2009 - Harald Hoentsch & his Tremolo pulley

Inventions and tragedies

The Piano tuner and Harald Hönsch's deflection roller

Over the years, we repeatedly received messages from people who claimed to have made important inventions and wanted to offer them to us, especially for our continued success. Believe me, it's not easy to make fundamental improvements to the guitar these days. And inventors' ideas are initially subject to their subjective assessment. I still fondly remember an old Donald Duck comic in which an inventor with shining eyes and a confused look on his face enters Scrooge McDuck's office to demonstrate his automatic orange juice press. Scrooge lets himself be persuaded, and in no time at all, his entire office is flooded with orange juice.

It was sometime in the early 1980s when an inventor with the same crazy look entered our house to praise his automatic guitar tuner. It was a combination of something that already existed: a tuning device connected to a small electric screwdriver to turn the tuning peg, which was supposed to tune the respective string according to the tuning device. It only worked approximately accurately, and I had to object that it might be better to look at the tuner and turn the tuning pegs with your fingers, practically verbally destroying his idea. But in order not to completely frustrate the inventor, I suggested that he should develop it for a piano. His eyes widened briefly and his mouth formed the following sentence: “Well, if you finance this project, I'll also invent a robot that climbs inside the piano!” Oh dear, the presumption of the inventor! Coupling an electric motor with a tuning device is the easiest thing in the world! It's questionable whether something like that even qualifies as an “invention.” And that crazy lunatic would never have been able to invent a robot in a million years. Those are completely different worlds!

And I still maintain that today! All this digitized, electrified nonsense belongs in the trash can. The Gibson company has also incurred correspondingly high losses as a result.

And – oh, how wonderful – this sign on Gyro Gearloose's garage: “DISCONTINUED INVENTIONS.” The fact is that not all inventions are any good. For example, making something on the guitar ADJUSTABLE that was previously fixed may be useful for the guitarist's individual preferences, but it can just as easily lead to mechanical problems that were previously unforeseeable.

Or later, in the 1980s, in the era of guitars with neck-through body guitars, brass hardware, and sustain mania, there was a guy named Harald Höntsch, an absolutely delightful guitar player, toolmaker, and inventor.

Harald was obsessed with the idea that the large spring chamber cutout for a Strat tremolo was absolutely detrimental to sustain. This interruption of the wood grain, the loss of mass between the tremolo and the neck.
So he came up with the idea of placing the tremolo springs behind the tremolo, which could only be achieved with so-called deflection rollers. Steel cables connected to the tremolo block ran over a roller to the rear of the body, with the conventional Fender springs attached to their ends to find their place behind in “harmless” spring chambers.

Armed with this idea, patent claims, and prototypes, he spent years scouring the Frankfurt Music Fair like a remote-controlled robot, trying to find buyers for his invention: “How about a tremolo with a deflection roller for Strat tremolos?”

Unfortunately, however, our dear Harald's peculiar obsession was apparent at first glance, which meant that potential buyers did not take him seriously from the outset, laughed at him, and, due to a lack of technical understanding, did not understand his possibly well-founded idea at all. “What do you want, you crazy fool?” But he is said to have received an offer from a Korean company—I think it was Samick—for around 800,000 DM. But Harald wanted a whole million and turned down the offer. So, on top of everything else, this crazy guy was also totally incapable of doing business!

To cover the costs of manufacturing prototypes, patent fees, trade fair booth fees, etc., this man even had to mortgage his house and farm, without ever getting a penny of it back!

Sadly, Harald died three years ago, poor and full of grief. Conclusion: To have good ideas and implement them, you need to have at least the necessary money. What a cruel world!

It's completely crazy how people, obsessed with a weird idea, can get carried away with such activities without regard for the consequences.