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.
As to the body of this travel instrument, no one should expect the Backpacker to sound like their favorite dreadnought or even an "00" sized guitar. It's a travel guitar: that's what it's built for and that's what it sounds like. Compared to most travel instruments, however, the tone can be quite rich. The exception is the low E string, which can sound a bit dull with flat picking or fingerstyle.
Mostly the sound is very responsive and warm, particularly when played in fingerpicking styles. The flat pickers often find that thinner and more metallic sounds will be produced by heavy picking, although in general this guitar sounds as if it’s a blend of open-back banjo and acoustic guitar tones. Try out Martin Silk & Steel strings to bring out the best in this guitar’s tone.
One consequence of the Backpacker’s build is that the guitar tends to tilt towards the headstock, which, due to the small body of a Backpacker, makes it sort of top-heavy. Some people have recommended moving the guitar strap up to the tuners or behind the nut to rectify this problem, but most playability issues get resolved when people stand up and play anyway. Most players aren’t comfortable with balancing this guitar on their knee like a banjo, although this style works just fine.
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.
On the whole, the Martin Backpacker guitar is like any other acoustic instrument: know what you’re expecting and then try out a ton to find the best. Even mass-produced acoustics have a wide gulf in sound quality between guitars, so try out as many as possible to find the best tone and quality.
The Martin Backpacker guitar is a small travel guitar by the C. F. Martin company, known for its incredible portability and unique body shape. We have got the ultimate inside info on the Martin Backpacker Guitar .
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