Guitar Stories

October 27 2023

The Krautster III

It might come as a surprise for some, but this one’s been a little while in the making: we’ve launched a new iteration of the Krautster, the Krautster III, which brings together the classic Krautster specs with our signature Dolphin body shape. That means a mahogany body, curly maple neck, and the great combo of a Häussel humbucker in the bridge and P90 in the neck, plus all the same specs that Krautster players will be used to.

A lot of you might have noticed that, over the last year or so, we’ve started to push more and more towards our Dolphin shape. The Piet has continued to grow in popularity since its launch, and at the last NAMM Show we revealed the Dolphin ’59 and Dolphin Special, making more model variations available in this shape as standard. The response from dealers and players has been just incredible, so we’ve been excited to keep moving in this direction.

It only made sense that, given its popularity, we would look to the Krautster next. It’s actually something we’ve considered offering for quite a while, batting the idea around at the workshop. Some recent developments motivated us to finally release this model and, along with this long-term move to focus more and more on our signature Dolphin shape, it made the timing now perfect to announce the Krautster III.

Perhaps most importantly, we already know it’s something our players want! We’ve actually had quite a lot of custom requests for the Dolphin/Krautster hybrid through the years, and we figure it’s time for that to be available as a standard option. A lot of you seem to really like getting those exact specs that a lot of our artists use but with our signature body shape – something a little different to just a single-cut.

Krautster III Standard Onyx Black

Krautster III Custom Tiger Eye Burst

So, while we’re always looking to evolve, and while customers can of course request custom specs within this new model, we all know that it makes sense to hold on to what works when it comes to guitars. And in this case, that really comes from our customers and the artists we work with. We’ve got together some great Krautster II Customs over the years, but the Standard version has always remained the go-to.

That goes for our artists too. We’ve had the absolute honour of seeing the likes of Vidar from Kvelertak, Kris from Funeral for a Friend, Kuddel from Die Toten Hosen, Josh from Silverstein, David and Bryan from Red Fang, and a whole bunch of other amazing players take the Krautster on stages around the world in that standard loadout. It’s clear to us at this point that that’s what players really want, and so we’re going to give them just that.

We couldn’t have been more excited to get the first Krautster IIIs out into the world and into players’ hands. The response so far has been amazing, including from those who came and checked out the Krautster III at Guitar Summit last month.

So, if you’re interested, the Krautster III is available to order from any of our dealers around the world, and several stores have already received some of the first batch – so keep an eye out! Onyx Black, Cali Gold, Worn Copper and Vintage White make up the standard colour options, while (as you’d expect) custom options can include exceptional figured tops, different pickups, MOP block inlays and custom colours – whatever makes it your dream guitar. You can always discuss the full range of custom options with any of our amazing dealers, who are always more than happy to help with the custom order process.

Thanks so much to everyone for the great feedback on the Krautster III already, and I hope lots of you get one in your hands soon!

— Nik

February 22 2023

Introducing The Guitar Barrel Project

This one’s been in the works for almost five years – a special project with five other guitar builders. And we’re finally ready to talk about it!

Building guitars with wood from wine barrels isn’t new. It’s cool, but it’s not something the world has never seen before.

But when a small group of friends and fellow luthiers asked me to join The Guitar Barrel Project, it was instantly clear that this was a project with far more to it than building guitars from old wine barrels. There’s plenty in the project to get guitar nerds excited, sure, but the story of these guitars touches key moments in the history of Europe, the winemaking lineage of Portugal and the significance of Lisbon as a cultural centre – plus the journey of a group of friends and fellow craftspeople trying to encapsulate all of this through building guitars.

And from start to finish, this has been no ordinary process of building guitars.

Adriano Sérgio of Ergon Guitars discovered our wine barrels looking very much how you would expect, considering they turned out to be over 250 years old. But stripping away the layers of dust and remnants of caked-on wine revealed beautiful mahogany beneath – ripe for guitar making. The opportunity to work with special materials will get any craftsperson excited; presented with some old or particularly interesting wood, any guitar builder will start buzzing with ideas. But it isn’t just the age of this wood and its use in wine production that makes it truly intriguing. Those wine barrels belonged to the Marquês de Pombal, a figure who looms large in the history of Portugal and whose impact can still be seen and felt in Lisbon – and arguably across Europe.

Tasked with rebuilding Lisbon after the devastating earthquake of 1755, Pombal went on to accumulate immense power, which he used to modernise the whole of Portugal, bringing it out of the Middle Ages and into a revolutionary era. You can learn more about the earthquake and Pombal’s impact on Portugal here, but it’s enough to say that the earthquake itself and Pombal’s response are often pointed to as catalysts for key elements of the Enlightenment period which drastically reshaped Europe. These old wine barrels, which were used to make Pombal’s revered Carcavelos Wine, are a relic that comes to us directly from this moment in our history.

Having made his discovery, Adriano contacted Ulrich Teuffel of Teuffel Guitars. The two discussed the possibilities that could come from buying and using the wood, and soon a small group of luthiers was formed: Adriano and Ulrich, Michael of Spalt Instruments, Claudia and Claudio of Pagelli Guitars, Andy of Andy Manson Custom Guitars, and myself. We were to each build a guitar with the mahogany from the wine barrels.

Adriano had stumbled across a guitar maker’s goldmine, and he was generous enough to let his friends know!

We all came together in Portugal in September of 2018 to select the wood and to each take our share. But this was also an opportunity to form a deeper connection with the history behind this wood – after all, it’s this connection to Portugal’s past that gives this material something magical and has grown the project into something beyond building guitars. We toured the winery at the Villa Oeiras, the former estate of the Marques de Pombal, which today still produces its Carcavelos Wine (not a bad way to learn some history!), and we had the opportunity to pick some grapes ourselves and meet with their master winemakers. The potential of our project and the connection with the winery interested members of the local government, and we met with representatives to discuss plans for the project. There was no shortage of ideas, and soon a broader plan started to come together.

We also took that opportunity to officially introduce The Guitar Barrel Project at the winery. Having each brought one of our own guitars as part of the presentation, the evening was topped off by amazing performances from Rui Veloso and Miguel Araújo using our guitars.

At the end of the sun-drenched and invigorating trip, with all our minds buzzing, we each took our selection of the wood back to our workshops and started on the guitars.

The dream team of builders with the wood finally sorted and divided up. It was thirsty work, but luckily there was good wine to hand…

What happened between 2018 and 2023? Well, as with everything, the pandemic slowed things down. But it far from put a stop to the project. Those many hours of discussion at the Villa Oeiras winery and with local representatives led to the project coming to life in whole new ways, and both the winery and the municipality came on as generous sponsors of the project. A film crew visited each of the luthiers in their workshops, on top of filming the entire development of the project, and a full-length documentary film has been completed. The winery has fully reconstructed two of Pombal’s 250-year-old barrels and is using them to produce an extremely special wine in conjunction with the project.

And then, of course, there are the guitars. As an extra twist, each one was completed in secret, without any luthier seeing anything of their fellow guitar builders’ work. No pictures, no sneak peeks, no hints, nothing. Until, that is, they were finished.

In January of this year, we all travelled once more to the Villa Oeiras and, with the film crew and photographer present, unveiled the guitars to one another for the first time. In a way, the few years of delays and interruptions only added to the excitement of that moment. I can tell you that the six guitars make a stunning collection. Expressive, diverse and surprising, between them they speak to the region’s history of winemaking, the devastation of the 1755 earthquake, the revolutionary Enlightenment era that followed, and the Marquês de Pombal’s impact on Lisbon and beyond – all captured in wood from the barrels of his estate’s winery.

The Villa Oeiras – not a bad place to launch a new project from and meet up with fellow builders.

Which all brings us to the question you’re probably asking: when do we get to see these guitars then? Those of you following us and the other builders on social media will probably have noticed that, in all the pictures shared, you’ve never actually seen anything of any of the guitars. Well, in the spirit of the collaboration, the guitars are still a secret to the public until 13th May this year. On that date, everyone will gather once again at the Villa Oeiras for the unveiling of the whole project together in an event open to the public. The guitars will be shown to the world for the first time, the first screening of the film will potentially take place, and the wine – made in the reconstructed barrels – will be presented.

But until that time there’s still plenty to be unveiled, including, possibly, some sneak peeks of the guitars! In the run up to 13th May, you’ll be able to keep up to date by following The Guitar Barrel Project on Instagram and Facebook.

There are lots of exciting things to share between now and May, on all aspects of the project, so please do follow along to support us. And, of course, if you’re in the area, come to the Villa Oerias on 13th May for the big event! Even if you’re not in the area, you might want to keep it in mind – a beautiful part of the world combined with unique guitars and quality wine makes for a pretty special visit.

And on that note, I’ll finish with a big thank-you to all the other guitar makers in The Guitar Barrel Project, the Villa Oeiras, the amazing film crew and the Oeiras municipality itself for making this incredible experience possible. It’s been a wild ride and a privilege to be a part of. Here’s looking forward to May!

– Nik

Learn more about The Guitar Barrel Project here: theguitarbarrelproject.com

July 29 2022

Our One-of-a-Kind, Hand-Painted Krautster

If you caught our recent blog post or follow us on social media, you’ll have heard all about Gear for Hope, a series of auctions in support of humanitarian aid in Ukraine. We teamed up with Grand GTRs and the good folks at Guitar Summit/Gitarre & Bass to bring it together, and incredible people from across the industry have been generous in donating top-shelf instruments, quality amps, parts, accessories and special signed items from artists. The support for the auctions, from those donating items to those bidding and spreading the word, has been amazing – what a community we have here in the world of guitar and music. So a massive thanks to all of you for your support!

While the auctions are steadily coming to a close, we’ve recently added one more item that deserves some time of its own in the spotlight. When working with everyone else involved to get the auctions up and running, we of course decided to donate one of our guitars. But, seeing all of the unique, autographed and genuinely special pieces being offered by our peers, we wanted to make it a truly one-of-a-kind instrument.

Luckily, we had the chance to not only manage that, but to make it a guitar with a deep connection to Ukraine.

And so, we’re honoured to present this one-off Krautster II, hand-painted by Ukrainian artist Irina Garshina.

Our One-of-a-Kind, Hand-Painted Krautster

We built the Krautster with its classic, top-end specs (see below) then, in the spirit of free expression, gave the guitar to Irina for her to paint exactly what she wished – no stipulation, no guidelines, just the blank canvas of the guitar body.

While her work often takes the struggles and difficulties of life as subjects, Irina has chosen here to present something else in these dark times. The motif of The Beatles on the back in a bright psychedelic scene speaks more to hope and freedom – the depiction of John and Yoko on the front, a symbol of love and togetherness. Given Irina’s background in music, it makes for a meaningful personal expression of the power of music and art in the face of hardship. The result is a striking and uplifting piece that resonates with the enduring spirit and indomitable courage of the people of Ukraine.

We’re extremely grateful to have had the opportunity to collaborate with Irina on this meaningful guitar, and thankful to everyone who has come together to make Gear for Hope a reality. With such a special instrument and in aid of such an important cause, we’re hoping to raise a good amount to add to the Gear for Hope fund, so please do check out the auction at this link and consider bidding or spreading the word further! The more people we reach, the better chance we stand of raising a good amount to donate, and the further we spread Irina’s artwork and passion.

Thank you very much again to everyone who has been bidding and helped spread the word about Gear for Hope. Keep an eye out here in the near future for an update on how much we’ve managed to raise as a community, and let’s keep going until all the auctions are done!

– Nik

Krautster II specs:

Hand-painted by Ukrainian artist Irina Garshina
Mahogany body
Flamed maple neck
Rosewood fretboard with dot inlays
Compound 10-14” radius
Pickups: Häussel custom humbucker (bridge), Häussel custom P90 (neck)

June 21 2022

The Bernie Marsden Signature Model

If you follow us on Instagram or Facebook, you’ll hopefully have caught our big announcement recently: we’re releasing a very limited run of Bernie Marsden signature models. We’ve been itching to talk about this for a while now and are incredibly excited to be working with Bernie on this collaboration.

For all the guitar nerds, you can find an in-depth rundown of the specs along with more pictures below. But first of all, how exactly did we end up collaborating with Bernie on a new signature model? Funny story…

It started with an unexpected phone call one night a few years ago. The phone rings, I pick it up, and there’s the voice of Paul Reed Smith asking if I’m up for getting some dinner. I had no idea he was even in Germany! But of course, I said yes (Paul and I go way back – see the first post on this blog).

The surprises kept on coming. When I got to the airport and picked up Paul, he told me we just had to go round and collect Bernie. Bernie? Well, turns out he meant Bernie Marsden – they were doing a clinic tour together. So we swung by the terminal to pick Bernie up, and the three of us went out for dinner.

As you’d imagine, we ended up talking about all things guitar and music, and probably would have gone on into the wee hours, but Bernie was feeling a little under the weather (clinic tours are hard work!). Like most places, it can be tough here to get an appointment with a doctor at short notice, but I thought it was worth calling up my doctor and good friend, Karl. When I asked if he could squeeze in an extra appointment for a friend, he predictably told me it wasn’t possible – things were far too busy. But as well as being a great doctor, Karl is a lover of good music and all things rock ‘n’ roll. And a huge fan of PRS.

“You might want to wait to hear who my friends are before you say no, Karl…”

Once I’d told him Bernie Marsden and Paul Reed Smith were coming by, wouldn’t you know it, a slot opened up in his schedule. Thanks, Karl!

Anyway, with Bernie on the mend thanks to Dr. Karl, he and Paul continued on the clinic tour. We met up again during their stop in Aschaffenburg, and Paul sat with my son, Niko, for a long time, talking with him about progressing on guitar and what to focus on in his practice, which was a really nice moment.

It was fantastic getting to know Bernie, and we kept in touch. Not too long after the clinic tour, he called and asked if I was interested in making him a guitar. Naturally, I said yes! He even had some wood that he wanted me to use, and there was no need to ship it over – he was doing a gig at Guitar Point in Maintal, so he suggested meeting up there and he could bring the wood with him.

The show at Guitar Point was a lot of fun, not least because I got to get up on stage and join Bernie for a rendition of Crossroads, which was a privilege. After the gig was wrapped up, it was time to start talking about the guitar.

Bernie is very open and easy to discuss these sorts of things with. In fact, at first, he simply said “you know what I like”. It’s a pleasure to work with an artist with such a great attitude – it’s something we enjoy a lot here thanks to the fantastic artists on our roster – but there’s always a fair bit of fine-tuning and back-and-forth down the road with these things. After all, everything has to be perfect, and it can be tough to really nail down the particulars without a reference point. With that in mind, we sent Bernie an Orca ’59 (the closest of our models to his longstanding, go-to singlecut guitars) and from there started to get an idea of what to change and tweak, add and subtract.

The changes came together from there, including a new design for the heel joint, swapping to three knobs instead of four, and, naturally, the addition of Bernie’s signature Cream T pickups. Over time, the Bernie Marsden signature model started to come to life.

Of course, before all of this got underway, I called Paul to make sure he was happy for the project to go ahead, as Bernie’s previous signature guitar was with PRS. Paul has always been incredibly gracious and generous to me, and he was fully supportive of myself and Bernie working together.

After an incredible effort from the team, here she is: the Bernie Marsden model in all her glory!

You can find the full specs and geeky stuff below, but the most notable feature on the Bernie Marsden signature is one you can’t see on the finished guitar – though you can certainly hear and feel it. When we first started discussing options, Bernie was keen on the idea of a hollowbody, though he has mostly favoured Les Pauls and his solid-body, singlecut models of the past. It just so happened that, around that time, I’d become very interested in experimenting with honeycomb routing. I’d seen it on surfboards, and it’s also cropped up in the world of guitars before. I was curious about where you could go with it next in terms of routing a body; the possibility of having length-grain and cross-grain connections between the body and the top can create something distinct from either a semi-hollow construction or a standard solid-body. I told Bernie that I happened to have some beautiful flame mahogany that was a touch too dense for solid-bodies – absolutely perfect for this. The team and I spent a good while perfecting our honeycomb routing, and we love the results.

The guitars also come in one of the swankiest cases we’ve ever offered

Bernie received a couple of prototypes along the way, and now all the tweaks are done and everything is set. In the coming weeks, 12 dealers will each receive a pair of Bernie Marsden signature models: one flame-top, one gold-top. It’s a very limited run, so if you’re interested, you’ll want to be in touch with one of the following stores:

It’s been an absolute privilege to create this guitar with Bernie, and a great pleasure to become friends with him. We’ve heard people mention already that they’ve seen Bernie playing his new signature model live and that it’s definitely looking and sounding the part – that’s what we like to hear! We can’t wait to see more of Bernie doing his thing and tearing it up on his new guitar. There’s no better feeling than seeing a guitarist experience the joy of playing with an instrument you built for them, and for us, this is one special instrument.

– Nik

Bernie Marsden Flame-Top:

Master-grade Eastern flame maple top
Flame mahogany body w/ honeycomb routing
Madagascan rosewood neck
Madagascan rosewood fingerboard
Orca neck profile with custom heel joint
Eastern flame maple binding
Black pearl crown fingerboard inlays with sterling silver surrounds
Ebony headstock cap
Black pearl Bernie Marsden logo with sterling silver surround and signature headstock inlays
Faded sunburst semi-gloss finish
Cream T Bernie Buckers
Brushed cream pickup rings
Nik Huber 510 open gear tuners
Tune-o-matic bridge with aluminium tailpiece
Madagascan rosewood backplates with white snake inlay and carved snake, signed by Bernie Marsden
Certificate of authenticity signed by Nik and Bernie

Bernie Marsden Gold-Top:

Eastern maple top
Flame mahogany body w/ honeycomb routing
Madagascan rosewood neck
Madagascan rosewood fingerboard
Orca neck profile with custom heel joint
Eastern flame maple binding
Black pearl crown fingerboard inlays with sterling silver surrounds
Ebony headstock cap
Black pearl Bernie Marsden logo with sterling silver surround and signature headstock inlays
Gold-top semi-gloss finish
Cream T P90s
Nik Huber 510 open gear tuners
Tune-o-matic bridge with aluminium tailpiece
Madagascan rosewood backplates with white snake inlay and carved snake, signed by Bernie Marsden
Certificate of authenticity signed by Nik and Bernie

September 1 2020

Magic Wood

Our latest model, Piet, with a Paulownia body, next to a Paulownia Piet-to-be

It’s only a matter of time on a guitar builder’s blog before you get a post about wood species. I’ll spare you the tonewood debate and the graph of wood densities. Instead, this one’s more of a story.

Funnily enough, it doesn’t start with guitar building, rather with another love of mine: surfing. By which I mean, it starts with me trawling through surfing forums for hours, late into the night. (Something that surfing and guitar communities seem to have in common: sometimes we spend more time online than we do on the actual thing itself).

Looking for a magic wood to build my own surfboard – something strong but very lightweight – one species kept coming up again and again: Paulownia. It was one I didn’t know much about, but the name was familiar. During my time at Formentera Guitars in the ‘90s, an American had brought a piece of this wood for his own build. I remember it being my first contact with the stuff, because I mistook it for swamp ash to begin with. The main thing I recalled was how unbelievably light it was. And now my mind was not so much on surfboards, but on guitars.

A little more research and this wood really did seem like magic. It was lightweight, strong, and even resistant to saltwater (more useful to a surfboard than a Surfmeister, but you never know…)

Guitar bodies in Paulownia are unbelievably light – you could juggle them! (We don’t do that)

The difficult thing then was tracking down a dealer; nobody seemed to have it in the country. I’d just about given up hope of finding a German seller, when I came across the contact details of a small office in Frankfurt, belonging to a company called Treeme.

Getting in touch with them, it at first seemed like another dead-end, as they weren’t a dealer. But, as it turns out, what they offer was even more interesting. Instead of buying Paulownia wood from them, what you buy is Paulownia trees. They plant the trees, and in ten to twelve years’ time or so when they’re harvested (another Paulownia superpower: it grows incredibly quickly) you get a very good return on your investment.

It’s an interesting idea, but the most interesting part is really what those trees do over the ten years. Each year, they can absorb up to 65kgs of C02, meaning an individual, or a company, can massively offset their carbon footprint simply by owning some of these trees. Looking to do more for the environment, we got ten of them. So now I can get that SUV I’ve always wanted and drive it as much as I like – nature will be fine! (Kidding).

I’d stumbled across an interesting project and a way to offset our environmental impact a little. But what about my new, incredible guitar wood? How does it hold up to the task at hand?

Paulownia can have some really interesting, textural-looking grain

Well, through becoming involved with Treeme, we’ve got our hands on a good amount of the stuff and, so far, we’re extremely impressed. Just before contacting Treeme, we coincidentally had a project for an artist who wanted a guitar with a Paulownia back. They sent us the wood to use, so we had some experience working with it. But we were very curious about making a guitar entirely from Paulownia – neck and body.

We made a Krautster II this way, and we kept it here in the office and workshop for quite a while. I wanted to see how it held up. Would the neck shift or go through any changes? As it turns out, no. It was as sturdy as anything. We sent another Krautster with a maple neck out for review in Gitarre & Bass, and it was then purchased by the frontman of the Spider Murphy Gang. A couple more Paulownia builds are in Switzerland now and the feedback is nothing but positive.

Most recently, we took a Piet with a Paulownia body to Henning Pauly’s 42 Gear Street YouTuber event, where it turned out to be very popular. Getting to see it in the hands of so many awesome musicians (videos coming soon!) was a pleasure – as was hearing how much they loved both the Piet and the Paulownia.

It was awesome to see some amazing players really take to this Piet at the event – Thanks Henning!

So, while it might have started off with surfboards in mind, the search for a ‘magic’ wood – ultra light, ultra strong and stable – has been a success. With players really enjoying the first few builds, stay on the lookout for plenty more Paulownia guitars from us!

– Nik

Oh, and to hear more about our Paulownia story, check out the article on us in the latest issue of grand gtrs & basses: https://www.grandguitars.de/news/artikel/grandguitars-basses-52020/