Jammy Is the Portable Digital Guitar I've Always Wanted

LAS VEGAS - I always miss my guitar when I travel for work (like I am now for CES), and I'm sure as heck not going to lug my giant acoustic through airport security anytime soon. That's why I was delighted to discover Jammy, a $399 portable digital guitar that you can stuff in a backpack and play anywhere.

This black mini-guitar is only 27 inches long when fully assembled and 17 inches long when broken apart, and is comprised of three detachable pieces that snap off easily for when you need to throw it in a bag (Jammy says it's even carry-on compliant, so you can bring this thing on a plane if you really need to shred in the sky).

Jammy's 15-fret neck gives you plenty of room to noodle around (a standard acoustic guitar usually packs 22), and features real steel strings with adjustable tension so you can simulate the feel of your axe at home.

While the small size is nice, where Jammy really shines is in its internal smarts. The guitar packs a slew of onboard guitar tones and effects that let you switch styles on the fly, and can automatically adjust to a variety of popular guitar tunings without making you twist any knobs (as someone who hates tuning their guitar, this alone is a huge selling point for me). You can even record tracks directly from the guitar and import them to a PC or Mac.

Jammy is also quite versatile in terms of connections, packing a 1/4-inch cable for use with standard amps, a headphone jack so that you can play silently without waking your roomates up, and a USB-C port for charging and connecting to the guitar to a MIDI device or audio interface. You can expect around 4 hours of battery life when jamming on the go.

I spent a few minutes noodling around with Jammy while connected to a standard amplifier, and was impressed by both how light and comfortable the guitar was to use, as well as how it more or less felt and sounded like a standard guitar. The strings took a little bit of getting used to, however, and the guitar's sound output seemed to be cutting in and out (which could have been a result of a hectic, interference-filled CES show floor).

Quirks aside, I can't wait to get my hands on the final version of Jammy so I'm prepared for the next time I get the sudden urge to write a ballad in my hotel room. The guitar is currently available for pre-order from Jammy's website for an early bird price of $399 (it'll later be $599), and is set to start shipping in February.

Credit: Tom's Guide

TOPICS

Mike Andronico is Senior Writer at CNNUnderscored. He was formerly Managing Editor at Tom's Guide, where he wrote extensively on gaming, as well as running the show on the news front. When not at work, you can usually catch him playing Street Fighter, devouring Twitch streams and trying to convince people that Hawkeye is the best Avenger.