Fusion Urban Series UG-03-BK Dreadnought Acoustic Gig Bag.
|
At first I have to admit that I was skeptical of any soft shell gig bag that could offer the type of protection I needed for my acoustic instruments. They all seemed to lack the proper padding, storage compartments , durability and internal stability that I was always looking for.
Then I heard about this bag from the folks at Fusion, which has those four items with a couple of other extra pleasant surprises. Most of the features are pretty good, with one major exception. |
The space inside
A couple of features that impressed me were the double shell and the neck stabilizer.
|
This makes for a fairly protective lining. 20mm foam padding on both the outside, inside, front and back.
|
|
The neck stabilizer
This was a feature that was missing in many other gig bags. I've also never saw one that was so well made.
|
The double shell
|
|
The outer compartments
As you can see, there are three compartments on the outside, plus a front hand grip. The storage capacity is immense, although I can't see why anyone would want to fill them all up, as the whole point of a gig bag is to cut down on the overall weight when compared to a hard shell case.
|
|
|
|
Top and bottom
|
|
Here was a feature I wasn't expecting: a hard rubber cushion on the top and bottom of the case.
The back
Here you'll see some wonderful features. Not only are there shoulder straps but you'll also see belts that clip around the hip and the waist, thus making the bag more stable when carried on your back. There's also a rear compartment for storing those straps. Nice.
Excellent construction
This could be a make or literally break deal for me, the strength of the zippers and handle. In both cases they look and feel pretty rugged.
|
|
A bonus feature -
a water resistant outer shell.
My only gripe, too little room at the top.
One of the features that you'll see in a hardshell case is the extra room that is provided at the top. Here, as you can see, there is very little of it. As good as padding as there is with the outer shell, a solid hit from above could possibly result in damage. This is a feature I hope they correct in the future.
My bottom line.
Despite my only gripe about the bag it has so many other features that I made the decision to keep it. So far I've never experience a top hit as described above and considering I'll only be using this product for car and camper travel I think it will more than serve it's purpose. Would I use for plane travel? Definitely not. Sure, if they allow it as a carry on that's one thing, but I believe you'll always be taking your chances in situations like that and besides, this can be considered a tad large for carry on baggage with a majority of airlines.