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 choice between nylon strings or steel is simply personal taste and playing style. A guitarist trained in classical music would obviously prefer the nylon-string backpacker, and will have a nice travel guitar that can be easily transported on a plane trip for business or pleasure, as well as hiking and camping excursions. It will however, have the typical classical guitar g-string issue.
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.
It’s a Mexican-made instrument, but the most common problems with this guitar can be easily fixed at any shop that does repairs or luthiering: the nuts and saddles sometimes have to be cut down and the angle of the string entry adjusted a bit. Overall, the quality on most of these guitars is fair for the price.
Overall, the Martin Backpacker guitar is going to be subject to the same rule of thumb for all acoustics, which is the extreme variance in sound that can be achieved from guitar to guitar of the same model. Trying acoustic guitars in person is generally the way to go, especially for mass-produced instruments like this one, where you can discover the best-playing one of all those for sale.
The Martin Backpacker guitar is a petite travel guitar by the C. F. Martin company, known for its super portability and unique body shape. We have got the ultimate inside scoop on the Martin Backpacker Guitar .
