Martin Backpacker Guitar

The Martin Backpacker guitar is a very well finished travel guitar.

An initial inspection of the Martin Backpacker guitar reveals the instrument to be of fine quality. The neck blends into the body, giving the appearance of being one and the same, which in fact they are. They are a single mahogany piece, with the sound hole drilled out. A solid spruce top and rosewood fingerboard completes the guitar. A thin layer of lacquer gives the Martin Backpacker guitar a natural wood feel and finish.

As the name implies, the Martin Backpacker guitar is a travel guitar, so it’s fairly obvious that it won’t sound quite the same as a traditional, full size guitar. However, the sound, given such a small body, of the Martin Backpacker Guitar is unexpected, in that it delivers more than the sum of its parts.

Yes, it’s a brighter sound than a traditional guitar, and has something of a lack of bass, but the bass is of itself quite interesting, and I have found that it offers something a little different when using it accompanied.

However, the main purpose of the Martin Backpacker guitar is to allow one to travel lightweight, and at the same time have an instrument on hand that allows one to practice with a real world instrument.

In this, the Martin Backpacker Travel Guitar is perfect.

The small body, (which looks like an extension of the neck), does mean that you really need to use this travel guitar with a strap, otherwise it sits too low on your thigh, and also the weight of the head and machines makes it a little top heavy, but once you adjust to this, it’s a joy to play.

The neck is smaller than a traditional guitar at 24’’, but the Martin Backpacker guitar is nonetheless very “playable”, although I found the action a little high, and the strings a little heavy. Martin provides a lower bridge that’s easy to fit, as it’s not glued in. A set of lighter gauge strings and the guitar is sorted. Perhaps Martin should have fixed all this from the off, rather than supply the Backpacker with slightly poor setup, however, with the changes made, even an electric guitarist should feel at home.
As far as travelling is concerned, I took my Martin Backpacker guitar to Hong Kong recently. It was way easier to carry around the airports, subway and taxis than a standard guitar, and stood up to the heat and humidity very well in that I never thought to retune it to lower the stress on the neck. There is no apparent damage, and I have had no tuning problems since the trip.

One word on tuning, with the standard strings supplied, tuning is a little more difficult than one might like. However, changing to lighter strings makes tuning much easier. I may be being unfair in that any tuning difficulty may have been due to the fact that the heavier strings supplied were new and I never gave them long enough to stretch properly, but either way, I would recommend changing to lighter strings – in fact, it may be worth asking your supplier to fit a lower bridge and lightweight strings before you buy it.

The simple truth is, after some minor changes, I am very pleased with my Martin Backpacker guitar, it travels well, does what I want it to, and yes, it’s a Martin!