guitars

September 2 2025

Win a Krautster Signed by Gojira!

As some of you already know, I’m a long-time supporter of Sea Shepherd, a radical non-profit that works to protect our oceans and the creatures that live in them.

Even more of you will know that I’ve long been obsessed with the ocean and marine life. I mean, you only have to look at our guitars: Dolphin, Orca, Blue Whale…the latter of those being the limited series we did to support marine biologist Richard Sears’ research station. Giving back and actively supporting work for our oceans is something I’m always looking to do more of.

All of which means I was super excited when the possibility of collaborating with Sea Shepherd came up – we were put in touch through our dealer Robbert van der Ende at Max Guitar in The Netherlands. Sea Shepherd work a lot with all sorts of different artists and an impressive roster of musicians to spread the word about their work and get support, and there was interest in us making a Sea Shepherd guitar that could then be raffled off in support of what they do.

We went through all sorts of potential ideas for what that could look like and how it could work, but settled on wanting to at least start with their logo. After all, it’s a killer logo. But where to go with it in terms of a design? After lots of brainstorming, in particular with Chris and Geert of Sea Shepherd, the idea emerged to create a design with one of the tattoo artists they partner with.

Our own lacquer specialist Fox Kelly had the idea for a wallpaper guitar (inspired by the paisley wallpaper Telecasters and others), and tattoo artist Ann d’Cor provided the repeating Sea Shepherd “wallpaper” design to fit that concept. The team worked incredibly hard to bring the guitar together around the regular busy workshop schedule, including coming in for evenings and weekends to get it finished. It was some serious dedication, driven by how excited we all were to bring this to life.

We also had a deadline: the guitar needed to be at the Brutal Assault festival in Czechia to be in the hands of the legendary Gojira, themselves long-time Sea Shepherd supporters. They were kind enough to sign the guitar as well, making it a truly special Krautster for somebody to win.

With a bunch of us being big Gojira fans as well as Sea Shepherd fans, you can imagine the excitement in the workshop!

So, how do you enter to win the guitar?

That’s simple: all you need to do is sign up to support Sea Shepherd as an Ocean Warrior here. It doesn’t matter how big or small your donation is, you can just give what you feel is right. Once you’ve done that, you’re automatically entered into the prize draw for the guitar on 26^th September. The full donation goes towards supporting Sea Shepherd’s vital work protecting our oceans.

We just want to take the opportunity to say a massive thank-you to Sea Shepherd, Gojira and Ann d’Cor for all coming together for this collaboration. Together we’ve created something special, and I hope whoever wins this guitar sees it as a reminder to be active and make a difference. I also hope they just enjoy making some noise with it! I mean, a wallpaper-style Sea Shepherd Krautster signed by metal legends – how cool is that?

Getting the chance to create this guitar and to support Sea Shepherd means a lot to us, and we’ve been so excited working on this project since day one. To be a little part of supporting such a vital mission is an honour.

– Nik

May 26 2025

Our 25th Anniversary Model

Time flies, and in the blink of an eye our little company has reached another milestone. To be able to build guitars with this incredible team is a real privilege, and to make a living building guitars – or following whatever your passion is – is never easy. So to have reached a quarter of a century of Nik Huber Guitars is something special – and we thought we’d better mark the occasion with a particularly special guitar.

Limited to 25 pieces, this is a guitar that brings together some of our finest wood selections with some top-end appointments and detailing we haven’t offered before. The flame mahogany body is honeycomb chambered and topped with an exceptional flame maple top finished with a custom burst – with a few of the 25 also featuring alternate finishes.

Rosewood appointments match the neck and fretboard, and as a special finishing touch, the fretboard, headstock, engraved trussrod cover, flame maple headstock insert and rosewood back panels feature white pearl and sterling silver purfling, matching the fretboard inlays and signature headstock inlay in the same combination of materials.

If you’re interested in checking one of these out, they’re available through the following dealers:

Lead Guitars (Germany)
Guitars-Shop.de (Germany)
Station Music (Germany)
Distinguished Guitars (Germany)
Max Guitar (The Netherlands)
Guitar Planet (Japan)
Highway Musical Instruments (China)
Willcutt Guitars (USA)
Eddie’s Guitars (USA)
Bailey Brothers Boutique (USA)
Artistic Guitars (USA)
Guitar Factory Parramatta (Australia)
Art of Guitar (UAE)
NS Guitar Workshop (Greece)
Peach Guitars (UK)

Each dealer will have only either one or two available, so get in touch with your nearest dealer quickly if you’re interested.

With this being such a big milestone for us, we wanted to push ourselves and create something worthy of the celebration. And we think we managed it – we’re so proud of how this model has come together, and as always, I need to give massive praise to the team for their incredible work on this series (and it has been a lot of work!).

And finally, we all owe a big thanks to all of you. Without your support and following what we do, we wouldn’t have made it one year, let alone 25. So, thank you all for a wonderful 25 years, and here’s to a good few more.

– Nik

May 28 2024

A Very Nice Surprise Indeed…

A few weeks back, I came into the workshop expecting a normal day. But by 10am, it was already something special. An email landed in my inbox from Thomas at No. 1 Guitar Center in Hamburg with the subject “Nik Huber Bass/Darryl Jones” and a link to a YouTube video. It was a fan video taken of The Rolling Stones on the opening night of their Hackney Diamonds tour, and sure enough, their bass player Darryl Jones was playing our Rietbergen Bass. Needless to say, it caused a fair bit of excitement in the workshop!

We knew Darryl had one of our basses, but we had no idea if he was using it or that it was on tour with him, so it was genuinely unexpected. It’s hard to think of a better surprise to start your day in a guitar company than seeing one of your instruments appear onstage with arguably the biggest rock band of all time.

Thomas and No.1 Guitar Center actually deserve credit for more than just finding the video and sending it to me. I met Darryl at the store’s Crossroads Guitar Festival last year, where we’d both been invited to take part in interviews and discussions. I actually hadn’t brought a Rietbergen Bass with me (a bit stupid in retrospect!) but I showed Darryl a picture of one. He said some nice things about the design, which was lovely, and I thought that would be it to be honest. But the next day Darryl came up to me and said “Can I see the pictures of that bass again…?”

We got to talking and agreed I’d send him one to try out. It was finished in perfect time for the NAMM Show, so I handed it over there, and was just curious to see what thoughts Darryl would have after spending some time with it.

By the time the Hackney Diamonds tour rolled around I hadn’t heard from him, which I figured was normal considering how busy he is. While undertaking a Rolling Stones tour wouldn’t be the best time to contact someone, so I’d decided just to wait until later in the year to get back in touch. And then that email appeared in my inbox, and there was Darryl onstage with the bass, making it sound as amazing as you’d think.

We got back in touch then – I’m not sure how Darryl found the time to send me some thoughts, but he did, and his praise of the bass was really amazing to hear. It’s in the rotation for a couple of different songs every night, and apparently the crew are loving the tone and the look. Most importantly, Darryl himself is enjoying it and has found it a great fit for certain parts of the set, which is so good to hear.

It was really an honour just to meet Darryl and to get a bass into his hands, let alone to see it on stage for this tour. He’s worked with so many of the absolute best musicians in the world, and is so widely respected as a player, that it really does feel like a privilege just to get his thoughts on our bass.

So, a big thank-you to Darryl, to Thomas, to the whole team here for their hard work on the basses we build, and to all of you for supporting what we do.

Here’s to more nice surprises, though I think this one will be tough to beat!

– Nik

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

May 6 2023

Two New Dolphin Models Join The Line-Up

Those of you that came and visited us at NAMM (or followed our updates online) will have seen our exciting announcement: we have two new members of the Dolphin family!

Especially with the continued success of our Piet and Surfmeister models, it made sense that we complete the Dolphin shape line-up so we can offer a set option in the shape for every kind of player. I think it’s fair to say that that’s always been possible across all the custom options we can offer, but we wanted this to be the case with set models in our line-up too.

Our original body design, the Dolphin goes all the way back to 1994, and over the years we’ve brought a lot of different ideas and combinations of features to it. But through all of that, the DNA of the Dolphin – the original body shape – has remained, and with these two new variations, we’re making some of those special options available as a standard package.

Both of these new variations on the Dolphin model will look somewhat familiar to all of you following our work for a while, as they’re each influenced by another specific model from our past and present…

Dolphin ’59

No prizes for guessing that this one takes the concept of our Orca ’59 model and brings it to the Dolphin. At this point, it just made sense to complete the offering of the Dolphin line-up with a variation that appeals to vintage and classic guitar fans. The result combines the Dolphin body shape with specs that those players will love: a maple top with a classic carve (rather than the more extreme carve that the usual Dolphin has), a 24.75” scale length, and all the traditional aesthetic elements of the Orca ’59.

And to get really vintage correct with the details, the inlays on the first Dolphin ‘59s are made using genuine NOS celluloid from the ‘60s – the exact same stuff used on the guitars back then. Of course, our stocks of that are limited, so that’s very much a ‘while stocks last’ deal. But if you’re into having those real-deal traditional details, all of our Dolphin ’59s will have this feature until the celluloid runs out, and we’ll only be using it on the Dolphin ‘59s, no other models.

Vintage celluloid or no, the Dolphin ’59 brings traditional tastes to the Dolphin shape, a combination that was very well received at NAMM – a massive thank-you to everyone for the kind feedback and to all of our dealers for already jumping on the Dolphin ’59!

Dolphin Special

Those of you following our work for a bit longer will recognise the inspiration for this one, as we offered a Special model back in the day.

But rather than a revamp of the old Special, the Dolphin Special is our offering of a stripped-down Dolphin with some tweaked features. Like the ’59, this one has a 24.75” scale length, and we’ve finished it off with crown inlays, neck binding and the four-knob layout. And like the ’59, this one completes the Dolphin line-up with something a little different, in this case offering a stripped-back, straightforward instrument in our Dolphin shape that gives a guitarist everything they’d need in terms of versatility, finished off with some nice, subtle detailing.

Where many Dolphin builds feature some of our fanciest wood stock and eye-catching features, and while the Dolphin ’59 has all the classic high-end appointments, the Dolphin Special is straight to the point. Putting it all together with these two new variations, we’re wanting all players to find something to suit their tastes in the complete Dolphin line-up.

Once again, I’d like to say a massive thank-you to everyone for the positive response to these new Dolphins, both at NAMM and online. Knowing that we’re making instruments that interest and inspire people is what fuels us.

And hey, it’s just always nice to hear that people are into the new guitars!

So, thank you so much as always for following our work, and stay tuned to see more Dolphin ‘59s and Dolphin Specials.

– Nik