People

Hi, this is me, Matthias Grob. I created this site and all of its content (unless mentioned). I also create the electronics and solder the kits with help of Ursetta. and I try to keep track of the messages, orders, paper-work (pdf-work) and all the virtual acounts. past the age of 60 I also felt its getting slower and I forget more, then again I do it more concentrated and calmer, and the experience brings quality to the producs.
THANK YOU for supporting my mission for less sonic polution with agressive guitar sounds. (you can read more about such thoughts on the Philosophy page)
so yes, I am overloaded. you can help me by:
– have a look at the manual and the questionary to get an idea of what is possible and what information is available. my documentations are not always up to date, its ok to then ask questions and come up with wishes.
– searching things in the shop and look up prices yourself. you can start an order with what you think you may need and then talk to me about it. no worries, I never send out things customers do not really want, its no fun.
– avoid bargening. sure you get a discount if you really resell several of my products, but not if you only hope to do so. so please save us the time and energy to discuss prices. I live on the absolute minimum cost to rip off no one.

Rolf Spuler was the most important worker, designer and promoter at Paradis. His story deserves a separate site, we have loads of nice pictures, anotations of his and memories.
He died on Good Friday (the same day Jesus died?!) on easter 2014 after fighting with pleura lung cancer for about a year.
Rolf had an incredible energy to search for perfection, treat each part of his guitar and very rarely accept what the market already offered. He is higly respected by the best guitar makers in the world for going beyond the usual, the beautiful into the subtle, smart and realized a lot which was unknown or known as impossible or too complicated. and really he made his life dificult.
to live in Switzerland brings some nice confidences in quality of services nearby but aso very high costs. so to survive by selling guitars to the world, he was obliged to make them more expensive and therefore more perfect. to make the more perfect costed a lot more time and made it more expensive even.
Rolf never managed to survive from the income he generated with his guitar. he reduced living cost to the minimum and worked all the time but still needed sometimes financial help by his family or parter. and he used to do design jobs to maintain his guitar work. this was a humiliation he suffered all of his life and slowly made him bitter.
Rolf was totally aware of the quality he was producing and the problems. so he tried many contacts to guitar companies like Ibanez, Fender, Aria, Höfner, Fujigen, And an many smaller guitar makers hoping to have his inventions produced in a cheaper region or bigger scale, but apart from the AFR bass, it all failed.

Heinz Fässler worked with Rolf on the later Avalons 1993-1995

here he is creating the picks at Frankfurt Messe around 2000. he does all kinds of mechanical works and loves learning and inventing. recently his main focus is on creating personalized card games mainly for the swiss game Jassen

after Rolf died he was the fundamental support to mount the guitar parts that were left and repair the machines to be sold and come up with incredible ideas, sometimes fun sometimes totally practical. he even designed the Muurmeli for Ursetta and solved many other graphical problems – and he helped to keep the good humor in dificult times!

Philipp Scheidegger and Matthias Grob 2006 during a technical meeting at BridgeCo company.

the only FireWire guitar was created.

Concept: Matthias Grob, Rolf Spuler
Hardware: Philipp Scheidegger
Software: Day Koch
Plug-ins: Matthias Grob, Andy Butler
Support: BridgeCo, Axon

around 2017 he created the layout and the preamp of the Polybass and increased battery life with his experience and love for details and improvement.

Rolf Spuler started building guitars at Gitarestübli in Hegi, around 1980 (here is how he wrote his story)

Matthias Grob started building his special guitar amp with hexaphonic distortion in Zürich around 1978

they met because Rolf was interested in the hexaphonic technology in 1982

and founded Paradis Guitars with Jury Roten and Iris Dressler in 1984

the picture shows Rolf and Matthias at the Frankfurt Musik Messe 1993 the only time the LOOP delay was shown (Gibson did not show the Echoplex).

the founding picture of 1984:
Rolf Spuler (solid body guitars), his partner Iris Dressler (wood turner artist), Matthias Grob (electronic engineer) and Jury Roten (acoustic guitars)

Here at Musikmesse Frankfurt 2006:

Manne Schlaier, Marco Russo, Ljubo, Rolf, Ursetta Mutzner, Andreas Schmidt, Tom Maier

probably the first time we went to the Musik Messe Frankfurt showing all kinds of guitars, including the red strat which had our piezo pickups and an on-board Polydistortion!
Roman Affolter ,Reto Fürst, Rolf Spuler, Matthias Grob

hundreds of musicians stopped at our booth to listen to Ljubo Majstorovic’s unique, lovely and virtuoso playing

he builds his own guitars and hacks and connects Macintoshes. he is the only one I am aware of who takes new gear apart and builds the main PCB into his ultra compact “guitar amp” and feeds it from a central supply – so he can take all on the train easily because he rejects cars…

and he gave the idea for the wooDI “effect” !

he also builds the most complex live looping tools of the world customized in max and controls them with pedals built from keyboard electronics…

Ljubo does not care for success. He never published recordings of his music. He played at some guitar festivals, but recently complained that its not worth the effort. Yet, all guitar players that have seen him play agree that he is one of the most remarkable musicians of our time…

Willy Strehler was present over decades: first as guitar client, then a main motivator and tester and cocreator of the LOOP delay, then the same for the wooDI and we always made good music and learned from his huge experience with building motor homes and whind surfing and loads of other creativities…
here he plays is amazing framedrum setup where the mics are attached to his head so he can hear live what he transmits

Andreas worked with Rolf in the Gebensdorf times 2005-7. He then moved to Greenpeace, but he also help us a lot after Rolf’s death since he knows more about building the Paradis guitar than anyone else…