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.
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
