Hauling heavy gear to entertain passers-by can be a pain for street or subway musicians… literally. The Caseic from Florida’s Zachary DeJarnette could make such things less of a chore, by combining a guitar case with an amplifier and speaker combo.
Though street guitarists might place something like the Boss Cube Street II in a guitar’s hard case while performing, to keep the setup neat while the case serves as a loose change collector, getting the gear to where it needs to be can be a bit of a cumbersome handful.
The Caseic does the same kind of thing but can be carried in one hand. DeJarnette has been working on the idea since 2013, setting up a company on 2017 after graduating High School and sending out prototypes to the like of Post Malone and Carlos Santana (though sadly the latter was damaged in transit) to gauge interest and promote the concept. Now he’s launched a production bid on Kickstarter.
The latest prototype weighs in at 15.6 lb (7 kg), not including the player’s guitar of course, and the case has been designed to accommodate “most guitar shapes and sizes.”
It comes rocking an integrated Blackstar Super Fly portable guitar amplifier rated at 12 watts that’s powered by eight AA-sized batteries for ease and portability, though a Li-ion battery pack that can be topped up over USB is being looked into.
The amp features one channel for microphone or line input and another for guitar, there’s EQ to tweak your tone as well as reverb and overdrive, and Bluetooth is cooked in for setting up backing tracks wirelessly from a smartphone, or dialing in digital tones through a companion app. Players can also cable up a music player via the 3.5-mm jack up top. The setup outputs to two 4-inch 50-W speakers built into the case, and can also be connected to monitors or soundboards over XLR.
It looks like a pretty nifty idea, and sounds pretty good in the sample videos on the Kickstarter project page too. Early bird backers will need to stump up US$399 for a Caseic bundle, which shaves $150 off the expected retail price. If all goes to plan, shipping is estimated to start in December.
Caseic guitar case rocks built-in combo amp for setup and play ease [New Atlas]