Purchasing a cheap Parker?

[TomWard]

Hello Prof. Manzo and others : )

My 5 year old squire strat's electronics just bit the dust, and it reminded me that I probably should upgrade anyway. Are there any parker guitars on the lower, bottom end price-wise that are worth it, or would it be better to save up, and go for a higher end model sometime in the future. Also, I haven't played much electric, almost only acoustic, but I think that may have been because I really disliked the sound of my half broken squire strat.

Thanks for any advice!

-Tom

[vjmanzo]

Hey Tom! Great to hear from you! For everyone else’s reference: @TomWard worked on the tension calculation/simulation on the 12-String Fly mod from a year ago and the Fly body and neck CAD modeling.

My personal opinion is that the Parker Guitars with composite materials are really quite unique, so I’d say that a Fly or NiteFly is definitely something to explore. The other Parker Guitar models are also highly regarded by many on this forum.

I say, for $700, you can order a NiteFly from Guitar Center, which is an insanely low price for what you’re getting; try it for 45 days and if it’s not for you, return it to your nearest store or just ship it back! The piezo signal from the NiteFly is great, and, in my opinion, even better through a Fishman Aura. If that’s appealing, look for a NiteFly with a battery compartment on the back, which denotes an active piezo preamp; other NiteFlys have a passive piezo system, which also sounds good, but involves introducing some other hot sauce in your signal chain.

Also, since you’ve graduated, you can just call me V.J.

[Barry]

If you've been in Squier territory you might also enjoy looking at the import P series Parkers too, particularly the PM-20 (my personal bias )
The PM 20 (and PM10) are perhaps more Les Paul-like than a Strat but they do have coil cut capability which approximates a twangy thang if that's your thing.

[Patzag]

Hi Tom.
I have a good friend of mine selling a PDF 105 in near pristine shape.
It has a piezo so you can also do the acoustic thing.
If you are interested you can PM me here.
Patrick

[jb63]

Get the cleanest Nitefly you can find. As long as you are up for 22 frets, its the best thing you will find. (But it weighs in like a squier)
Get one with no chips on the carbon fiber neck, you don't care about the body. If you can, get the pickup configuration you like but that's easily changed.
Get one that has the battery compartment, in case you don't want to pay too much attention to piezo levels and stuff like that.

If weight is your thing, get that PDF105. Frets are different, but the 105 can do all the Nitefly stuff.

Nitefly is a real workhorse.

[jb63]

Ha! I just saw that VJ covered all this 2 posts before! He's right! Everything he just said!

[vjmanzo]

Great minds think alike!

[Mr303]

Use the force Luke....Buy the PDF....the PDF....

Mainly because Nitefly’ s weigh more and if you can’t get a Parker Fly a PDF 105 fills in very well.
Before my current deluxe I had a 105 and it was very good at doing Parker like things both physically and audibly.
Buy once cry once too...

[jb63]

https://reverb.com/item/31418921-parker ... -soft-case

Here's one I like. No affil. No frills, but it has all the stuff I would want. Lowball some $650-ish offers and see what happens.