The Voyage-air is the brainchild of master
luthier Harvey Leach, who developed this
instrument to be attractive, to sound great, to
play great and... to fold. I was dubious about
that. Guitars, we have been told for decades,
are a delicate balancing act; they’re like the
bumblebee—they’re really not supposed to
work at all, and by some miracle of physics
they don’t immediately implode as soon as you
put strings on. So imagine my surprise when I
opened the shipping box, removed the case
for the first time, pulled out the guitar and
unfolded it and found it was almost in tune
after a voyage of almost 2000 miles.
It’s considered a “travel guitar,” and it truly is
a remarkably portable instrument; however,
that label does it a disservice, because honestly,
it’s a damn nice guitar. It just happens
to have a nifty set of hinges at the heel that
allow the neck to fold over on the top, making
it far more compact and transport friendly.
The Voyage-air is already revolutionizing the
world of travel for many world-class professional
guitarists, such as Thom Bresh and Jody
Maphis, who won’t leave home without their
Voyage-air guitars. There’s also a growing
group of Nashville singer-songwriters who have
adopted this guitar as the essential new tool
that allows them to work anywhere without
sacrificing what a full-bodied guitar brings to
their craft. The case (included) is ultra-light and
high-impact, and can be worn like a backpack.
There’s enough storage inside to accommodate
the ultimate songwriting kit: the guitar, a
laptop, and a digital recorder.
I decided to call Harvey Leach and learn a
little more about how this unique instrument
came into being. He said it began in the usual
way: a guitarist asked him if he could make a
guitar with a removable neck for easier transport,
and having made about 350 guitars with
bolt-on necks, he thought it would be possible.
However, after some experimentation,
he came to the conclusion that the process
of removing a neck from a guitar is daunting
enough for somebody who does it all the time,
let alone somebody who isn’t a trained luthier.
He scrapped that idea and hit upon the notion
of a hinged neck. “In making it simpler for the
user I made it much more difficult for me, but
the goal is always to make it as functional as
possible for the player.”
The production team now includes Lance
McCollum and Hank Mauel, both builders of
highly prized boutique instruments. They, along
with Leach, are the current “custom shop” for
Voyage-air. If you want something other than
what the factory offers, they will build whatever
you want, and it’ll cost about what a custom
handmade Leach, McCollum or Mauel guitar
will cost, which is dependent on materials and
ornamentation.
In Good Hands
One of the first models ended up in the hands
of Thom Bresh, who wanted Leach to send him
one without any preface. “He wanted to play
with it—see how intuitive it really was,” Leach
said. The first time he saw Bresh playing his
guitar was at a NAMM show. “He was sitting at
this booth playing, and there were a bunch of
people around, so he stopped in the middle of
a song and said, ‘Watch this!’ and proceeded
to unscrew the bolt without de-tuning the
guitar. I was horrified—everybody knows if you
take all the tension off a guitar all at once it’s
gonna poke a big hole in the ozone layer or
something—but Bresh just went for it, and the
crowd was standing there dumbfounded when
they saw it fold. Then he said, ‘Oh, that’s not all,
hang on!’ and he tightened it back up and just
started playing. I had no idea it would stay in
tune. I hadn’t talked to him about de-tuning it; it
hadn’t even occurred to me that he’d do it any
other way. That just shocked me. Sometimes the
guys who have all the training get so caught up
in what they know is supposed to be right that it
takes somebody who has no idea about all that
to show them how something really works. That
was quite an epiphany.”
In a phone conversation, Bresh made a point
that hadn’t occurred to me; when you’re
flying with a guitar and you have to walk
for long distances through airports, guitar
cases—especially those sturdy enough for air
travel—get extremely heavy and your hands
stiffen up and cramp, making it difficult to go
straight from the airport to the stage. “This
guitar is—period, the end—the greatest guitar
when you have to fly,” he said. “I don’t have
to worry about turning it over to somebody to
find someplace to put it—I’ve just got it with
me. I put it on my back and walk wherever I
need to go, and it’s so light I almost forget it’s
there.” Bresh tends to travel with an arsenal,
and is really excited about how many more
Voyage-air guitars fit into his trunk than conventional
guitars. For many working musicians, the price of a tank of gasoline has a dramatic
impact on income and expenses; to be able to
fit everything we need into a smaller and more
economical vehicle can mean the difference
between profit and loss. Jody Maphis may
have put it best: “Harvey’s whole thing is, ‘If it’s
not a great guitar, what’s the point?’ For traveling
there’s never been anything like it, but
when you get to the gig and you need to use
it, it’s exactly what it needs to be.”
The Voyage-Air Unfolded
I received for review the VAOM-1C, a smallbodied
mahogany model. The playing experience
with this guitar is pretty much exactly like
playing any other fine factory-made guitar. It’s
extremely comfortable to hold, with a body
depth of 3-3/8” at the neck and 4-1/8” at the
end pin. The fit and finish are top notch; the
tone is rich and satisfying, and it plays very
much like a Martin or Taylor in the same price
range. Just looking at it, there’s no way in the
world you could tell there is anything “different”
about it—and you can’t by playing it,
either. The gold-plated “strap-bolt” does double
duty as a slightly oversized strap button,
so unless you are paying really close attention,
you’d never, ever know it wasn’t a conventional
guitar. The premium mini Schaller-style tuners
are gold plated with black buttons. With
simple tortoise binding and a black and white
purfling rosette, it’s lean and clean, simple and
very attractive.
Go to Page 2 for more the rest of the review and the rating...