| 5 March |
The Important Facts When Purchasing A Martin Backpacker Guitar |
C. F. Martin Company, the brilliant acoustic instrument company known for decades to produce quality instruments, also makes a small travel model called the Martin Backpacker guitar. These Backpackers are primarily known for their great portability and uniquely shaped body. The Backpacker comes in nylon-string and steel-string variations, with options for a pickup or left handed construction. Each Backpacker has a 24" scale and 15 frets, while each body has a solid mahogany back and sides, with a solid-spruce top.
The decision between nylon and steel strings is merely personal playing preferences. For someone who plays classical guitar or similarly styled music, they can expect to get sound proportional to price, as can the steel string players, out of this tiny, portable guitar. The body is small enough to be transported where-ever you’re going. The classical nylon string Backpackers are going to have the common g-string problem, like its classical brethren from other manufacturers.
The best thing to remember about this Backpacker is to keep expectations reasonable: it’s not going to sound like a pristine Gibson, Taylor, or Martin dreadnought. This is a travel instrument that sounds like the role it’s built to fill. That being said, however, this instrument does have quite a nice and unique tone, except on the E string, which, due to the body size, doesn’t have a lot of bass to it at all.
The Backpackers’ tones sound as if an open-backed banjo were crossbred with an acoustic travel axe. As I mentioned, fingerstyle really brings out the best in this guitar, while the common experience is that strumming doesn’t bring out the best of the sound. Martin Silk & Steel strings have been highly recommended by guitarists online to help the tone issues.
A number of Backpacker owners have complained about its top-heavy construction and playability problems sitting down. Yes, the body is shaped a bit oddly, so it may have to be positioned on the knee as if it were a banjo, but with the small neck, playability is hardly ruined. A simple adjustment can fix the balance issues as well, just tie the strap up near the headstock for better balance.
If you're springing for the pickup on either the nylon or the steel string incarnations of these Martins, you'll find that the pickups sound really good and definitely improve the overall sense of the guitar's tone. The pickup option is also nice for college students or frequent coffeehouse players if they have access to plugging into the sound system but need a portable instrument.
The guitar is manufactured in Mexico, but the quality is still fair even with the more common problems people tend to have with this guitar. The frequent nut defect, which angles the strings so that they sometimes have to be wound the opposite way, can be fixed by a local dealer. Some have also had to cut down the nut and the saddle in order to have the guitar play reasonably well.
If you do decide to buy a Martin Backpacker guitar, be sure to try as many of these models as possible. Acoustic guitars are well known for having wide differences in tone and playability even between different types of the same mass-manufactured guitars like this one! Try and discover the best-sounding one for your tastes and you won’t be dissatisfied with this travel guitar.
The Martin Backpacker guitar is a small travel guitar by the C. F. Martin company, known for its super portability and unique body shape. We’ve got the best inside info on the Martin Backpacker Guitar .