The Strobel Rambler - a travel guitar that's equally at home on stage

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Most travel guitar are instruments built to a compromise. They are compact and lightweight, and usually this means they are fine for practice or something to bash around on while travelling, but you wouldn't really want to play a gig with one.

Not so the Strobel Rambler, which is a professional quality electric guitar that just so happens to be able to be able to be packed away in a standard-sized briefcase. We first looked at Strobel Guitars back in 2008 when their sole offering, the Rambler Custom, would have been out of the price range of many people wanting a travel guitar. They now also offer the Rambler Classic which takes the same concept but makes it available for $599.

Tommy Castro with his Rambler

Strobel Guitars
Rambler™ Travel Electric Guitar

Want to jam when you get there? Practice in the hotel? Jump on stage and play? Take along a Strobel Rambler™ Travel Electric Guitar - a full scale professional instrument that breaks down to fit in a briefcase or computer bag in minutes. This is a great sounding, great playing instrument perfected for the traveling musician. The Rambler™ offers unsurpassed quality, playability and resonance.

The Rambler™ travel guitar features locking tuners located on the bottom of the guitar with the strings loaded from the top of the neck through the patented StringKeeper™. Dual humbucking pickups are switchable from neck to bridge (or both) to provide a fat full sound and excellent tone. Separate tone and volume controls provide a wide range of equalization. Intonation and string action is set with a fully adjustable Tuneomatic bridge. The adjustable nut (a unique feature of the Rambler™ portable travel guitar), allows adjustment of the string action at the top of the neck.

Weighing in at less than five pounds (and with an assembled length of about 30”), the Rambler™ is a very portable guitar. The Rambler™ Classic comes with a nicely padded embroidered gig bag, fitting nicely in the overhead bin when traveling by air. The neck is 17-1/2” and the body measures just over 15” when disassembled, so they fit in most all computer bags. Scale length is a standard 24-1/2” Gibson scale with 20-21 frets. The nut is 1-5/8” wide and the neck profile is a thin “C” shape.

Travelers typically take the Rambler™ Professional Electric Travel Guitar apart and place the separated neck and body in their carry on luggage. To take the guitar apart, simply loosen the single thumbwheel on the top of the neck and remove the StringKeeper™. Wrap the strings around the body through the StringCatcher™, tucking the StringKeeper™ between the middle tuners. Then take off the neck by loosening the four body thumbwheels. Simply reverse the process to assemble the guitar.

While playing and sounding like a full size electric guitar, the Rambler™ portable guitar has a sonic advantage due to the absence of a headstock. The string energy (normally wasted as the vibrations pass over the nut) is channeled back into the neck, providing superior resonance and sustain. Neck relief is adjustable with the dual action truss rod, allowing more or less relief as desired. The Rambler™ Classic has a solid Maple body, in either Tobacco or Cherry Sunburst. To order a Rambler™, please log on to www.StrobelGuitars.com.

Strobel Guitars also offers the Rambler™ Custom Travel Guitar, with choice of tone woods, neck shape, fretboard, inlay initials and a full line of custom colors. Some of the many custom options include gold hardware, quilted AAA maple tops, coil tapping, on board pre-amp, custom inlay, Piezo bridge, etc. You can also check out the new Rambler Custom Bass Travel Guitar at www.StrobelGuitars.com.

The Rambler™ Classic Travel Electric Guitar
Spec Sheet

• Fits in a computer case for travel
• Easily breaks down without tools
• Removable interchangeable neck
• Full 24 ½” scale length
• 12” fretboard radius
• 20 medium jumbo frets
• Overall length 30”
• Weight between 4 to 5 lbs.
• Double action truss rod
• Adjustable Nut
• Removable StringKeeper™ for fast assembly
• StringCatcher™ to protect finish
• Patented innovative design
• Dual humbucking pick ups
• Volume and tone controls
• Locking tuners
• Tunomatic bridge
• Solid Canadian Maple body
• Tobacco or Cherry Sunburst finish
• Maple neck with Rosewood fretboard
• Mother of Pearl dot inlays
• Expert, proprietary luthier fabrication

Thanks to Russ Strobel for this info.

G L Wilson

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