Best Travel Guitar Yamaha

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Committing time and energy to the development of a craft, the generation of a new creative thought, or the performance of a lifetime is a profound pleasure - whether you’re doing so alone in your bedroom, out on the street, or up in front of thousands.

If you’re a guitarist – newcomer or old hand – who has experienced some form of the above, then you’ll know all too well the pains of attempting to bring that ‘happy place’ on the road with you.

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Guitars are cumbersome things, and difficult to transport without facing some form of existential difficulty. Weighty and unwieldy guitars practically invite injury on the move, from dings and scratches accrued on the bus to fatal breakages at the mercy of airline baggage handlers.

The travel guitar, then, is the potential answer to numerous issues brought on by travelling with an instrument. Travel guitars are smaller, lighter and otherwise less awkward than their dreadnought-sized or pointy counterparts. There is no formal definition for the ‘travel guitar’, but guitar manufacturers have divined a number of different forms for such a thing; half-sized mini guitars rub shoulders with nifty narrow-bodied designs and unique mechanical marvels.

There are no strict rules behind what constitutes a travel guitar. Quite simply, if it is easier to travel with, it’s a travel instrument! That said, there are some specific things that the savvy consumer might be on the look-out for, with regard to their own wants and needs.

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Bringing a guitar down to travel size might involve reducing its scale length. This is the distance between the nut (at the top of the guitar’s neck) and the bridge (where the strings are anchored to the body). Short scale lengths are not unusual even in full-sized guitars, but guitars that sneak below 22-inch scale lengths can get a bit flabby to play in tunings.

Travel acoustic guitars, whether smaller in scale or sacrificing body in some other way, also run the risk of losing volume and clarity. There are many fun ways to circumvent this, as some of today’s reviewed brands reflect.

Electric guitars have less to worry about in terms of raw sound, but new challenges are presented in weight balance and string hardware. With such a wide playing field for travel instruments, there are a wide variety of options for consumers on the hunt for a travel guitar.

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The Vintage brand is one of the best regarded when it comes to low- and mid-budget instruments. The range of acoustic and electric instruments has fostered many a beginner’s early practice, while being dependable enough for gigging musicians and session professionals. Their acoustic guitars, designed in the UK, are impeccable examples of value for money – and the Mahogany Series ‘Travel’ is no different.

The Mahogany Series is as it sounds – a series of acoustic instruments with beautifully-finished mahogany construction. Mahogany is a fantastic tonewood, bringing real depth in the lower end of the frequency spectrum and a bell-like resonance to the high-end. This is extremely welcome in the Mahogany Series’ ‘Travel’ entry, diminutively sized as it is with a 22.6” scale length. Vintage guitars always find a way to surprise this reviewer, and the Travel does just that – with a pleasing in-the-room sound, a comfortable C-shaped neck and ergonomic playability despite its size.

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It also boasts the same on-board pre-amp and tuner that its larger siblings do, making it extremely versatile – and levelling the playing field where live performance through an amplifier or PA system is concerned. Indeed, the shorter scale length does the ‘Travel’ a huge favour here, with looser strings granting a much deeper warmth to plugged-in play.

Martin has fostered a strong reputation as a prestige maker of acoustic guitars over its near-200-year history; Martin guitars are the sole choice for many of the world’s most successful singer-songwriters, and most hard-working session musicians. This reputation commands a high price – at least usually. But Martin’s X Series bucks the trend, bringing their signature sound and quality to an affordable price-point.

The LX1, or ‘Little Martin’, is Martin’s pint-sized offering from this range, and one of the more surprising acoustic guitars this reviewer has played. Despite its ¾ size, the Little Martin is an exceedingly powerful thing. Where other short-scale instruments give way to indistinct low-end muddiness, the LX1 retains clarity – even in drop or open tunings. It is a perfect guitar for writing music with.

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There is an electro-acoustic model on the market too, in the form of the LX1E, which offers a little more flexibility for the gigging performer – but for the beginner, the traveller or the performing musician on the hunt for great tone, the LX1 fits the bill just fine.

As well as offering a 3/4 guitar in the form of the LX1, Martin also has a unique acoustic guitar design expressly built for travel purposes: the Backpacker.

This travel acoustic dispenses with the wide, deep bodies of conventional acoustics – designed for both projection and articulation of sound - in favour of a narrow, scalloped wedge shape that reduces its profile significantly.

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The Backpacker retains a scale length of 24”, despite its slightness in other areas. Trade-offs are made, though, to retain the structural integrity of the body; the Backpacker’s fretboard only extends to 14 frets, somewhat limiting the player’s options even if higher frets are rarely used. Still, the thing is responsive and rewarding in most player situations. It can sound a tad boxy when strummed, and a little brittle when fingerpicked, but is otherwise a sturdy play.

In all, the Backpacker is a perfectly serviceable instrument. It gets the job done sonically, feels comfortable in-hand, and slots nicely alongside clothes and camping gear. A travel guitar, but also very much a traveller’s guitar.

The brand Vintage collaborates with other artists and designers to bring a wide range of quality instruments to the fore. One such musician is Paul Brett, who has enjoyed multiplicitous success as a lead guitarist, 12-string composer, music writer and now, guitar designer.

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One of the most popular, and indeed most accessible, of the Paul Brett series is the ‘Viator’ Nylon: a travel acoustic with nylon strings and a few sonic tricks up its sleeve. The ‘Viator’ Nylon is a slight instrument that sits extremely comfortably in the hands and on the lap. It resembles 19

The Viator Nylon is a delight to fingerpick with, offering tight articulation and a well-rounded sound. As we’ve come to expect from these smaller-scale instruments, the Viator Nylon isn’t the most boisterous when it comes to projection. However, what it might lack in volume, it makes up for in spades in other areas. It’s exceedingly comfortable to sit down with, and plays nimbly up and down the neck. Its nylon strings complement the warm sound of its body, and attain a beautiful sonorous quality via the 21.5” scale length. The Viator Nylon is a joy to pick up and play, and all the easier to pick up for its size and weight. It lacks little, regardless of its stature, and invites you to wrap yourself around it.

Fender is perhaps the most famous guitar brand on the planet, having presided over some of the most iconic designs ever – from Stratocasters and Telecasters to Jaguars, Mustangs and Kurt Cobain’s Jag-Stang. Fender is less well-renowned for its acoustic offerings, but they are nonetheless representative of Fender’s stature and quality in the guitar world.

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The California Series is Fender’s gainful attempt at revitalising traditional acoustic guitar design, with striking body shapes and colour palettes on instruments that still deliver quintessential tone. The Redondo Mini is the smallest in this range, and also the cheapest, coming in under £150.

It’s a ½-size instrument with a 22 ¾” scale length, a size and scale length typically marketed to younger learners. But the size makes it a perfect travel instrument, and it is eminently playable for guitarists of all sizes. The Redondo Mini reflects the idiosyncratic tonal characteristics of Fender’s mainstay acoustics, boasting well-developed mids and a tight high end – if at the expense of any gripping low-end response. The mids do a lot of the heavy lifting, but the player is not left wanting too much. Its pleasing sound and classic looks pitch it perfectly to the younger musician, either as a learner instrument or a new instrument to sling in the boot before heading off to uni.

Traveler Guitars have been pioneering travel-friendly instruments for 30 years, and in so doing have built an impressive array of genuinely practicable products for musicians both serious and casual.

Adam Black O 3 T Natural Travel Acoustic Guitar By Adam Black (8803t)

Traveler have made music industry headlines with fun travel-conscious iterations of popular instruments, such as its Stratocaster ‘copy’ that reduces its body to the size and shape of the pickguard. The Pro Series, though,

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