NIK HUBER PIET

Will the real Nik Huber please stand up? We’re joking, of course, but there really do seem to be two distinct sides to this German luthier’s guitar-building personality. On the one hand, there’s the Orca and Rietbergen; exceptionally well built, with extraordinary figured timbers, and unabashedly indebted to Huber’s former mentor Paul Reed Smith. On the other, there’s the Twangmeister and Krautster; designs in which Huber’s laser-like precision collides with a more road-ready retro aesthetic.

Introduced with minimal fanfare at the NAMM Show in January, the Piet (pronounced ‘Pete’) falls firmly into the second category. Named after Huber’s youngest son and based around the existing Dolphin body shape, the Piet’s development was driven partly by the current offset trend but also by the luthier’s desire to push himself beyond the mahogany-style builds he’s best known for. Huber acknowledges that by combining