Also known as travel and mini guitars, 3/4 electric guitars are scaled-down guitars with a scale length of 20 inches or 50 cm. These guitars are easier to transport, and they are designed for youth, children, or anyone with smaller hands.
Unlike the standard full-sized guitars with a body of around 38 inches and a scale length of around 25.5 inches, the 3/4 guitars with a shorter total and scale length are much easier to handle.
Children between 6 to 12 years of age won’t have any problems sitting with this type of instrument, pluck its strings, and hold it firmly. This compact guitar is very comfortable to play and is also suitable for adults and professional players who are often on the road.
Our Top Choices for 2024
In this article, we’ve gathered the best-reviewed 3/4 electric guitars in 2024 and made a detailed and comprehensive Buyer’s Guide to help you get the best guitar for your needs on your next shopping trip.
1. Fender Squier 3/4-Size Kids Mini Stratocaster Electric Guitar – Learn-to-Play Bundle
The Squire Mini Stratocaster by Fender is an ideal instrument for all of those who are looking for a down-sized instrument but with all the optics and styling as well as sound familiar with Fender.
It comes with the Learn-to-Play bundle that contains everything you need to start learning how to play and, therefore, is perfect for beginners. The bundle includes: Fender Squire Mini Stratocaster Electric Guitar; Black 10G amplifier; Fender clip-on Chromatic tuner; Fender 10 feet instrument cable; Fender guitar strap; 3 packs of Fender picks; Free trial of Fender online playing lessons; Austin Bazaar guitar essential instructional DVD.
This guitar is a smaller version of the Bullet Strat, and thanks to its great features, it’s perfect for players with smaller hands, students, beginners, as well as travelers. Some of the highlighted features of the redesigned Mini Strat are thinner and lightweight body, increasing the playing comfort and reducing the overall weight as well as easy-to-play C-shaped neck profile.
Thanks to its dynamically responsive single-coil pickups, this guitar provides a crisp and rich sound. With the sealed die-cast tuning machines, you will have reliable tuning stability as well as smooth gear action.
2. LyxPro 3/4 Electric Beginner’s Guitar With the Starter Kit for Kids
The beautifully designed 3/4 Electric Beginner’s Guitar by LyxPro comes with the ultimate starter package for boys and girls, with all the equipment they need to start rocking right out of the box. It’s an excellent choice for beginners as well as intermediate-level players aged nine to twelve.
The Starter Kit includes: a 30-inch electric guitar, 20W amplifier, carrying bag, spare strings, guitar cable, spare picks, clip-on digital tuner and battery, user manual, and a shoulder strap.
The hand-crafted electric guitar has a harmonious design with strings, marker dots, frets, and pegs in a scaled-down size but evenly distributed for the ultimate and the full-size-like feel and sound. It’s made of high-quality materials and premium wood, and it features a rosewood fingerboard and a sturdy Canadian maple neck combined with durable strings.
The 20W amplifier has a built-in speaker, headphone jack and AUX input, allowing you to play along with music on your phone or MP3 player. It also features a number of integrated controls, such as bass, gain, treble, volume, and grind.
This pack comes with many useful accessories, including a comfortable shoulder strap, six extra strings, two extra picks, as well as an instruction book, teaching the beginner players how to tune their guitar, experiment with different effects and controls on the guitar and amp, helping them develop their creativity and musicality and get the best sound possible.
3. Ibanez 3/4 Size Mikro Electric Guitar
The Ibanez 3/4 Size Mikro Electric Guitar is an excellent choice for young rockers, beginners, and just anyone who like compact guitars with smaller body and neck.
Although small in size, the Ibanez Mikro is not a toy. This scaled-down model features almost identical construction as the Ibanez full-size GRG and GRX models. It’s a high-quality compact guitar made of premium wood, featuring the same setup as its full-size equivalents.
Thanks to its 22-inch scale maple neck, this electric guitar offers low tension and small size, making it perfect for pro players who like to rehearse while traveling as well as small-handed beginners. Thanks to the low tension of the stings, it’s really easy to pull and bend them, which can potentially make the guitar out of tune.
However, the Ibanez Mikro is an excellent value for money, very versatile, easy to play, and if you’re looking to buy a guitar for a kid or anyone with small hands really, this model is definitely worth your consideration. This guitar is also available as a left-handed model.
4. Rise by Sawtooth 3/4 Electric Guitar Pack
The Rise by Sawtooth 3/4 Electric Guitar is great for players of any skill level and every age, from beginners to pros, from kids to adults. It is an exceptionally versatile and compact instrument, easy to play and carry anywhere you go.
The 3/4 Electric Guitar by Rise by Sawtooth is a real electric guitar, producing excellent sound. Made of premium wood and other materials, this instrument is built to last. It features a maple neck, basswood body, and maple fretboard with dot inlays.
With its 24-inch scale length and adjustable bridge, this rocking guitar is extremely easy to handle and is perfect for kids and those who are just starting out as guitar players. It comes in a pack with everything you need to get started, including a portable beginner’s amp (the power adapter and batteries are not included), guitar cable, guitar shoulder strap, big carrying bag, pitch pipe, three picks as well as online lessons.
All in all, this mini electric guitar by Rise by Sawtooth is a great value for money. You will be getting a beautifully designed, high-quality electric guitar with a solid basswood body and a nice-looking sunburst maple veneer. It’s a dream Christmas or birthday gift for any kid with rocking ambitions.
5. CNZ Audio ST Mini Electric Guitar
The CNZ Audio ST Mini Electric Guitar is a 3/4 short scale guitar of incredible quality, aesthetic looks, amazing tone, and affordable price.
Thanks to its 22-inch body with a sleek design and the smooth maple neck, this guitar allows for great comfort and easy playability and is perfect for children, people with smaller hands, and beginner’s skill level.
Even though the CNZ Audio electric guitar is small in size, coupled with the single-coil, humbucking pickups, and premium electronics, it produces a great variety of distinct and original tones. You’ll be able to take it everywhere with you and travel with it without worrying about using up valuable space.
All the guitars by CNZ Audio are solid instruments built with great craftsmanship and modern technology, forming a combination of smooth feel, classic design, and a rocking tone. This model comes in a variety of colors, such as pink, fiesta red, blue, black, and sunburst.
Get this guitar and surprise your kids or grandkids for their birthday, Christmas, New Year’s, or just because.
6. Jackson JS Series Dinky Minion Electric Guitar
The Jackson JS Dinky Minion Electric Guitar is an excellent guitar for all of those who are looking for a massive sound in a tiny package.
With its 22.5-inch scale maple neck and 12-inch radius amaranth fingerboard, this instrument is ideal for young shredders as well as grownups who need an easy-to-travel guitar packed with all the features they love.
Featuring the poplar body, neck with graphite reinforcement rods, fingerboard with 24 jumbo frets, and sharkfin inlays, this mini guitar packs some punch, and you will feel as though you’re playing a full-sized instrument.
Other great features include a sculpted heel for effortless playing on the upper register, rear-angled headstock for reducing playing fatigue and evenly distributed tension, three-way blade switching on the output humbucking pickups, a hardtail bridge with a string-through-body as well as black hardware.
Buying the Minion Electric Guitar by Jackson will guarantee you a high-quality instrument for the lowest price on the market as well as a 45-day return and 60-day price protection policy.
7. Raptor 3/4 Scale Kids Starter Electric Guitar
With its solid basswood body with a rosewood fretboard and maple neck, The Raptor 3/4 Starter Electric Guitar is an exceptionally lightweight instrument easy to carry and handle. It’s a perfect first guitar for kids, youth, and adults with smaller hands who are just starting out.
Equipped with a single humbucker with tone and volume control, this 36-inch guitar offers players a wide range of vibrant and rich tones as well as resonance. It comes with a starter kit containing everything you might need to start playing right away. It includes a 3-Watt amplifier, one digital tuner, a gig bag, shoulder strap, guitar cable, one pick, one whammy bar, and one pack of replacement strings.
With Raptor, you can rest assured you’ll be getting a high-quality product, with a strong body and an edgy sound. This junior guitar comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Buyer’s Guide to Help You Make the Right Choice
There are several factors you need to consider when purchasing your 3/4 electric guitar. You should also keep in mind that 3/4 travel guitars are smaller, and therefore they will not have the sound of their full-sized equivalents. Nevertheless, if you find it hard to maneuver standard size fingerboard or you need a starter guitar for your kid, then a smaller guitar is the right choice for you.
But first, study these important features of electric guitars to make a well-informed final buying decision:
Feature #1. Body material
While you can change the bridges, pickups, electronics, and tuners at any point in time, the body, as well as the neck, of your electric guitar is something you are stuck with. Therefore, you need to pay attention to the body materials and make sure you’re getting the look, sound, and feel you want.
When it comes to different tonewoods of the guitar’s body, there’s a wide range of options. Each of them offers a unique appeal and sound. Some of the most common body woods are mahogany, alder, ash, maple, and basswood.
Mahogany is a darker brown wood, which is quite heavy but well-wearing. This type of wood is mostly used for guitars meant for metal, blues, and rock, giving an overall warm and nicely balanced sound.
Alder is a medium-weight wood, and perhaps one of the most neutral of all tonewoods, making it perfect for players who are looking for a versatile guitar. It has a clear and strong full-bodied sound, with excellent mids and lows.
Ash is another tonewood suitable for different genres. It’s a bright-colored and softer wood, producing a warm tone with a bit weaker midrange but very good sustain and twang.
Maple is a beautiful flame-like wood, which is quite hard and is therefore often found in hollow and semi-hollow body guitars. It is good for brightening the sound of otherwise muddy and murky tones typical for hollow-bodied guitars.
Basswood is very lightweight and bright tonewood, and out of all, it’s the most cost-effective. Because of its low price, many would think that this is a poor-quality wood, but it couldn’t be farther from the truth. It is an excellent wood, and is mostly used for guitars designed for beginners.
Feature #2. Body type
There are three main guitar body types, hollow, semi-hollow, and solid, each of them offering a unique feel and sound.
The full hollow-body guitars are mostly used by jazz and blues players. This is because it creates large amounts of low-end sounds as well as feedback.
The semi-hollow guitars are excellent for a variety of sounds, from blues to hard rock. These have less resonance and feedback than full-hollow body guitars, which means you can build up quite some gain before getting any of these issues.
Here is an illustration of the electric guitar’s body parts. Check out the infographic:
And finally, we have solid-body electric guitars. Most guitars are made of a full and solid body, and they are great for blues and soft rock all the way up to death metal. These guitars don’t have any feedback or low-end resonance and can generate a tight sound with an exceptionally snappy attack.
Feature #3. The neck
When choosing the right neck of your guitar, you will probably be more concerned about the feel rather than sound. Therefore, you should pay attention to the neck’s size and shape.
For players who want to be able to play fast, slimmer and smaller necks would be the ones to go for. On the other hand, if you want to be able to dig into bigger chords, you should choose larger and chunkier necks.
When it comes to the feel of your guitar’s neck, you should choose proper materials and finish. And so we have:
Maple necks – commonly found in guitars with slimmer necks; it is a light-colored wood, with a smooth surface and just enough rigidity to keep it stable;
Mahogany necks – this is a heavy and darker colored wood with a visible grain; due to its weight, it is suitable for medium-sized and thicker necks;
Rosewood necks – makes for even darker colored wood with unfinished grain and smooth feel;
Multi-ply necks – made of different wood types; to keep the smooth feel of a maple neck, but make it strong enough to handle heavier strings, other wood types stripes are added through the neck.
Feature #4. Pickups
There are two main types of pickups in electric guitars: single-coil and humbucker. Single coil pickups are loved for the bright and sharp sound they produce. However, they produce a large amount of hum or treble-like noise, which can heavily interfere with high-volume tones.
Then, there are humbucker pickups, which are essentially two single-coil pickups paired in a particular way. These produce a much deeper and warmer sound, and with these, you won’t have issues with humming background noise, typical for single-coil pickups. These are excellent for a variety of sounds, including jazz, blues, rock, and more.
Feature #5. Electronics
There is a variety of options when it comes to guitar electronics. Unlike bass, where you have active or powered electronics, with electric guitars, these run completely passively, and you don’t need an additional power source. Nevertheless, these can offer a wide range of controls and tones, and some of the most common would include: volume, tone control, coil split/tap (allowing you to change to humbucking pickup’s wiring to make them sound more like a single coil), mid-boost (adding volume and boost to mid-range tones), killswitch (turning off the signal to get a staccato effect).
Feature #6. Accessories
Usually, when you’re buying a new guitar, you can expect to get some extra accessories with it. Perhaps, the most important accessory for your electric guitar is an amp. The amplifiers don’t only amplify the sound of your guitar but also produce it. Rather than picking up the sound, the electric guitar pickups react to electromagnetic waves created by string vibrations. That’s why you will need an amplifier to actually hear the sound you create. Other useful accessories include:
Guitar cable – to connect your guitar to an amp. Most electric guitars today come in a package with a cable included;
Shoulder strap – to be able to play your guitar standing up. In the case your guitar doesn’t come with strap mounts, you can easily install them later;
Pack of spare strings – getting a spare pack of strings would come in quite handy, as they need to be replaced often, especially steel strings;
Some extra picks – unless you play only with your fingers, you will need good quality picks;
Carrying bag – you can expect to get an unpadded gig bag, padded bag, or hard case bag; an unpadded bag serves the purpose of carrying a guitar, but it doesn’t offer much protection; padded ones are somewhat better at protecting your instrument; while a hard case bag is a heavy-duty carrying bag offering ultimate protection, but will probably add to the total cost of the whole package; for most users and their purposes, a padded carrying bag is just enough;
Tuner – for beginners, this is an especially useful tool since it will make tuning your guitar a much easier task.
To Wrap Up
With so many available options on the market, getting a new electric guitar can be quite challenging. At the end of the day, picking the guitar will depend on your personal preferences, the overall feel you’re looking for, sound, and looks. But, ideally, you would want a guitar that’s versatile, reliable, easy to use, and affordable.
If you’re a beginner or simply need a smaller guitar, you can’t go wrong with any of the models from our top-rated list. To make sure you’re getting exactly what you need and a guitar that fits your playing style, go through our Buyer’s Guide and determine what kind of features you are looking for.
FAQs
Q: Can adults use a 3/4 size guitar?
A: Even though these are designed for children of up to twelve years of age, the 3/4 size guitar can also be used by adults. Thanks to their compact size, they are quite convenient for traveling, and even the most experienced players choose these mini guitars for their road trips.
Q: Are 3/4 guitars good for beginners?
A: If you’re an adult beginner and you don’t have small hands, you can do just fine with full-sized guitars. However, for kids, or people with smaller hands, who are just starting out, the 3/4 electric guitar would certainly be a preferred option.
Q: What is the difference between 3/4 guitar and full?
A: When it comes to scale length, which is measured from the guitar’s nut to the bridge, the 3/4 guitars are shorter, with a scale length of around 20 inches, unlike the full-size guitars, measuring the scale length of about 25.5 inches.
