Blackstar announces the Carry-on, a tiny electric perfect for travelling

Its tiny 20.7-inch scale length makes it ideal for playing on the go.

Blackstar's Carry On

Image: Blackstar

Blackstar has announced The Carry-on Travel Guitar, an electric that’s been designed for unparalleled portability.

The guitar, designed by Blackstar in association with Gordon Smith Guitars’ master luthiers, has a single-piece okoume body and neck, topped with a 19-fret laurel fingerboard, with a string-through design. The headstock sports 1:14 ratio tuners for stability, and for easy intonation, there’s a tune-o-matic-style bridge.

As it is a travel guitar, its scale length is a short 20.7 inches or 527mm. This is compensated for by the fact it ships with a heavy set of strings – 12-54, to be exact – making up the tension that’s lost by the shorter scale.

For electronics, the guitar packs a versatile set of tones into the smallest space by virtue of a single mini-humbucker that can be coil-split with the volume pot – meaning both humbucker and single-coil tones can be achieved.

Blackstar's Carry On
Image: Blackstar

The guitar comes in two finishes: Vintage White with tortoiseshell binding and a tortoiseshell scratchplate, and Jet Black with cream binding and a black scratchplate.

Three different configurations of the guitar are also available: you can purchase the guitar by itself, or as either a Standard or Deluxe pack of accessories. The Standard pack includes a premium travel bag (included even if you buy the guitar alone), a webbing guitar strap, three medium guitar picks, an A5 travel notebook and a mechanical pencil. The Deluxe pack adds a three-metre instrument cable and a spare set of guitar strings.

On top of these accessories, the packs include an amPlug 2 FLY headphone amp in the Standard pack or the FLY 3 Bluetooth mini-amp with the Carry-On Deluxe pack.

The guitar by itself lists for £299/$349/€369, with the Standard accessories pack for £349/$399/€419 and the Deluxe accessories pack for £419/$499/€499.

Find out more at blackstaramps.com.

For more gear news, click here.

logo

Get the latest news, reviews and features to your inbox.

Subscribe
logo

The world’s leading authority and resource for all things guitar.

Join our mailing list

Sign Up Now

© 2023 Guitar.com is part of NME Networks.