After my last blog entry and video of the Voyage Air Belair travel guitar, I was inundated with requests to show how the folding feature works. I’ve just completed a short video demonstrating that feature, as well as giving a brief tour of the briefcase into which the guitar fits.
These Voyage Air Belairs are the coolest. Want one? Let me know…RedZone has the best deal.
If – like me – you travel a lot, or if you just appreciate a guitar that’s compact and easy to transport, you owe it to yourself to check out the Voyage-Air Belair. The Belair is a full size guitar, somewhat resembling a Les Paul in shape, and sporting a 24.75″ scale length typical of Gibson-style guitars. It differs from typical Gibson fare in that it has a Fender-
style bridge, and is a string-through body design. The Belair has a pair of Tonerider P90 pickups and a TV Yellow translucent finish. What sets this guitar apart, however, is the folding mechanism where the neck meets the body. A simple flick of a slide switch releases the hinge, and allows the neck to fold over the body. The whole guitar fits in a (slightly oversized) briefcase, which also has room for your laptop and other accessories.
I’ve owned a Voyage-Air acoustic guitar for several years. After taking it to over a dozen foreign countries, I’ve really come to appreciate the backpack case and its ability to hold my laptop and other goodies. I can’t wait to do the same with the much smaller briefcase of the Belair electric. Incidentally, the briefcase also has stowaway backpack straps and a shoulder strap, should you tire of carrying it by the built-in handle. The cases are only part of the equation, though. These guitars are really well made, and I’ve found them to be equal to or better than (often far better than) other guitars in the same price categories. The Belair is no exception. This guitar rocks.
You might expect that a guitar which folds in half would be a little unstable, and/or might be difficult to keep in tune. Not so with the Belair! I’ve spent several hours playing the Belair, and let me tell you, it is one solid guitar. In fact, if you weren’t aware of the hinge, you’d probably never suspect this was anything other than a ‘normal’ guitar. It feels, plays, and sounds like any other high quality, well made guitar.
Here’s what Voyage-Air has to say on their website:
Based on the overwhelming response by our dealers at the recent NAMM (National Association of Music Merchants) Show in Anaheim, California, Voyage-Air Guitar is proud to kick-off the new TransAxe™ series electric guitars with a very special instrument: the Voyage-Air Belair Limited Edition™. Capturing the vibe from the earliest days of the electric guitar, this Limited Edition guitar has a stunning semi-transparent high-gloss “TV Yellow” finish, and wears a deeply-patterned tortoise pickguard. For the period-accurate tone, this guitar is fitted with two custom Tonerider™ “Vintage 90 Soap Bar” pickups, and a three-position toggle switch. The tone is warm yet articulated, and has punch and sustain that is more than surprising. Fitting its Limited Edition status, this guitar sports deluxe features ordinarily found on much more expensive instruments: solid Alder wood body, solid Canadian Maple neck topped with a solid Rosewood fingerboard, mother-of-pearl fret position dots, and a bridge that’s adjustable for individual string intonation and height.
The Belair is a Limited Edition model, and production is capped at 250 guitars total. Dealers across the country are sold out of this phenomenal guitar, but after waiting nearly a year for delivery, we have managed to get our hands on 5 of them, with 1 more slated for delivery in the next couple of months. I plan to keep at least one of these for myself (as I said, I travel a lot), so that leaves 4 available for now. The Belair lists for $799, and if Voyage-Air Guitar had any available stock (they don’t, as of this writing), you’d have to pay them $749 for one. We’re selling ours for $699, and we’ll even include free ground shipping anywhere within the contiguous United States! The Christmas Season is upon us, and you know you want one of these! Call or email us to claim yours!
Here’s a video demo I did of this fabulous guitar:
Hello, faithful RedZone readers! As you may have noticed, I’ve decided to implement a new system for blogging. In the past, I’ve used the built-in blogging feature of SandVox, the software I used to build our site. I’ve found SandVox to possess a very good balance of features vs ease-of-use, and the all-important WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) functionality, which allows one to see the real-time, visual impact of changes to your site design, rather than having to publish the site before viewing the changes. I haven’t been thrilled with SandVox’s blogging functionality, however, so I’ve decided to incorporate WordPress, and see if I can get it to play nice with SandVox. Please bear with me, while I figure out how best to take advantage of this new platform.
So, we’ve been very busy little RedZone elves, of late. There’s lots of new gear in the store, and much, much more on order and arriving soon! If you get a chance, please stop in the store for a visit! There’s really no substitute for the experience of spending some time in the store. It’s a relaxing, friendly environment, and I promise, there’ll be no pressure to buy anything. You have my word on that. Browsing, touching, playing the instruments, and asking lots of questions are all highly encouraged.
We need input! Drop us a line, send us an email, call us on the phone, or send me a psychic message via your toaster, and give us some ideas about what gear you’d like to see in the store. We’re doing our best to build an inventory of what we consider unusual, eclectic, quirky gear, but we also want to carry stuff that YOU find interesting, so give us a shout, mkay? If we can get hold of it, we’ll do our best to do so.
Some of the new stuff we’ve added recently:
Of course, we have more standard fare, as well, such as these:
Vintage 1981 Dean Custom
Vintage 1974 Ibanez 2372 Les Paul Professional
2006 Limited Edition Ibanez Artwood Twin 2670RE #13 of 45
Voyage-Air VAOM-04 folding travel guitar