John Haines-Eitzen

Always interested in “building a better mousetrap” by finding novel solutions to problems, SaddleRider.com founder John Haines-Eitzen has been a tinkerer from an early age. Prior to becoming a professional cellist, he spent countless hours working on bicycles (racing at a Velodrome near his home in rural Pennsylvania) and other hobbies where his inventive curiosity developed into his current interest in stringed instrument components. Currently, he is a Senior Lecturer and Artist-in-Residence at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and a part-year resident of Portal, Arizona, where he and his family maintain a 100% solar-powered off-grid house in the Chiricahua mountains a few dozen miles from Mexico. Prior to joining the Cornell faculty, John was a member of The Philadelphia Orchestra for a decade after finishing his cello studies with Janos Starker. In Arizona, he designed and helped to install his home’s solar power system where he manufactured prototypes for his first patent using a 100 percent sun-powered machine shop. This patent, along with other stringed instrument innovations, led to his founding Saddle Rider Music, LLC, a rapidly growing musical instrument component design and manufacturing company with clients on four continents. John maintains an active performing and recording schedule both individually and as a member of the Sierra Duo with pianist Matthew Bengtson, Assistant Professor of Piano Literature at the University of Michigan School of Music.

Saddle Rider Research Collective Partners

In 2021, John joined his friends Rob Anzillotti, founder of BassCapos.com, and Georg Schegolsky, founder of ConCarbo.com, to form the Saddle Rider Research Collective. From their respective workplaces in the United States, Germany, and Poland, they hold regular Skype sessions to brainstorm cutting edge ideas in the field of musical instrument component design. In addition to his concertizing and teaching as a professional cellist, John brings 3D-printing, CAD design skills, and micro-CNC manufacturing experience to the partnership. Among Georg’s many talents are carbon fiber design, engineering, and hand crafting. After leaving his home and workshop in Kharkiv, Ukraine, under fire from Russian artillery, he moved with his young family to the mountains of western Ukraine, and eventually to Poland. There, he built CNC and 3D printing machines from scratch to set up his current workshop with expanded capacity. Georg has a keen eye for aesthetics as well as a passion for playing a variety of musical instruments. His meticulously tested and crafted carbon fiber tailpieces are truly works of art! Rob, like John, came to the musical instrument component field by way of a career as a professional string player. After creating his signature double bass extension design, BassCapos.com was born. Rob’s designs are used around the world and copied by many, but never with his attention to detail and quality hand-crafting! Rob now runs his business full-time from his home base in Köln, Germany. Inspired by bouncing ideas off of one another, The Saddle Rider Collective offers a steady stream of musical innovations, so please stop by our websites regularly to see what we have in store! We are excited to introduce Sherman Shen, our newest Saddle Rider Research Collective collaborator. After graduating from University of Southern California where he studied cello performance with the world-famous teacher Eleanore Schoenfeld, Sherman invented the Adjustrite folding chair for musicians and founded VivoUSA, which supplies high-quality instruments and musical innovations to string players around the world.

Our components and designs are used by a long list of top-tier musicians in orchestras and venues, including: The Berlin Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, National Symphony, Toronto Symphony, Carnegie Hall, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Detroit Symphony, City of Birmingham (U.K.) Symphony Orchestra, Curtis Institute of Music, and more.

We invite aspiring inventors to join our discussion group, where we offer free and confidential design support, patent consultations, and manufacturing advice. Our manufacturing partnerships enable us to offer extremely competitive pricing for existing products as well as affordable custom-crafted prototypes with fast lead times in small batches or production quantities. We make components in a wide array of materials including carbon fiber, stainless steel, aircraft aluminum, titanium, Delrin (TM), nylon, ABS, PLA, bio-plastics, and more. If you are interested in becoming a Saddle Rider Collective engineering partner or beta tester to try out cutting edge new designs, or want to join our brainstorming sessions as we plan for new projects, please drop us a line!