Parker DF845 Custom, Project Name "Toxic", Serial Number "NX-01", 2011

[jb63]

I, too, must congratulate you! Its a hard thing to do.
I'm particularly interested in 3 aspects of the Boden:

1) The screws behind the nut holding the strings in place. Are they stronger and tougher density metal than the ones used on my favorite headless, the Carvin Holdsworth series. Those used a J-Custom part and I was regularly having to replace screws that stripped.

2) the weird shape of back of the neck. Any problems getting used to that?

3) how cool you look playing it.

(ha ha! just joking!)

3) the strandberg bridge saddles. how do you feel about the vibrato bridge for tuning and stability?

Thanks and congratulations again, new guitars regularly take 12 years to get around to...

[Nefarius]

Did you manage to find "your" tone with the new guitar?

The perceived difference is greater than the objective difference, it's probably more felt than heard. I accidentally compared a specific song's sound through the wrong preset, which resulted in a tone so ugly and harsh, it almost resulted in stupid me sending it back immediately. Luckily I noticed my mistake in time.

The Suhr pickups definitely are sharper sounding and to match certain presets I have to back off the tone knob about a third of the way. Of course that's perfectly fine, imagine having issues cutting through a mix live and you simply adjust the tone knob a bit instead of turning the volume up. I think mixing engineers the world over just felt a wave of intense arousal rush over them.

1) The screws behind the nut holding the strings in place. Are they stronger and tougher density metal than the ones used on my favorite headless, the Carvin Holdsworth series. Those used a J-Custom part and I was regularly having to replace screws that stripped.

Absolutely no clue, sorry. I haven't even changed the factory strings yet, but I will soon. I play 9s on my Parker and expected 10s to be fine for the Strandberg, since the treble side is half an inch shorter. It's still more tension than the 9s on the Parker though, I will try 9.5s this weekend.

2) the weird shape of back of the neck. Any problems getting used to that?

Almost none for me, even though I've never played one before. Some position changes felt a little rougher at first but that impression was gone on the second day. When I let a musical partner in crime (who plays Les Pauls) try it, he just grabbed it without looking and didn't even notice it, until I told him to turn it over and inspect the neck.

3) how cool you look playing it. (ha ha! just joking!)

I'm a fat old guy and a guitar playing singer fixed in position behind my microphone stand and my pedalboard on the stage. Unless there's life threateningly dangerous levels of pyrotechnics involved, I'll never look cool, no matter the guitar.

3) the strandberg bridge saddles. how do you feel about the vibrato bridge for tuning and stability?

Very much like my two Parkers, the guitar survived shipping (Sweden to Austria) almost perfectly in tune right out of the box. I'm not much of a vibrato bar user and I haven't even put it in its socket yet. I typically only wobble the bridge with the palm of my hand, just like I did with my Parkers, unless a song specifically needs whammy action. Which I'm very bad at.

Tuning stability has been rock solid so far. Adjusting the tuning with the screws behind a vibrato bridge is (literally) a little shaky, but I guess this is something I'll get used to in time and not much of an issue on a very stable guitar anyway. The saddle screws on the bridge felt like they were cutting into my hand at first, but I seem to have adjusted to that just as easily as to the neck shape within only a couple of hours of playing.



Looking forward to another weekend of playing!

Greetings...
Nef

[mmmguitar]

If I may be forgiven for piggybacking on Nef's post, I remind @jb63 and everyone else that I favor a Strandberg, as well; and am also happy to answer any questions comparing it to a Fly. FWIW, between the four Strandbergs I've owned, I've never had an issue with the headpiece screws stripping out or cutting strings (having experienced those pains with other headless hardware designs).

[Nefarius]

Some of you may remember the 2008 Fly Deluxe in Tangerine I used to have.
There's a shot on the first page of this topic.

I guess I needed an orange guitar in my life again.
No regrets.



Greetings...
Nef

[Nefarius]

On stage with the NX-01 on February 10th 2024.
Maybe for the last time, who knows.
But it was glorious as usual.


(Photo taken by my friend Lukas Preininger.)

Greetings...
Nef

[Nefarius]

I was getting the guitar ready for taking some photos tomorrow and couldn't resist recording a little something for you all!



Greetings...
Nef

[Nefarius]

What to do with a green guitar and an old friend who's both a musician and a great photographer?
Exactly... some Parker porn!

Photography by Martin Rettenbacher (the one with the hat, sunglasses, and his tongue out in the background of the shot two posts up).
Some minor editing (cropping, rotating) by me.


Every angle...




















And some ridiculously pretty (and only a little cheesy) beauty shots...






Greetings...
Nef

[Nefarius]

By the way... those minor imperfections are the only battle damage time demanded over the years:


The black coating on the bridge has come off in a couple of spots. The bunched up area on the bass side of the bridge is where my palm usually rests. The coating there is loose, can be moved around a little, but somewhat sticks to the metal with a small amount of pressure applied. It's probably the next bit to come off.


A paint crack at the bass side of the nut, more obvious in the picture than in person.


A paint crack at the treble side of the nut, less obvious in the picture than in person.

Photography by Martin Rettenbacher, just like in the previous post.

Greetings...
Nef