Blackstar unveils the miniature, travel-ready Carry-on electric guitar

Blackstar Carry-on
(Image credit: Blackstar)

Blackstar has unveiled the Carry-on, a small-scale electric guitar that's been designed for unrivaled portability.

Designed by Blackstar in association with the master luthiers at Gordon Smith Guitars, the Carry-on boasts a single-piece okume body and neck, a 19-fret laurel fingerboard with a string-through design and Tune-o-matic bridge and 1:14 ratio tuners.

It ships with a heavy set of strings – 12-54 gauge, to be precise – to compensate for the tension lost by its shorter 20.7" scale length.

Electronics-wise, the Carry-on features a single mini-humbucker that can be coil-split via its volume pot, meaning both humbucker and single-coil tones can be achieved.

It's available in two finishes: Vintage White with a tortoiseshell binding and scratchplate, and Jet Black with cream binding and black scratchplate.

The guitar is available either by itself, or with two different accessory bundle configurations. The Standard pack includes a premium travel bag (included even when the guitar is bought alone), a webbing guitar strap, three medium guitar picks, an A5 travel notebook and a mechanical pencil. The deluxe pack includes all of these, but adds a three-meter instrument cable and and a spare set of strings.

On top of these accessories, the Standard bundle includes an amPlug 2 FLY headphone amp, and the Deluxe bundle includes a FLY 3 Bluetooth mini-amp.

By itself, the Carry-on lists for £299/$349/€369, and the Standard and Deluxe packs are available for £349/$399/€419 and £419/$499/€499, respectively. For more information, head over to Blackstar.

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Sam Roche

Sam was Staff Writer at GuitarWorld.com from 2019 to 2023, and also created content for Total Guitar, Guitarist and Guitar Player. He has well over 15 years of guitar playing under his belt, as well as a degree in Music Technology (Mixing and Mastering). He's a metalhead through and through, but has a thorough appreciation for all genres of music. In his spare time, Sam creates point-of-view guitar lesson videos on YouTube under the name Sightline Guitar.