Journal

My New Voyage Air Guitar

09 November 2009

Traveling has become an important part of my song writing process. I find that leaving my every day surroundings to take to the road and head towards the sunshine (usually California and Mexico!) inspires me to focus entirely on the music and songs which I write. The guitar I take with me has to be light and durable enough to withstand the sometimes harsh desert atmosphere and constant shifting on and off buses and pick up trucks. In the past, I was always a little frustrated by the small bodies and quiet sound of travel guitars.
Since my last travel guitar expired in the fierce heat of the Nevada desert, I needed to find a new instrument to take with me on my travels this winter.
Carrying a travel guitar whilst back packing can be awkward.The neck of the guitar stands out and gets caught in bus doors, makes it difficult to stow and generally makes things a little tricky for a light traveller like myself.
I wondered if anyone out there had managed to make a folding guitar and to my pleasant surprise, after a little research on the web, I found the Voyage Air Guitar company based in Livermoor, California.

Voyage Air pride themselves on the quality of their guitars and the website features some of the sweetest looking guitars I have ever seen, so I was really eager to try one out for myself.

Their offices are close to San Francisco and Michael Ferruci, the VP of Voyage Air, kindly invited us to visit them and play some of the guitars to see for myself, whether they really are as beauiful to play as they are convenient to travel with.

The first thing that struck me about the people who work with Voyage Air Guitars was that they are all very passionate about music and are very cool people who are connected to music in all different ways, with a real understanding of what musicians need from a guitar.
I played some guitars in the song writer OM series and the Dreadnought series.I was blown away by the depth of tone and even sound of both kinds of guitar.
I had been testing out a few guitars whilst I was in San Francisco and had played Martins and Washburns and Breed Love amongst others but had not found anything that I had wanted.

As I like to finger pick but have small fingers, I often find that I can’t get the volume or depth I need from a guitar. Travel guitars are even harder to work with because of the reduced resonance of their small bodies.The Voyage Air Guitars don’t have this problem, the bodies are standard size and can therefore produce beautiful tones and natural reverb and depth.They fold in half so that the neck of the guitar does not protrude when in its case (check out the Voyage Air Guitar website to see the remarkable ease with which these guitars are folded and unfolded)
I fell in love with the Voyage Air Song writer Dreadnought guitar with a Fishman pick up (added on request). the body of the guitar is substantial and I love its resonance and even intonation. Immediately, I knew that this was the guitar for me to take on my travels to Mexico this winter.
We head out today. A week’s drive down the coast will bring us to San Diego, from there we will take the bus over to San Ysidro and our trip through Mexico will begin.I will be working on songs for a new record and am most excited about writing with my new Voyage Air Guitar.
I will be updating this journal pretty frequently so please check in here with us to see where we’re at and I will still be reading all your messages, so keep in touch and maybe we’ll see you somewhere along the road this winter! Vive La Rock ‘n’ Roll! Kx