Traveler Guitar

I bought this guitar to travel by plane. Before that, I used to take my nylon-stringed Yamaha APXT 1N which was perfect (except for its shorter scale), and plugged it on a Marshall MS2 microamp through a pocket multi-effect Korg Pandora PX3. This set has traveled the whole world with me! But now, it's become almost impossible to take the plane with an instrument that exceeds the hand luggage format - or it's taking the risk to lose it and arrive without an instrument at all. The traveler Pro can be checked-in at the airport (70cm long), that's the main reason why I bought it. It features Fender-standard scale. It's a great neck-through guitar, except for the fact the neck has nothing to get through. The neck is made of maple and features 22 frets on a mahogany fretboard. I chose the version with both a piezo pickup and a single coil pickup. The system is well-conceived and sturdy, and it comes with a softcase. The included earbuds work fine (no need for batteries) but are not pleasant to wear, I prefer to get through a plug Vox (eg the classic rock one) or my Kork multifx and use standard earphones - but it takes batteries. The neck is fast, its touch is pleasant and intonation is accurate. The guitar came properly set up: string height and neck setting. The piezo is OK, but I changed the magnetic pickup for is was way less powerful and lacked punch. I first put a Di Marzio red velvet (strat bridge format), very powerful, great for country music. The pickup was easy to change, take your solder iron and it's over in 10 minutes at most. Like all maple guitars, its sound is cristal-clean (no tone setting or neck pickup - and no room for either btw). It's not easy to get a jazz sound, but in lowering the sound from the magnetic pickup you can tame the trebles a little. I finally put my G&L Legacy's bridge pickup on it, which sounds quite soft: the result is better. Perhaps changing the strings might help? I play with 10-46s. The guitar is difficult to hold, so it's better to use it with a strap (it has strap buttons) - or to get used to it. It can easily be used in a band. To conclude, that's the kind of purchase I'd do again willingly, I take it everywhere with me and even use it in the train or car (not when driving of course, but during long travels). Yet, the price is excessively high, it's made in China (granted, the finish is perfect and materials are ok), but the magnetic pickup had to be changed. Its rarity (it took me 6 weeks to receive it) and patents influence its cost. The strings are not easy to fine tune, the tuners are not to blame but that's quite unusual.

Model Name - Speedster Neck Through Body - Eastern American Hard Maple Fingerboard - Ebonized Rosewood Frets - 22-medium Scale Length - 24 3/4 in. Fingerboard Inlays - Pearloid Neck Width at Nut - 1 3/4 in. Body Width- 7 1/2 in. (Arm Detached) Body Thickness- 3/4 in. Overall Depth - 2 in. Length - 28 in. Weight - 4 lbs. 7 oz. Pick-ups - Dual-Rail Humbucker Hardware - Chrome 14:1 Gear ratio (closed gear) Electronics - Volume/Tone Finish - Gloss Black, Candy Apple Red Metallic, Black Metallic MSRP - $499.99 (USD) UTILIZATION Man, I really want to like this guitar. I really do. I love headless guitars as a whole, and new design innovations make me pretty pumped. But it's just a blah guitar, to be honest. The guitar uses an interesting roller tailpiece, in which the strings roll around to the back, in which they attack to the body in these cutout holes where traditional tuners are located. So it's a neat approach to a headless bridge/tuner situation, but in actuality it's just weird. This is a guitar that just looks ugly. The wing for the arm rest - that's a neat idea, but it looks bad. The holes for the tuners - they look bad. The bottom leg cutout - it looks bad. This hole guitar is just something that looks like a kid who interned at Steinberger in the 80s drew up and got rejected when he'd enthusiastically show it to Ned. SOUNDS The pickup sounds ok, but there's just one. The guitar serves its purpose as a travel guitar, so one would think that one couldn't afford to be picky, right? Well, when Steinberger has made the Spirit series (with 3 pickups and 5 positions) that can still be found used for $200-250, and there's this monstrosity, well, one wonders what this is doing trying to exist. OVERALL OPINION Don't buy it. Buy a Steinberger Spirit instead. It's more fashionable, more classic, the original innovation, it has a tremolo system (that can easily be blocked to stability), and much better sounds. Also, it is more ergonomic! The Spirit is also much less expensive than this thing. Just say no.