I bought the Traveler Guitarlast year, and have been quite pleased with it. It even goes in overhead bins on airplanes without any fuss. I have been using my iPod earbuds to listen to the guitar through its built-in amp.
Some time last summer I bought the Boss RC20 loop pedal for home use so that I could record chord progressions to solo against, as well as recording melodies to comp against.
But the only way I could use the looper for practice was if I had an amp and cables.
Today before hitting the road, I hopped over to the guitar store and bought a Orange Micro Crush amp, pumping out 3 sizzling watts of power from a 9v battery.
The whole business adds maybe ten pounds to my bags, so it just isn’t a hassle at all. Everything but the guitar fits neatly in my bag, wrapped in T-shirts.
When I travel (not that often by plane these days) I just work on ear-training and transcribing, but if I were out for longer and prone to get bored, I’d buy an Alesis Micron (miniature analog-style synthesizer), since I can’t program synths at all but always wanted to learn, or use it it drive softsynths on my notebook computer. Can’t play at all with those minikeys, though – just for messing around, maybe composing some throw-away tunes.
That is the bomb travel rig you put together – you have everything, man!
I take my Steinberger, my Korg Pandora and my Shure earbuds. The whole thing fits in the Steinberger gig bag and stores in airplane overhead compartments easily.
That is a great set up. I have a Baby Taylor, but rarely travel with it since I am either doing day trips or business trips where most of my evenings are booked with dinner meetings.
Cool synth. That looks like the kind of thing I’d haul around if I were a keyboard player.
As for your last comment, the gear may be in order, but I find myself maddeningly lacking in talent
The Pandora looks sweet, and pretty small. I’m going to have to play with one at the guitar shop to see if it does what my looper does. I imagine they overlap somewhat. But the Pandora is definitely smaller.
How about the Steinberger, do you like it? Does it need special strings?
Fit and finish good?
I say this because although I am happy with my Traveler Guitar, a $400 Strat has better fit and finish than this thing. It’s not necessarily cheap construction, but it’s silly stuff, like the hardware being attached slightly crooked.
Does that Taylor fit in an overhead bin? I love playing nylon string classical, and it would be cool to find something better than the Martin Backpacker for travel.
How do you like it? Is it sturdy and well made?
As I said above, my guitar is fine for me (and I don’t mind leaving it sitting in the rental car trunk on a hot summer day), but I’m always interested in other small guitars, especially if I can find a nice nylon string.
The Pandora is awesome. It has amp models, effects, a metronome, bass lines, drum sounds, and you can even build drum tracks and bass tracks on it to play along with. I’ve written whole songs on it. The new models with the USB port allow you to pretty much dub it right off to a computer, too.
I love my Steinberger. It remains one of my two most-used guitars (the other is my Schecter C1-Elite). It’s very well made, has a terrific feel and has very good action on the neck. It has a slightly mellow sound, which makes it excellent for jazzy songs, but with the right effects, it’s a great rock guitar as well. I highly recommend them and have even looked into getting a newer one to add to my collection.
One thing I really love about the Steinberger is that once it was setup properly, I haven’t had to muck about with it at all. It’s held up fine despite being in different climates and on many airplanes. The neck has stayed straight and true with no adjustments in over 6 years. Mine has a tremolo, but I took it off; I bend the shit outta strings with my left hand, and have no real need for the tremolo as it just gets in my way.
I take my Kamaka baritone ukulele. http://www.limboland.net/Merchant2/graphics/00000050/kamaka_baritone_hf4.jpg Fits in the overhead bin and is a sweet player. It’s been all the way to the Mexican Riviera with me. If I’m going to be somewhere for more than a few days I simply must have my uke with me, or my fingers get itchy and I become irritable. At home I play for about an hour a day, most days.
The Aria is a licensed version of the SoloEtte produced in China. The SoloEtte is quite a bit more expensive; I haven’t seen one so can’t really compare the two. I’d say it is sturdy and well made. I did have a loose connection in the headphone jack a few years after I got it that the local guitar shop fixed for cheap.
I have had the Aria Sinsonido for five or six years and am very happy with it; great for late night play or practice.
It fits in an overhead bin - well, most anyway. I coulda sworn I have see nylon-stringed Baby Taylors, but maybe I just saw one strung up with nylons instead of steel (should be fine, although not very loud and with the wrong bracing for nylon), or maybe I saw other brands of small nylon-stringed guitars next to the Baby Taylors at the shop I saw - I wasn’t paying close attention.
I tend not to like travel guitars simply because I’m a big guy with big hands who likes guitars with big necks. My Baby Taylor feels like a toy in my hands so I don’t find myself playing it much…
