The newest gimmick for a full size guitar out there is called the Voyage-Air. It’s for guitarist out there that needs the extra room/space when they are traveling. The Voyage-Air appears perfectly designed to fit in the overhead compartment on an airplane.

It folds in half where the neck meets the body of the guitar. I guess you might call it the fold-and-stow guitar of the future! No I am NOT referring to the Retractable Guitar from Guitar Hero, just to make things clear! They report that the intonation basically remains the same on the Voyage-Air guitar and all you need to do is re-tune it just a little bit when you place it back into position.

I’ve just heard about this guitar while reading my favorite guitar magazine Acoustic Guitar and their review of it and it looks ok if that is what your looking for in a guitar. There are two things that bother me so far about this thing.

First is, how many sets of strings are you going to be going through when you bend the guitar back into it’s shipping position over and over again?

When I re-string my guitar, I always take the new strings out of the package and neatly place the old one into it for future use. This is just in case I can’t get to a music store to replace it. I also keep an a extra full set of backup strings as well, because Murphy’s Law is always around the corner when you least expect him!

If any of the old strings that I take off my guitar have a bend in them anywhere, I immediately throw that one out! It is rendered useless, trust my on this one.

Now considering I’ve never played or seen a Voyage-Air guitar, I can’t say with any certainty that my next concern is warranted. What will it sound like?

I don’t trust things that are gimmicky. If I want something, I buy something for one reason and one reason only! If a manufacturer isn’t focusing on what it’s really good at and then it attempts to please too many people with other less and whistles then something has to give!

Now here is my second concern, the sound quality. This particular part of any guitar that is paramount to me … the action is a close second. How will the front react to the subtle vibrations after all the tension on it, from bending the neck back and forth, be in a few years?

I realize that the Voyage-Air is relatively new on the market and we will have to wait and see it’s true potential only after a few years in the field, to judge it’s outcome correctly.

I’d love to find anyone out there that has picked up one of these guitars. Are you going through more strings then usual? Has the sound quality gone down the more you retracted it? Please let us know!

Keep on Jammin’