Parker Guitars 2016?

[Petar Bogdanov]

First I'm hearing about any of this. It's a shame really. My old guitar teach once let me play his old parker (IDK which model but it was one of the last hard tail models they made) and it was probably the nicest guitar I've ever played. Thin neck, crazy low action, and incredibly resonant considering how light weight it was.

Why do people think resonant = heavy? Acoustics are much more resonant than electrics and they're much lighter. Tap a piece of wood and a sheet of paper, see which makes more noise?

Guitars like Parkers, Artistides, Ibanez S-series and Blackmachines are resonant because they're lighter.

 

[7 Strings of Hate]

Used Parker Guitars Maxx Fly Solid Body Electric Guitar Silver | Guitar Center

GC has a mislabeled Fly for a decent price - Not sure if it's a Stealth or a post-'03 Fly with a plugged trem bar hole. I emailed them as to whether it's hardtail or not. I may jump on it.

A modded Pre-Refined Fly in gray, as well as a rough-looking Mojo with a GK internal kit are on the ebay for prices worth considering.

I'm pretty sure its a post 2003. It not a plugged trem hole, its just the black plastic bushing they moved to after 2003, as well as the 3 knob control lay out. Pre 2003 have 4 knobs.




I'm actually going to put up my fly for sale(hit me up if your interested ) to fund another maxxfly(if I can find one) I think. Its hard. I love my Parkers more than any other guitars I'v owned, but I gell my maxxfly's shape a little more. Rarer bird though.




Edit: I was looking on youtube and came across my actual guitar in a video that the shop I picked it up from did. I noticed they also did that lime green fly vid a few posts above.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRBhYxnZUqw

 

[narad]

Why do people think resonant = heavy? Acoustics are much more resonant than electrics and they're much lighter. Tap a piece of wood and a sheet of paper, see which makes more noise?

Guitars like Parkers, Artistides, Ibanez S-series and Blackmachines are resonant because they're lighter.

Why even discuss it? Just being generally resonant is not even a particularly good thing. If you want something to be more resonant, make it hollow. Or make it hollow and metal. That doesn't make it sound better as a musical instrument. It's become nothing more than something for people to say in their NGD that sort of sounds like some objective measure of a well-made instrument, perhaps just because clunky, cheap crap guitars are frequently not very resonant. Should be in a sticky somewhere...

 

[7 Strings of Hate]

^Thats true ya know.

 

[Sermo Lupi]

The terms people use to describe tone are a whole other can of worms, honestly You'd swear some posters write for the cooking channel: 'the Juggernauts deliver plenty of meaty mids, but with just the right amount of top-end sizzle. Really combines well with the mahogany body of the guitar they're in, which gives chords a large, satisfying chunk when palm-muted.'

With all the boutique luthiers out there these days, as well as the boom in home recording technology, I'm surprised no one has created a testbed instrument with set specifications, and changed out body woods, top woods, neck woods, and so on, to actually test their differences in tone. There have been some tests on neckthrough vs. bolt-on in the past, but usually these experiments aren't very objective or scientific. Definitely still room for someone to bring some science into the tone discussion and do things properly.

 

[Petar Bogdanov]

Why even discuss it? Just being generally resonant is not even a particularly good thing. If you want something to be more resonant, make it hollow. Or make it hollow and metal. That doesn't make it sound better as a musical instrument. It's become nothing more than something for people to say in their NGD that sort of sounds like some objective measure of a well-made instrument, perhaps just because clunky, cheap crap guitars are frequently not very resonant. Should be in a sticky somewhere...

I agree with you. And I raise you "loud acoustically", I think it's actually a drawback.

 

[broj15]

Why do people think resonant = heavy? Acoustics are much more resonant than electrics and they're much lighter. Tap a piece of wood and a sheet of paper, see which makes more noise?

Guitars like Parkers, Artistides, Ibanez S-series and Blackmachines are resonant because they're lighter.

resonant probably wasn't the right word to use in that situation. After rethinking it I'd say "sustain" would be a better way to put it. When you hit a chord you could feel it vibrate through the whole body/neck of the guitar and it would ring out for a while (I'm talking acoustically, not plugged in, as pickup output and gain would have a greater effect in that situation).

With all the boutique luthiers out there these days, as well as the boom in home recording technology, I'm surprised no one has created a testbed instrument with set specifications, and changed out body woods, top woods, neck woods, and so on, to actually test their differences in tone. There have been some tests on neckthrough vs. bolt-on in the past, but usually these experiments aren't very objective or scientific. Definitely still room for someone to bring some science into the tone discussion and do things properly.

totally unrelated, but I've always thought it would be cool for someone like the Mythbusters to take a crack at the tone wood debate using a similar method and some kind of software that could actually measure the sound waves and see what kind of frequencies are more present (as in louder and more obvious) with different woods.

 

[narad]

I agree with you. And I raise you "loud acoustically", I think it's actually a drawback.

Ha, I had written *exactly* "loud acoustically" as another irrelevant observation that pops up in everyone's NGDs, but decided I was getting too off track.

resonant probably wasn't the right word to use in that situation. After rethinking it I'd say "sustain" would be a better way to put it. When you hit a chord you could feel it vibrate through the whole body/neck of the guitar and it would ring out for a while (I'm talking acoustically, not plugged in, as pickup output and gain would have a greater effect in that situation).

And as far as sustain goes, I have heard some builders talk about guitars being too resonant in a bad way, and that it can kill the perception of sustain by adding the opposite waves. So in that sense, resonant guitars can actually limit sustain. Whether that's really what's going on or not I don't know... but I've never had a guitar where I thought, "This would be a much better instrument if it just had more sustain"

 

[marcwormjim]

but I've always thought it would be cool for someone like the Mythbusters to take a crack at the tone wood debate using a similar method and some kind of software that could actually measure the sound waves and see what kind of frequencies are more present (as in louder and more obvious) with different woods.

The sad thing is, you don't even need to get that in-depth to test the majority of claims, and those who have posted their results on youtube have only gotten death threats for their troubles. Such is any industry built on absurd misinformation.

 

[Petar Bogdanov]

The sad thing is, you don't even need to get that in-depth to test the majority of claims, and those who have posted their results on youtube have only gotten death threats for their troubles. Such is any industry built on absurd misinformation.

I thought the Strandberg test was pretty close to scientific. The "guitar" was simplistic and it didn't test for variance within a species, but it can show you what wood does.

 

[marcwormjim]

That's a whole can of worms; and I'll bow out of the discussion before I'm guilty of taking the thread too far off-topic.

If I buy another Parker Fly in the next few days, I hope I can get parts for it - Maybe similar to what Headless Research/JCustom is doing with Steinberger.

 

[StevenC]

but I've never had a guitar where I thought, "This would be a much better instrument if it just had more sustain"

But compare your guitars to Nigel Tufnel's '59 Les Paul.