Martin LX1E Little Martin Acoustic-Electric Travel Guitar with Gig Bag

The Martin LX1E Little Martin is the acoustic-electric travel guitar that actually leaves the house. A solid spruce top on a Modified 0-14 Fret body with a short 23" scale makes it small enough to keep within arm's reach of the couch and light enough to throw in the back of a car, and the Fishman Presys VT system fitted as standard means it can go straight into a PA or an interface. It ships in a soft gig bag, which tells you a fair bit about how Martin expects you to treat it.

A Modified 0-14 Fret body and a 23-inch scale

This is a genuinely small guitar, not a slightly trimmed dreadnought. The Modified 0 body sits comfortably against you sitting down, and the 23" scale pulls the strings to pitch at noticeably lower tension than a full-size Martin, so chords take less grip and bends come easier — handy for beginners, and handy for anyone whose hands are tired at the end of a night. The nut measures 1 11/16" across with 2 1/8" spacing at the bridge, there are twenty frets, and the neck meets the body at the fourteenth on a mortise and tenon joint.

Solid spruce top over mahogany-pattern HPL

The top is solid spruce, and that is the part doing the acoustic work: it flexes, it projects and it opens up as you play it in. Underneath sits a non-scalloped spruce X-brace in 5/16" stock, a sturdier pattern than you would find on a concert instrument and the reason a guitar this size still pushes decent volume when strummed hard. The back and sides are high-pressure laminate in a mahogany pattern rather than solid timber, which keeps the box rigid and reflective and focuses the sound out through that spruce top.

Composite construction that shrugs off humidity

The neck is Rust Birch Laminate and the fingerboard and bridge are FSC certified Richlite, a dense composite. That is a deliberate specification, not a corner cut. Laminates and composites barely move with heat and moisture, so this guitar handles a Queensland summer, a camping trip, a caravan or a month of air-conditioned dryness without the cracking, shrinking or seasonal fret-sprout that a solid-timber instrument can suffer. Richlite is also hard and slick under the fingers and wears extremely well.

Fishman Presys VT under the saddle

The LX1E comes with a Fishman Presys VT system fitted from the factory — the E in the model name. Plug a lead in and it drives a PA, a small acoustic amp or a recording interface directly, so a busking spot, a jam or a quick demo needs nothing more than the guitar and a cable. The pickup sits under a compensated white TUSQ saddle cut to a 16" radius, with a white Corian nut at the other end.

A first Martin, a couch guitar, and the one that lives in the car

Everything about the LX1E is workmanlike: no binding, no fingerboard inlays, white side dots, a multi-stripe rosette, chrome enclosed-gear tuners and a script ink logo on the headstock. It looks and feels like a tool, and it is a real Martin rather than a novelty — a solid spruce top, Martin's own Modified Low Oval neck shape and standard taper, scaled down and specified to survive being carried around. Factory strings are Authentic Acoustic Lifespan 2.0 Phosphor Bronze in Medium gauge, and the soft gig bag it ships in is ready to sling over a shoulder on the way out the door. Buy it as a first Martin, a practice guitar for the lounge room, or the instrument you stop worrying about.

Set up in-store by Guitar World Australia's techs before it ships to you, so it plays perfectly the moment it arrives.