The Long Game
Two decades on from his first ever product review in Guitarist, we catch up with Nik Huber. How things have changed…
“Basically, what we do, is to turn beautiful pieces of wood into excellent guitars,” says Nik Huber on his company’s website, a statement that’s fundamental to the craft of the luthier. For the past two decades Nik and his evergrowing team haven’t changed the world nor challenged the heritage brands: they have just continued to make excellent guitar after excellent guitar.
Mentored by Paul Reed Smith prior to setting up his workshop in 1996 (see ‘Huber’s Helper’ box over the page), we first bumped into Nik at a UK music show later in that decade, leading to his first product review in Guitarist magazine in 2000. Quite a lot has changed since then.
“Don’t forget, back then there was no internet, no YouTube, nothing,” exclaims Nik today. “There was no know-how available. Now, well, the know-how is just there. And also back then there were relatively few guitar makers.”
It’s one of the biggest changes we’ve seen: the proliferation of independent – so-called ‘boutique’ – makers working solo or in small teams and offering a highly bespoke service. Nik Huber has certainly helped to reinforce that business model with ultra-high quality, small numbers and a lot more options than the larger production makers.
Yet none of this additional competition seems to bother Nik, who retains the exact same boyish enthusiasm that this writer remembers back in the 90s. However, building a business, indeed starting in business, he admits is “really tough”.
“I always say that I’d not like to be in the position to start a guitar-making company nowadays,” says Nik. “I’m very thankful that I have 24 years behind me; we are a small brand. There was a time, 2006 or 2007 I think, when I came back from the NAMM Show – at the time we were making 70 to 80 years a year – with an order for 150 guitars, just from that one show. That meant I was immediately back-ordered for more than two years! Obviously, that’s changed, but I had to grow the company; I tripled my output. So now my back-order is less, but is that because we’re making more guitars or we have fewer orders because there are so many, many more makers out there?
“It’s important to grow the company but not necessarily by increasing the number of guitars we make,” he adds. “Making a better guitar, maybe making more money from the guitars because of increased efficiency… Not moving forward is not an option. I’m a little bit crazy that way.”
Changing Style
In that first decade the Huber business established itself as the absolute definition of the ‘posh’ guitar: wonderful, often rare and exotic woods, carved tops, inlays, goldplating, own-design hardware and perfect mirror-like finishing. But then the strippeddown flat-top Krautster came along in 2009 and everything changed.
“It wasn’t really a plan,” concedes Nik of the guitar that opened up a different market. “I brought the guitar in because, personally, I’ve always been a big Junior fan – obviously, the Krautster is very Junior inspired! I was looking for a guitar I could play with my band: a good rock ’n’ roll machine. When we came up with the design I thought, ‘Let’s do a gold and a black one.’ I thought nobody would want a guitar like this from me, but I could just keep some bodies in stock.
“I never, ever thought the guitar would be so successful,” Nik admits. “I didn’t look at the market, I just wanted to make one. But it probably was the right time because people were moving more into reliced and vintage-type guitars.”
Today, the Krautster is the most-ordered Nik Huber guitar, but not at the expense of the sort of guitar that put them on the map, such as the Dolphin and the Orca.
“We still make those every month: very, very precious-looking. I’m very thankful for those orders because every high-end guitar that you make, well, I make a better living from those than I do the Krautster or the Piet. But that’s why I’m thankful that it’s kind of established that Huber can do both worlds. They serve completely different groups of human beings, which is great. We have a long list of musicians, especially in Germany, ordering the cooler-looking guitars. But other dealers like the higher-end guitars, which they get in and sell. It’s two different ways of making guitars.”
“Not moving forward is not an option. I’m a little bit crazy that way”
Nik Huber is now quite a team with eight people working on the guitars from a workforce of 11 staff in total.
“I still make guitars, but the biggest difference is that I can make guitars when I want to. I also have to do a lot of things that have nothing to do with guitar making, but while I’m doing that guitars are still being made. That was a slow journey: gradually hiring people, making the team bigger. I never thought I’d have 11 people at a Christmas dinner table, but that’s developed very slowly and comfortably,” says Nick. “I thought if I stayed working on my own, what happens if I get sick, or want to take a vacation, or I break my leg and have to be in a wheelchair for three months? Bad news. I wanted to get rid of that fear and insecurity… especially when I have two kids.”
Offset Origin
Which brings us nicely on to Nik’s latest design, Piet (pronounced ‘Pete’), named after his youngest son.
“To be honest, that [Jazzmaster-style] vibrato was pretty new to me with the long string behind the bridge and all the ambient sounds it produces. I’ve always adored Jazzmasters and you can’t not have noticed that the ‘offset’ has got quite big. I like them a lot. We were getting enquiries for this kind of thing and people were also asking, ‘Why don’t you make a more simple bolt-on guitar? It would do well, we’d order it.’
“There’s a maker in Germany, Frank Deimel, who has one which I like. And I like Dennis Fano a lot, his Novo guitars, and he uses a lot of the offset themes. Clemens [Huber, no relation, who looks after sales and marketing] said, ‘Yes, let’s do a new offset shape.’ But I said no; there are already many companies doing a great job with their own offset outlines, but I want to stick to our shape. We wondered if, with the Mastery vibrato plate, that the body should be a bit bigger, but that would require completely new tooling for the machines. So I said let’s give it a try with the Dolphin shape and that’s what we went for: exactly that shape. The Piet is not about making a more affordable model to sell more numbers.
I just thought it was about time to make another bolt-on guitar.”
The new guitar seems to have already connected with Huber’s audience.
“It’s funny, the Piet has not really been pushed” – aside from Nik’s blog, there’s no actual listing on the Huber website, for example – “but already we have a lot of orders. All the slots for this year are taken. But it’s a new guitar, so you might expect that.
“I’m still tweaking the design,” he admits. “The ones you have are really prototypes. One thing I’ve done is to recess the Mastery vibrato plate flush into the body and I’ve adjusted the pockets for the pickups, which are not quite correct on the ones you have. The problem was the manufacturer who makes the metal cover for that bridge pickup just changed its dimensions. So welcome to modern technology: you have your programs sitting there, but I cut, I don’t know, 10 bodies with the wrong pocket dimensions. So we’re still in final prototype mode, but I really want to ring the bell about this guitar.”
“We make preciouslooking guitars every month… but I’m thankful that Huber can do both worlds”