In The Workshop

December 21 2023

A Look Back at 2023

It was another busy year for us here at the workshop. We’re building more guitars than ever with a growing team, taking part in more events than ever and releasing more models.

With all that, there are of course a lot of highlights to look back on as we reach the end of the year, but also a lot to be thankful for. So first of all, thank you to all of you for following our work, supporting what we do and playing our guitars. You’ve been a part of all the great things we’ve got to do this year and made them all possible. We couldn’t do it without you!

As things wind down in the workshop, here’s just a quick round up of a few of the highlights from 2023 and a look forward to the year ahead.

New Models

Perhaps the standout from this year would have to be the addition of not one but three new models to our line-up: the Krautster III, Dolphin ’59 and Dolphin Special.

These models all cover ground we’ve visited in the past, either through custom orders or simply through discussions and plans, but these are all specs that we’ve wanted to offer as standard models in the line-up for a while now. It means our whole model line now focuses on our signature Dolphin body shape, which is the direction we’ve been heading for some time. If you caught my recent video, you’ll know we were sped up a little in this by certain considerations to do with a US company – thankfully, we were already heading in this direction, so we felt even more certain that we were going about things the right way.

But those are the more mundane considerations. The thing that really excites us about these model releases is the reaction from you guys. The whole point was to provide things people have been asking for – and we’ve been considering – for ages at this point, and we’re proud to say we believe we achieved that. So many of you at The NAMM Show and Guitar Summit this year told us how much you love the new Dolphins and the Krautster III, and that you see them as an improvement on, development of or exciting blend of our established models. This is exactly what we were aiming for and what drives us when doing something new, so it makes all the work worth it to hear players say exactly that.

Artists have already been taking the new Krautsters and Dolphins on stages and into studios, really putting them through their paces, and their feedback has been incredible. We have players currently with Krautster IIs putting in their requests for Krautster IIIs to complete their touring rigs, and there are already amazing custom orders coming in and being built that we’re really excited about. All in all, we couldn’t have asked for anything more when it comes to putting these new models out into the world. So, again, thank you for all your support and positivity. Myself and the team can’t wait to show off more of these builds in the new year.

The response to the KIII so far has been a real highlight of the year.

Events

It wasn’t just busy in the workshop this year, but out of it too! We were fortunate enough to be a part of amazing events around the world in 2023, something I hope continues into 2024.

As well as a really positive NAMM Show (it was great to see so many of you again!), we also had Guitar Summit in Mannheim, proving that guitar shows have come back really strong after the interruptions of the previous couple of years. Both shows were busy and we got a lot of great feedback on the new models, but the best part was getting to catch up with so many familiar faces and getting to know a few new ones as well.

But trade shows were far from the only guitar events in 2023. We revealed The Guitar Barrel Project collection with a group of fellow luthiers at an amazing event at Pombal’s Palace in Lisbon, were hosted by our dealer Art of Guitar in Dubai for a very special VIP launch event, and had a great time talking all things guitar with great people at No.1 Guitar Center in Hamburg for the Crossroads Festival – including this little interview I did with Thomas Blug.

Like I say, here’s hoping for so many great events next year!

Developments in the workshop

Building on last year, we expanded the workshop and the team in 2023, so we now have the capacity and expertise to do more than ever before. This has also helped us to redesign some of our workflows and open up new possibilities in our work – always exciting!

It’s an incredibly talented team we have working here, and developing further means we can get to more of the things we have planned for the future…

There’s been plenty going on in the workshop – including building plenty of nice Piets!

Looking ahead to 2024

I’m hoping for another year as filled with new developments and opportunities as this one, and we already have plenty in the works.

You can expect to see more from us involving artists from our roster, both online and at in-person events, some of whom have some amazing things planned themselves for the year ahead. We’ll also be collaborating with players beyond our roster for some fun projects, so keep an eye on our Instagram, Facebook and YouTube channel for all of that.

I think we’ve filled out our line-up pretty well with new models (for now at least) but that doesn’t mean the year will go by without some special or limited builds. We do have a 25th anniversary to celebrate after all…and one signature model already underway…

On top of that, the developments in the workshop continue, and I’ll just say for now that you’ll be seeing the results of some of that online over the coming months, so stay tuned.

Already plenty to tease ahead of next year then – but first, a well-earned rest for the whole team. They’ve put in a year of serious hard work, and I think the results speak for themselves.

Thank you again for all of your support in 2023, and I can’t wait to share more with you all in 2024!

– Nik

December 16 2022

Thank You for a Wonderful 2022

Just a small selection of the guitars we put out this year – what an effort from the team!

That one flew by, huh? First things first, a massive thanks is due to all of our customers, dealers, artists and everyone following along with our work – including you reading this blog. We packed this year full of achievements and exciting new projects, and none of that would have been the slightest bit possible without you, so thank you.

And of course, none of it would have been at all possible without the incredible team here at Nik Huber Guitars, so I need to say a huge thank you to them as well. They’ve been working harder than ever to nail some of our most ambitious and challenging work to date, and the results really do speak for themselves. I’m incredibly lucky to have such a team working with me – including to make some of these wild ideas a reality.

It’s hard to cover everything we got to over the last twelve months (and some top secret things are still in progress…) but here’s a quick roundup of some of my highlights from a busy year of guitar building:

Bernie Marsden Signature model

It would have been an honour even just to build Bernie a guitar, so to create a new signature model with him has really been something else. It’s also been a privilege to get to know Bernie and become friends with him through the process, and I’m thinking we haven’t heard the last of the Nik Huber Guitars and Bernie Marsden collaboration (keep an eye out next year…).

As well as being an amazing personal collaboration, the Bernie Marden Signature has also been about exploring new ground in our design and building. You can get the full lowdown on the guitar in this post here, but one highlight I’ll pick out is the honeycomb chambering – we couldn’t be happier with the results, and it’s exciting to think where else we could go with these ideas. As I say, stay tuned…

12 flame-tops and 12 gold-tops made up our limited Bernie Marsden Signature series.

Gear for Hope auctions

Okay, another big ‘thank you’ is due, this time to everyone who was involved in the Gear for Hope auctions. Whether you donated items to the auction itself, placed a bid, bought something or simply liked and shared posts to spread the word: thank you.

With all of our efforts combined, we managed to raise a total of €67,771 to donate to charities and organisations helping those affected by the war in Ukraine. It’s a mammoth effort from the guitar and music communities around the world pulling together, and one that I think we can all be proud of.

Oh, and another ‘thank you’ to the kind bidder that contributed €4000 themselves to buy our special Krautster hand-painted by Ukrainian artist Irina Garshina.

Big thanks again to Irina for collaborating with us on this Krautster!

Guitar shows and clinics

After two years of start-stop lockdowns, getting back out there to do shows and clinics has been a special part of 2022. Again, we’ve got plenty more planned for next year in this regard, but in terms of this year’s outings, Guitar Summit in Mannheim and my clinic at Ahead Music in Cyprus have been highlights.

In Mannheim, it was getting to meet and speak with so many of you again that really made the weekend. Seeing people come over and try out a few models is something I’ve really missed, and actually getting people’s reactions to the Bernie Marsden Signature face-to-face reminded me why these shows are so important.

In Cyprus, it was also all about the people. Don’t get me wrong, the beautiful location is hardly a drawback! But being hosted by the team at Ahead Music and getting to chat with a small group in the intimate atmosphere of a clinic – that’s what really did it for me. Plus, I learned that Cyprus has some seriously killer players!

Clinics are such a cool way to connect with all of you and share some of the stories behind what we do, so definitely look out for more of these to be announced next year.

The booth at this year’s Guitar Summit in Mannheim.

New team members!

The team has continued to grow this year, and we’ve been lucky enough to have several new experienced, skilled luthiers join the workshop, even from as far afield as South Africa. The quality of work the team puts out year after year has continued to amaze me and exceed all my expectations, and I couldn’t be happier with where we’re at.

Oh, and we got a big new CNC (the workshop nerd in me still finds that exciting), nicknamed Arnie. Exciting times in our little company (that’s now a bit less little) and we’re looking forward to what the new year will bring.

Arnie, our new CNC. We’ll alert the proper authorities if he shows signs of attaining sentience.

Mitch came all the way from South Africa to join our finishing team – we’re very lucky to have him on board. He had already attained sentience.

As it’s that time of year…

Well, there’s more than one way to say ‘thank you’, so as a little token of my thanks, and in the spirit of the season, here’s a 10%-off code for our online store, valid through to the end of the year:

NHGXMAS22

Just in case some guitar swag makes for a tempting present to yourself this year!

Thanks again to all of you for supporting our work, and catch you in the new year.

– Nik

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/

Here's looking forward to travelling again...

May 14 2020

Making Guitars in Strange Times

Here’s hoping we can get back to doing all the things we love soon

First off, I hope you’re all staying safe and well.

We’re still here building guitars, feeling very privileged to be doing what we love (all totally separate from one another and following the guidelines, mind). The main focus has of course been the health and livelihood of my team members and making any adjustments needed, and I think we’re just about settling into some kind of ‘new normal’.

I am all about positive thinking, and at a time like this it becomes more important than ever. But this kind of situation does first need to be acknowledged for what it is. It is without doubt a very difficult time and, as well as the personal and social challenges facing everyone, it is very tough for this industry specifically. Not just instrument makers, but the artists and music stores and everyone else whose livelihood is related to music.

Having acknowledged that, it’s best to try and take as much inspiration as possible from the reactions we’re seeing elsewhere: finding ways to be creative, to be adaptive and to help one another out.

A lot of musicians have already jumped into this mindset, offering lessons and creating amazing livestreams and home concerts. Tuition sites have been giving away courses and many companies have made creative software free or heavily discounted. Some of us are simply flexing our creativity and getting to projects and goals that we never got around to before.

A recent Dolphin II model that left for the UK

Not all of us have an equivalent way to adapt – that’s a harsh reality of the current situation that we can’t forget. There are other ways to be active though, at least as guitar makers. Like anyone who’s been in business for 25 years, I’ve seen some rough times. While those were definitely very different situations to right now, they showed me that a tough period is the time to take a look at what I’m doing and see what needs to be improved.

Are we doing the best we can for musicians and customers? We are very proud of our instruments, but are we doing the best job possible to show them to the community and let people experience their value? Am I doing what I should be doing every single day? Is there anything in our setup that needs to be improved for the team? Asking the sorts of questions that we should all be asking ourselves but aren’t – or at least not regularly enough.

We get caught up in the workshop and we don’t make enough time. And right now, it can be tempting just to bury our heads in something, whether work or otherwise. I think we can all relate to this kind of procrastination, whatever our line of work. But something about the starkness of this sort of situation – and perhaps, yes, the extra time at home – makes these wider perspectives come a little more easily. There’s inspiration from people and communities all over the world to re-evaluate at every level, from the personal up. If we have the chance, doing so might help us be better when we’ve got through this together.

But in all of that, we’re trying to focus on the things most important to us: helping one another out, playing music, getting creative and whatever else.

The first Piet model made after the prototype stage!

For us, of course, that includes making guitars. The first non-prototype Piet models are now out in the world – a very proud moment for us. We’ve also had some particularly beautiful exotic wood tops and backs going out lately, and it’s been fantastic to see those come to life in the finishing booth. As always, we have some exciting plans for what’s next and what new ground we can explore, and we look forward to sharing these things with you soon.

Until then, stay safe, stay in touch, stay at home and play guitar!

– Nik