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Acoustics

Emerald X7 OS Carbon Fibre Travel Guitar

Are you planning an extreme excursion or just a pleasant stay at your favourite camping park? Now you can travel with more acoustic style in a bijou form.

Emerald Instruments share an immediate synergy with their name – and, of course, their country of origin, that being none other than the Emerald Isle of Ireland itself. Being an island, this guitar is up for some tough treatment, even having been subjected to use as a paddle when canoeing! Thanks to its petite proportions and ability to be readily stowed in even the most compact of car boots or even boat hulls, the portability of the Emerald is heightened due to its robust endoskeleton.

Build Quality

The body is ostensibly at one with the neck. At the neck block area you may normally anticipate a reinforcing mass of wooden material adjoining the two component body and neck parts, but you are instead left to discover that there is nothing there. In fact, the neck itself is hollow throughout its entire length. Given this hollowness and the lack of internal heel block you have an immediate benefit in saving weight – there is no need for a truss rod.

Similarly, due to the lack of an end block inside the lower bout normally required for adhering the back and sides together. There is also no requirement for additional bracing. The carbon-fibre composite comes into its own for demonstrating its incredible strength-to-weight ratio at the bridge area. The bridge itself is moulded within the top and the bridge pins go straight through this moulding and into the top. No additional internal bridge plate is required, and given that a smaller instrument often needs greater tension in stringing to get up to concert pitch, you can rest assured that this material will outlast most wooden competitors.

The carbon itself is very versatile as it has its own identifiable weave pattern, which makes for a dynamic visual appeal. As the light catches the alternating weave, a flip-flop and almost holographic effect takes place on the top, and the surrounding black burst frames a dark kirsch cherry hue and this contrasts well. The carbon has also been well moulded to produce a very smoothly executed sound port or offset soundhole for monitoring yourself with. The edges are cleanly finished and encouragingly professional in the lack of rough-edge feel. Carrying these principles further, the top of the guitar also has a cleanly cambered lower bout on the bass side, making a suitable armrest, the type of which you would pay a huge premium for on a wooden instrument, and yet here it is as a standard feature.

The Grover machine heads are trouble-free to use thanks to their 18:1 gear ratio and are well seated on a headstock, albeit hollow, but there is a tendency for the head to dip down because of its weight. When you are playing this isn’t really noticeable.

The neck profile has a substantial C cross section to it, a Graph Tech nut and highly lacquered feel, and has clear side markers with a 15-fret body join design. Even the bridge pins are Graph Tech, completing a suite of high-grade appointments. The guitar weighs less than one and a half bags of sugar and has stainless steel frets.

Sound Quality

When strumming this little instrument you can hear that the carbon has an inherent tone all of its own. There are overtones of harp-like qualities in the attack. There is a smoothness which blends well with the surprising projection from the whole body and not just the top. This is a resonant instrument and you can feel this easily both in the body and the neck itself with your left hand. The sonorous nature of the X7 OS carries forward exceptionally well because there is so little material to dampen its vibrations, as there are no compromising structural additions where they are not needed. There are no electrics in this model, which you may be looking for at just over £600, but at the same time you would then lose a little of its robust ‘play in the rain’ appeal.

Part of the brightness to be had from this guitar is found in the stainless steel frets and this embellishes the mellow nature of the guitar’s timbre and sweetens up the top end well. It is a loud guitar when strummed and it maintains a good balance in volume when fingerpicked as well, with additional mid-range plummy subtle honk. It’s not a traditional tone at all, but it is rounded in its own tubular field with redeeming treble and harmonic character outgunning the fundamental tone.

Conclusion

This instrument is excellent at what it does and is capable of resisting variations of climate and humidity. It is highly engineered and is a superb example of modern engineering, employing the best in premium appointments. If you were to consider buying such a tool you know that it will last and last and last. However, at £629 perhaps the attraction of this guitar will be more limited, appealing to regularly travelling, professionally paid singer-songwriters.