Hans Reichel

Hans Reichel, German improvising guitarist, luthier, inventor of new instruments, and typographer.

One of his recent inventions is the daxophone. It is a blade-shaped idiophone attached to a wooden block containing one or more contact microphones. Plucked, struck, or bowed, the daxophone produces sounds similar to the human voice, often humorous.
The pitch of the notes is varied with the dax: a block of wood with a fretted side and a smooth side that, when pressed on the blade and tilted, varies the length of the vibrating side, much like a movable bridge. You can see it in action in this short video and others.

But Reichel is also known for his astonishing elaborations of the guitar and lute which include various types of double-necked instruments, such as the one in this video..

At the time of writing (2008), Hans Reichel was still with us. Unfortunately, he passed away in 2011.

Back