About us

"The Peterman story

Peter Sesselmann is an Artist/Musician that lives and works in the  Hunter Valley outside Sydney, Australia. Peter has developed some very  exciting products that allow guitarist, drummers and instrument players to  amplify their Acoustic instruments without any modification  to the instrument as well as accompanying themselves with  a stomp box rhythm/foot bass.

All these products are  hand made and checked by Peter himself. Peter mostly designs and makes products that customers have asked for or that he has found a use for himself. 

Peter Started playing guitar at the age of 11, and has enjoyed playing and making instrument ever since.

History:

At the age of 16 Peter had finished his schooling in Norway (the youngest in his class) and was accepted into a apprenticeship with the Norwegian government as the youngest apprentice prosthetist (artificial limb maker) at the time, as a result of Peters exceptional grades in wood work and metal work for his final school exams. After finishing his degree in prosthetics and orthotics and now in Australia, Peter was at the age of 19 offered the opportunity to buy a jewellery manufacturing and electro plating business. With the help of his father and brother they purchased the business together. Shortly after this purchase Peters father died and left the two brothers to fend for them selves in the business world.

After a few very tough years the business was at the brink of bankruptcy, but throug hard work and ingenuity the business turned around and became a success, so successful in fact that it was listed twice and Australia’s top 100  fastest growing private companies.

After 20 years in this business Peter had enough and decided to sell his part of the business and to take up the family tradition of painting as an artist.. this is something there was very little time for when running a business. So moving from Sydney to the Hunter valley Peter set up a studio/Gallery on his 10 acre property in Sawyers gully. Now enjoying the fresh country air and having more time to pursue his passions for art and music, it didn't take long before Peter started to experiment with musical instruments again.. having built several guitars when he was younger. The first cab of the rank was guitar pickups, Peter figured if I make guitars I may as well plug them in… so the development of the acoustic guitar pickup was started, it took a few years to come up with a guitar pickup that sounded the way he wanted it to. Once happy with the design Peter put a couple on eBay to see if there was any interest in a product like this.. and they sold within hours..

Then taking some samples to the best Music shop in the Hunter “Musos corner” they were happy to sell the product and also requested Peter to make a stomp-box. Well this was harder than first expected as there was a belief that all you need to do is stick a piezo in a piece of wood and you have a great stompbox. Peter quickly realised that this is not so. So again a long and difficult journey of designing and making a stompbox that sounded good. Reverse engineering was the trick, looking at what a speaker does when the sound is produced and then making a transducer that replicates this, hence the magnetic PRO-BASS transducer was developed.

During this time the acoustic guitar pickup was selling exceptionally well, and now also with the new stompbox design “Puck’n Stompa” well and truely on the way, Peter was also playing as part of a Jazz fusion band called FuFu. This led to wanting to record and amplify live performances, where Peter found that Drum microphones and Amp microphones were awkward, big and clumsy to use, especially on drum kits that have little space available for microphones. So the development of the “GRIT” (Get Right In There) microphones began, and are now selling beyond expectations.

Peter Is adamant that he doesn't want a BIG business again, last time in the jewellery business they had over 50 staff and manufactured oner 1000 pieces of jewellery per day.. all gold and diamonds.

So he still hand makes most of the products with the help of a few assistants in the workshop, Peter also still plays music and paints, although the Gallery was closed a few years ago he has done many major murals and art installations since.

In the last 15 years of hand making musical instruments and accessories Peter has hand made over 10,000 products that are used and enjoyed every day by musicians around the world.

Peter is now looking forward to improving and refining the range of products as well as playing more music, and painting

 

 

 

 

 

These Acoustic Guitar pickups will bring out the wood in your Axe! And the Stomp Boxes will bring out the Rhythm in your foot!