Dream guitar (pt.3) - Parker Fly Deluxe

The first I ever saw/touched was a red model in a Lisbon shop. This was 1994 or so. But, as it seems common around here (unlike in Oporto where you can try every guitar you want), if you pick up a guitar, you must have serious intentions of buying or you'll be advised not to touch any guitar.



How can one form an opinion without trying several guitars ?!...
The more I learn about guitar, the more ignorant I feel (and I'm happy about it, as it's an excuse for me to further investigate).

But then, five minutes were enough for me to see/hear/feel that this guitar has a different concept behind it which led to mindblowing experience. Yes, five minutes were enough.

The piezo pickup and all electronics are just perfect, the neck feel, the body shape, the hardware quality, the tremolo (and all the things you can do with it, fixed, floating...), the pickups sound, almost everything. For me, it has two flaws... one is obvious and not really a flaw: the battery; every now and then I forget to unplug the guitar and puff... there goes the battery. The other is a problem: I find the knobs too light and when I strum a little harder, the general volume knob tends to go down a bit. Maybe it's only me...

But I was fortunate enough to travel to London a year or so after (Denmark St, to me more specific) and experiment with a Deluxe and a Supreme model for as long as I wanted. I didn't buy the guitar there and then, but it became a matter of time. Two years later, in another store, in another continent, I got myself a beautiful Dusty Black model.

The specs are...

- Body wood: Poplar
- Construction: Solid one piece
- Finish: Polyurethane
- Bridge: Parker custom cast aluminum
- Vibrato system: Custom flat spring with balance adjustment
- Vibrato modes: fixed, bend down only or floating
- Neck Wood: Basswood
- Neck Design: Solid one piece with carbon-glass-epoxy reinforcement
- Neck-Body Joint: Reinforced carved (glued) joint
- Scale lenght: 25.5"
- Number of Frets: 24 frets (hardened stainless steel)
- Fret size: .045" high, .095" wide
- Fretboard: Carbon-Glass-Epoxy .020" composite
- Fretboard shape: 10"-13" conical form
- Finish: Polyurethane
- Nut: GraphTech
- Nut width: 1.68"
- String spacing: Bridge: 2.14"; Nut: 1.43"
- Truss rod: custom design high-strength music wire
- Tuners: Sperzel® 6-inline locking tuners
- Magnetic pickups: 2x DiMarzio custom wound (humbucker)
- Piezo system: 6-element Fishman piezo
- PreAmp/Mixer: Active custom Fishman stereo preamp
- Controls: Mag volume, Mag tone, Piezo volume, Mag/Piezo 3 way selector
- Output: Split stereo or summed mono ("Smart Switching" jack)
- Weight: 4 3/4 pounds