Since 1996, Nik Huber and his team have been crafting highly regarded electric guitars from their shop 20 miles outside of Frankfurt, Germany. With an emphasis on quality, measured growth, and a genuine love for the guitar, Huber has thoughtfully expanded his line to cover multiple facets of electric guitar design. From his flagship Dolphin to the Les Paul-inspired Orca, the Tele-esque Twangmeister, and the Les Paul Junior-influenced Krautster, Huber covers a vast sonic landscape.
An archtop was a logical extension of the line, and the team embarked on that mission in 2011 using his single cutaway Dolphin model as the foundation. The first prototype became the first production model, with just a few modifications. The result, the Rietbergen, is an exceptionally fine instrument that reflects the talent and equally exceptional qualities of its creator.
Time Is Riet
Huber’s family has been involved in cabinet
making and master woodworking for over
100 years. Though his father was a pilot,
he taught Nik the family trade at a young
age, crafting toys and other projects in their
substantial home woodshop. Nik also developed
a love for guitar early on, aspiring to
be a professional musician until well into
his 20s. In the early ’90s, Huber attended
lutherie school in Spain and discovered his
true calling.
Early on, Huber forged a vitally important friendship with Paul Reed Smith, who provided guidance and insight. And while there are subtle aspects of Huber’s designs that nod to Smith’s influence—scraped bindings, hybrid hardware, and carved top contours, for example—the designs are uniquely his own. He currently produces about 120 guitars a year across 11 models, including the Rietbergen.
The Rietbergen exudes understated elegance with its classic appointments and thin semi-gloss polyurethane finish. Double-stained in tobacco sunburst, the single-cutaway body is carved from solid tone woods—a flamed, book-matched European maple top and one-piece mahogany back. The latter has been carved out to create hollow chambers on the top and bottom with a solid core down the middle of the guitar. The top features a pair of f-holes, and the muted glow of the finish has just enough yellow and dark caramel accents to look like it has been around for decades. The sunburst finish is accented by a scraped top with pleasing flame grain that accents the top’s warm hues.
The neck is made from a single piece of nicely figured mahogany that joins the body with a sculpted set-neck joint design that improves upper fret access. The neck is capped with a figured East Indian rosewood fretboard and features an ebony headstock veneer with a mother-of-pearl and abalone dolphin inlay and matching ebony truss rod cover. The dolphin inlay ties in nicely with the abalone dot fretboard markers. Our review guitar also features a hardware upgrade package that include a milled brass AVR-II TonePros bridge, aluminum tailpiece with brass studs, aged nickel pickup covers with brushed crème surrounds, gold bell-style brushed knobs, 3-way switch with crème plastic tip, Schaller tuners with ebony wood buttons, and an aged Schaller strap locking system.
In addition to the aesthetic appointments, Huber incorporated some design elements that might make the Rietbergen a little more playable than traditional archtop designs. It features a 25 1/2" scale and a reduced headstock angle that give the guitar a wonderful balance of comfortable string tension and note articulation.
The instrument also has an 11" to 14" compound radius fretboard with 22 medium jumbo frets made from a hardened alloy that has the tone of traditional fretwire but a hardness approximating stainless steel. It’s worth noting that the fret slots do not span the entire fingerboard, which negates the possibility of protruding fret ends and lends the feel of a bound fretboard. The bone nut is a little wider than other Huber guitars, measuring 43.5 mm (1.712") and the string spacing is very comfortable. So is the neck profile, which is best described as a rounded C carve with a little less shoulder. For a relatively thick neck, it feels fast, thanks in part to the semi-gloss finish. Huber called on the seasoned German pickup maker Harry Häussel to outfit the Rietbergen with a pair of PAF-style humbuckers—a 1959 model bridge humbucker and a 1959 custom model in the neck position.
Semi-hollow, Super Tones
Plugged into a Tomaszewicz amplifier, the
Rietbergen is capable of producing an impressive
array of tones for a multitude of musical
genres. The natural assumption is that any
archtop leans toward the blues or jazz vein.
But rock and country cats are every bit as
likely to find interesting—even ideal—tones
in the Rietbergen. Predictably, it has a thick,
bold primary voice, but with sweet highs that
can be very easily shaped and accented just
by varying your pick attack. The guitar still
exhibits all the traditional benefits of a semi-hollow
design—Nigel Tufnel-approved sustain
and expansive frequency response. But there’s
none of the soft or dull note bloom that you
hear in some semi-hollow electrics. Instead,
notes seem to leap off the Rietbergen’s fretboard
with great immediacy and clarity.
Ratings
Pros:
Flawless construction. Spectacular range of tones. Superb playability that makes heavy strings feel light.
Cons:
Expensive.
Tones:
Playability:
Build/Design:
Value:
Street:
$7,325
Company
nikhuber-guitars.com
Pulling up on the tone knob splits the Häussel humbuckers, unveiling another pleasing palette of single-coil tones that, not surprisingly, is a great match for the 25 1/2" scale. The split humbuckers exhibit some of the volume drop you’d expect, but interestingly, they tend to highlight more of the Rietbergen’s acoustic qualities—a range of tones that jazz players in particular are bound to appreciate.
In both split and true humbucking mode, the Häussel pickups are a perfect match for the Rietbergen—capturing and highlighting both the massive natural sustain of the guitar and the excellent string-to-string articulation. It’s hard not be impressed with how both fretted notes and open strings rang out so distinctly and clearly when played in unison. I also appreciated how comfortable the .011–.049 strings felt with the long scale. I executed full-step bends with ease, and needless to say, the heavier strings brought out the bold, yet nuanced voice of the instrument.
The Verdict
Nik Huber named this archtop model
to honor his wife Ingrid’s family name,
because she is one of three daughters and the
Rietbergen name would not continue past
the current generation. Fortunately, the guitar
that bears the same name is likely to not only
survive, but also enjoy considerable renown
for generations to come. The quality and
design execution are top-shelf. And the range
of tones you can summon form the split-coil/humbucking Häussel and the long-scale,
semi-hollow construction is bound to dazzle
or surprise, depending on the extent of your
experience with semi-hollow archtops.
It’s no secret that Nik Huber’s instruments are hard to top in terms of heirloom-level craftsmanship. But what the Rietbergen can deliver in musical terms reflects an equally impressive sense for what makes a guitar sound not just great, but extraordinary.
LR Baggs Align Reverb Acoustic Reverb Pedal
The Align Series Reverb was built from the ground up to complement the natural body dynamics and warmth of acoustic instruments that we love so much. The circuit seamlessly integrates the wet and dry signals with the effect in side chain so that it never overwhelms the original signal. We shaped the reverb with analog EQ to reflect the natural voice inherent in acoustic instruments. Additionally, the tone control adds versatility by sweeping from warm and muted to open and present. The result is an organic reverb that maintains the audiophile purity of the original signal with the controls set in any position.
Cory Wong—a funky player with his own signature-model Strat wiring.
Guitarist, songwriter, and producer Cory Wong is renowned for his solo work, his band Fearless Flyers (with Mark Lettieri, Joe Dart, and Nate Smith), and collaborations with artists such as Vulfpeck, Jon Batiste, and Dave Koz. His playing style is deeply rooted in funk rhythm guitar, with a heavy dose of rock and jazz. Well-known for playing a Stratocaster, his signature model was released in 2021, and it’s a unique offering. If you want to build your personal Cory Wong Strat, here is your shopping list, starting with the primary structure:
• Alder body, scaled down to slightly smaller than a regular Stratocaster, with Fender American Ultra body contours
• Maple neck with a rosewood fretboard with rolled edges, modern Fender American Ultra D neck profile, slightly larger headstock, 25.5" scale, 10" to 14" compound radius, 22 medium jumbo frets
• Locking tuners with all short posts, a bone nut, and two roller string trees
• Vintage-style 6-screw synchronized tremolo
• Hair tie around the tremolo springs (which mutes them to enhance the rhythm tone)
• .010–.046 strings (nickel-plated steel)
“While these are all interesting features, resulting in a very comfortable guitar, you don’t need to copy every detail to transform one of your Stratocasters into a Cory Wong-style Strat.”
For the physical build, as you can see, Wong and Fender created a real signature instrument to his specs and wishes. While these are all interesting features, resulting in a very comfortable guitar, you don’t need to copy every detail to transform one of your Stratocasters into a Cory Wong-style Strat. My personal favorite of these is the hair tie for muting the tremolo springs. A lot of my funk-playing customers are doing similar things on their Strats to get a dry sound, and they’re using all kinds of funny things in there, like foam, rubber bands, and pieces of cotton, as well as hair ties.
Now, let’s have a look at the electronics:
• Seymour Duncan Cory Wong Clean Machine SSS pickup set
• Standard 5-way pickup-selector switch with classic Strat switching matrix
• 250k master volume pot with a 90/10 audio taper and Fender treble-bleed circuit PCB
• 250k tone pot with a 90/10 audio taper and Fender Greasebucket tone control PCB for only the neck pickup
• 250k audio push-push tone pot with Fender Greasebucket tone control PCB for only the bridge pickup; the push-push switch overrides the 5-way switch and defaults to middle + neck pickup (in parallel) as a preset
• Middle pickup is without tone control
Let’s break this down piece-by-piece to decode it:
Pickups
The pickup set is a custom SSS set from the Seymour Duncan company with the following specs:
• Overwound hum-canceling stacked bridge pickup with a 3-conductor wire and shield in permanent hum-canceling mode (red wire taped off), bevelled alnico 5 magnets, approximately 14.5k-ohm DCR
• Overwound middle single-coil, RWRP, beveled alnico 4 magnets, approximately 7.1k-ohm DCR
• Overwound neck single-coil, bevelled alnico 4 magnets, approx. 7.0k-ohm DCR
The pickups are voiced for clear highs, which perfectly suits Wong’s funky playing style and tone. While a lot of pickup companies will have pickups in that ballpark, it will be difficult to put together a full set that really works as intended. The Duncans in the Cory Wong Strat are available as a balanced set, so if you want to get as close as possible, I think this is your best bet.
5-Way Pickup Selector Switch
Nothing special here, just the standard 5-way switch with two switching stages that is wired like a classic Stratocaster:
bridge
bridge + middle in parallel
middle
middle + neck in parallel
neck
The upper tone pot is assigned to the neck pickup, while the lower tone pot is connected to the bridge pickup, leaving the middle pickup without tone control.
Master volume pot and treble-bleed circuit.
The 250k master volume pot is a standard CTS pot with a 90/10 audio taper found in all U.S.-made Fender guitars. The volume pot has the treble-bleed circuit from the Fender American Pro series, but uses a ready-to-solder PCB from Fender instead of individual electronic parts. The PCB is available from Fender individually (part #7711092000), but I have some thoughts about it. While using a PCB makes a lot of sense for mass production, it has some downsides for us mortal human beings:
• Soldering on PCBs requires some training and also special soldering tools.
• The PCB is quite expensive, while the individual electronic parts are only a few cents.
• The PCB uses ultra-tiny surface-mount parts, so it’s very difficult to repair or mod it to your personal taste.
I don’t think we need a PCB for adding a treble-bleed circuit, so let’s do this project using conventional electronic parts. The treble-bleed PCB contains a 1200 pF capacitor with a 150k-ohm resistor in parallel, plus another 20k-ohm resistor in series. Using individual parts, it looks like this:
Courtesy of single-coil.com
In general, a treble-bleed circuit will help you to combat the “volume vs. tone problem” when using passive single-coil pickups. When you turn down the volume (even just a bit), the high end or treble loss is not proportionate. In other words, a small cut in volume creates a far greater loss in your guitar’s treble response. Using a treble-bleed circuit is an easy way to get rid of this problem, as long as it is calculated carefully.
ONLINE ONLY: If you want to find out more about treble bleed circuits please have a look here: https://www.premierguitar.com/diy/mod-garage/treble-bleed-mod
Next month, we will continue with part two of the Cory Wong Stratocaster wiring, bringing it all together, so stay tuned!
Until then ... keep on modding!