with the list still growing by the hour as the whole community comes together to raise as much money as possible. PRS, Hughes & Kettner, Thorpy FX, Lakewood Guitars, Tom Anderson Guitarworks, Häussel Pickups, Collings Guitars, Spalt Instruments, Isle of Tone, The GigRig, Kloppmann Electrics, Schwarz Custom Guitars, BluGuitar, Tausch Electric Guitars and Two-Rock are just a few of the names already donating items to the auction. We’ll also be joining and contributing one of our guitars.

The auctions are live now on the United Charity auction platform, with all of the listings available at this link. The money raised will be donated to Ärzte ohne Grenzen e.V. (Doctors Without Borders), Aktion Deutschland Hilft e.V., Deutsches Rotes Kreuz e.V. (German Red Cross) and the UNO-Flüchtlingshilfe e.V. (UN Refugee Agency). In order to raise as much money as possible, artists, craftspeople and companies are being incredibly generous in donating popular gear and one-of-a-kind items to the auction – so this will be your chance to get something truly special while helping an urgent cause.

We hope to promote this as much as possible, so you’ll be hearing plenty more about GEAR FOR HOPE from all the participants and organisers in the next couple of weeks. This community has come together and made a difference before, and it’s time to do so again.

– Nik

December 31 2020

Goodbye 2020!

It’s been a tough one, but it’s worth taking the time to say some thanks

It’s always worthwhile reflecting a little at the end of the year. At the end of a tough, strange one, it feels especially important to acknowledge the things that have been difficult, but also the highlights – the things we’re thankful for.

It’s been hard across the music and guitar industry. At the same time, lots of companies have reported their best years ever in terms of sales. The uncertainty of March and April gave way to a summer in which everyone adjusted to the ‘new normal’ – and apparently started playing guitar! As close to normal as possible, we continued to build our guitars, and we’re incredibly thankful for all our dealers, artists and customers. Thank you to everyone who bought a guitar, to everyone following us online and to everyone reading this blog. With your support, it’s continued to be a very strong and busy year for us at Nik Huber Guitars.

Of course, we didn’t know any of this was coming when we released our new model in January. Named for my youngest son, Piet, it’s an important model for us for many reasons, and we were soon wondering how its introduction would go. Shows were all cancelled, and other opportunities to showcase the Piet were limited. But, inspired by the proactive attitudes of so many artists and others in the industry, we set about promoting it as much as possible in our virtual guitar realms.

In the end, Piet has been a huge success, and we’re incredibly thankful for how well it’s been received. We’ve been backordered on Piet’s most of the year, and we still are. They’ve been finding homes faster than we can make them and stores are keen for more. We were delighted when the Piet was awarded ‘High-End Guitar of the Year’ by Guitar.com – in a category containing some of the biggest brands in the world – and equally so when it was named ‘Gear of the Year’ by Guitarist Magazine. In a busy, competitive field, it’s incredible to win an award like this from one platform, but from two of the biggest in the same year is something we never expected. Thank you so much to everyone that has made Piet’s first year such a positive one, and a big thank you to Chris and the team at Guitar.com and to Jamie and the team at Guitarist.

As well as my youngest son, Piet also shares a namesake with our hollowbody and bass models – it was the first name of Mr. Rietbergen, my father-in-law. It was a huge blow to the family when we lost both of my parents-in-law this year; their name being connected to three of my models is just one small sign of how important they were to me. The importance of family is something I’ve had more time to focus and reflect on this year, and I can’t let this opportunity go by without thanking them. None of this would be possible without their support, and we’ve helped each other in the toughest parts of the year, particularly the loss of my wife’s parents. We’ve taken the opportunity of this year to also spend more time together, something else I’m very thankful for.

My eldest son Niko is now working fulltime in the workshop, and it’s fantastic to watch his skills and knowledge progress. In the previous year, Piet was also hard at work here, and it’s amazing to get to work with both of my sons.

And, without a doubt, I need to give a huge thanks to everyone on the team. This hasn’t been an easy time for anyone in any workplace. As you’d guess, guitar building isn’t work that we can do from home, and the positive attitude of the team to continue coming to the workshop and doing what they do has been outstanding – just like the quality of the work itself. Christine, Marcus, Alex, Matthias, Hans, Niclas, Gea and Jarle have been at their workbenches day after day, putting in more work than ever to always build a better instrument, every time. They blow me away with their expertise and skill, year after year, and together have made the instruments even better than I thought possible. Clemens has done an amazing job, rolling with the punches of this year and managing the business as smoothly as ever in a challenging time. Thanks to Anja, who has just left, and Nicole, who has just joined, all of our most important numbers and paperwork and details have kept running perfectly, even in these bumpy times. To all of you: thank you. I could not ask for a better team.

And it seems the world agrees with me! Outside of the Piet, the response to our guitars has been overwhelming this year. We’re currently on the cover of Bass Professor Magazine, have been featured on the cover of Grand Guitars and on the cover of Gitarre & Bass, plus we were one of four builders featured in Guitar.com’s Meet The Makers documentary series.

It’s been a hard year in many ways, and we’re all going to need to keep supporting each other going forward into the next. But there is a lot that I have to be thankful for as well. I’m here in my workshop, building guitars, with my dog next to me, my team around me and my family supporting me. So once again: thank you to my team, to my family, and thank you to everyone for being a part of Nik Huber Guitars this year. Let’s see what 2021 holds!

– Nik

February 29 2020

Everybody, Say Hello To Piet

Quite a few years ago now, I was having dinner with my wife and father-in-law when suddenly he started talking about names.

He noted that I was the fourth Nikolaus Huber in my family line, and my eldest son, Niko, the fifth, and that my name was the name of a company as well. And attached to all the guitars that came from that company was my name again.

“In those ways, your name can live on,” he said. “But I have no sons. I have three daughters, and all of them have married and taken the names of their husbands. My name – Rietbergen – dies with me.”

He didn’t sound particularly sad when he said it, but it really struck me. What also struck me, and not for the first time, was the grandness of that name – Rietbergen. There was a certain fine sound on top of the special, personal resonance it held for me. I felt that it should be attached to something with a touch of elegance – an archtop came to mind at first. And so, years later, we released our semi-hollow, carved top model, the Rietbergen.

Fast forward to 2020. Those of you who came by at the NAMM Show this year saw that we have some big news: we are very proud to present a new addition to the lineup of Nik Huber guitars.

There are a number of things that make this new model extremely exciting for us. But those of you at NAMM may have noticed one strange thing in particular about our new guitar: it didn’t have a name.

The truth is, we had lots of names for it; we just didn’t have the right one. Clever names, cool names, fascinating names, dirty names, disgusting names – after hours of discussion and brainstorming, in the office and on the plane and in the car and at NAMM, we had it all covered. We had some great names. But we didn’t have the name.

Until suddenly, from what should have been the most obvious place in the world, it came to us. As soon as it was in front of me, the discussion was over. I had tears in my eyes I was so touched, and I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t thought of it straightaway. It’s the most obvious thing in the world to me now – the only possible name for this guitar.

And so, please say hello to the youngest model in our line, named for my youngest son: Piet.

Me and Piet with Piet and Piet

This model has been an exciting new adventure for me. We’re more known for the mahogany-body vein of guitar making, and so creating something totally in the alder-body-maple-neck mould meant exploring some new ground for me as a luthier. In fact, that drove the creation of this new model more than anything. There was no business strategy or deep calculation behind it; I wanted to push myself as a guitar builder and explore something new.

‘That’s hardly new!’ you might say. And while it is just about the most conservative choice of woods you can get, this guitar is really all our own. We’ve made sure it’s perfectly suited to any pickup combination you can imagine – not just two or three single coils with minor variations. We actually started with the pickups, working closely with Harry Häussel to develop something really special. We’ve kept our Dolphin body shape, a familiar, signature element that brings a whole new sound to these woods. We’ve perfected the finishing to create a beautiful look and silky-smooth feel on the body.

I could go on. We’ve spent the last year experimenting with and tweaking every single detail on this model. With builders in the world already making phenomenal S-type, T-type and offset guitars, the last thing I wanted to do was make another (even if I do love those guitars). They have it covered. But with many of these guitars from the builders I admire, the things that make them beautiful and unique are in the details and the multitude of individual choices those builders take. I wanted that to be the case with this new model, which made it even more rewarding to see so many people checking out the Piet at NAMM and saying that it had our unmistakable signature, our DNA and feel.

And that was all the more reason to give it a name unique and meaningful to us.

Piet the human was thrilled when I told him about our decision, and now it’s something we share. The company and guitars share my name. My eldest son also shares my name and we share music, playing in a band together. The Rietbergen name, important to me because of my wife and father-in-law, is preserved and connected to a guitar we love. Now that’s true of Piet as well.

Both the Rietbergen and the Piet models are named out of a feeling, now stronger than ever, that all of this has to come back to family. When I was younger and working as a musician, I’d be away at gigs and not come back until late, or sometimes not come back until the next day. That’s time I wasn’t there when I should have been. When I transitioned to building guitars, I probably had even less time to spend with my family – as anyone who tries to build guitars for a living will tell you, it sucks up just about every spare minute you have. My family showed an incredible amount of support and patience for me and my crazy dream, without which none of this would have been possible.

Simply put, without my family I wouldn’t be here, building guitars and doing what I love. I would be somewhere else, somewhere much worse, with no Nik Huber Guitars, no Niko and Piet and no Rietbergens, and it would be my name lost and forgotten as well.

Just as important in all of this is my ‘second family’, the incredible team working with me to build these guitars. Every day I consider how lucky I am to work alongside them; their passion inspires me to achieve more, and their skill and dedication has brought the guitars to the standard they are today. This simply wouldn’t be happening if it wasn’t for them. Not even close.

We hope that when you pick up a Piet or a Rietbergen or any of our guitars, you feel that sense of connection and something special that we put into every instrument we build.

Or maybe you just think it’s a great guitar. That’s good too.

– Nik