According to the COA, it was completed 3/2/09.
First of all: VJ is to blame for this one. He dangled a transatlantic carrot before me! At some point, my Reverb listing visibility settings must have reset/updated to omit listings not set up for shipping to the US - Meaning I remained blissfully unaware until VJ pushed my wallet into a state of perpetual panic for a month by linking me to the listing. I told myself, "Well...if it hasn't sold by X date, I'll make an offer." In the meantime, my friendly correspondence with the seller further fueled temptation: I'm not a case queen collector, and this Belew was in "player" condition; with several nicks, chips, a DIY shim job to stabilize the leaning posts issue because the owner's not a trem user, and an S1/S2 program switch installed because it was a gigging guitar; and that's what he requires of one. The seller ultimately made me an offer I could no longer refuse.
Anyone who's been visiting this site since 2020 knows I'm somewhat obsessed with the Adrian Belew Signature Fly; and have wanted one since probably 2007.
Being as I've rambled about these intersecting topics across various threads, here's a somewhat abridged/reiterated version:
Ineffective marketing resulted in my never having paid the Line 6 Variax a closer look prior to Adrian mentioning it being incorporated into the development of a production signature SKU with Parker Guitars, intended to succeed the customized Strats he had been touring with. That led me to purchase a Variax 300 and subsequent iterations of those modeling guitars until 2022, when I felt it was time to move on from the performance and fidelity limitations which seem to be inherent in trying to get a piezo-generated signal to superficially resemble a magnetic pickup signal waveform. Adrian himself had abandoned the Variax by 2013. Perhaps "It seemed like a good idea at the time" applies.
So, prior to getting into the under-the-hood photos, let's address a few of the Belew Fly design choices I had preexisting reservations about:
Variax implementation
The Belew Fly implementation of the Variax 1.0 tech is a feature-limited one: The RJ45 connector for updating firmware and loading software-edited guitar models and tunings was omitted for space - Leaving the user constrained to the guitar’s 10 banks of factory presets. Via the retrofitting of a momentary pushbutton installed on the rear electronics cover of the guitar, the two Variax User-assignable banks at each extreme of the unit's rotary selector switch positions (labeled "Custom 1" and "Custom 2") remain functionally available for copying and pasting presets to and between these banks via holding down this button while fiddling with the selector switch. For what it's worth, my Custom Bank 1 presets on the 5 way selector throw are
1. 335 neck PAF
2. Strat neck/middle
3. Tele neck/bridge
4. Strat middle/bridge
5. 335 bridge PAF
If those selections seem rather "vanilla", it's a consequence of vanilla being the only onboard flavor. When I used to own full function Variaxes, all of my banks were fine-tuned, from the virtual pickup pairing and placement, to the pot and cap values. The absence of that feature is pronounced.
13 pin implementation
This instrument's omission of an onboard mag/mix/MIDI-out selector switch, assignable volume pot, or S1/S2 switch is the 13 pin equivalent of a guitar with a single pickup wired directly to the jack. This is due to Adrian preferring to control these parameters via outboard presets and patch-switching performed with a MIDI footswitch controller - But most others (including myself) prefer a degree of onboard control of the guitar synth parameters greater than none. The S1/S2 switch the guitar's previous owner installed is much appreciated; and I find having only an outboard expression pedal with which to control the processed output volume of the 13 pin signal to be a bit tedious (granted, it's less tedious than alternatively routing all the parallel circuits through a single, triple gang master volume pot). A minor sticking point for me is that the integrated 13 pin jack of the RMC PolyDrive board is mounted in a less-than-ideal location (far from the strap button, and effectively pointed straight toward the ground) and is upside-down in orientation, relative to my Graphtech 13 pin jacks (which I've mounted next to the strap button, for the sake of snaking the cable through my strap). This has resulted in my attempting to plug the cable in upside-down every time I swap between 13 pin-outfitted instruments.
Signal routing
Those of you who prefer the option to have your Fly's mag signal bypass the piezo preamp will understand when I say that running a short 1/4" cable from the Belew's "courtesy jack" to an amp is the only time I experience how the guitar and bridge humbucker actually sounds: Between the Sustainiac preamp buffer, RMC preamp buffer, and 13 pin buffer with adjustable gain makeup, you end up with a fairly compressed and processed sound that has the potential to be noisy if you're not being mindful of what's in the signal path. That's just the nature of this beast, however; and the reason I still own 100% passive guitars - I prefer to regard this one as the Swiss army knife it's designed to be, rather than pretend it's the only tool I have for a particular job.
Control layout
As discussed in greater detail in the "Tracking Down a Belew" thread linked near the start of this post, Adrian's choice to constrain the controls for three parallel circuits to three pots and a blade selector switch (through consolidating some functions to outboard gear, while eliminating others entirely) just makes me feel cheated in a way I'd argue is counterintuitive to enticing someone to spend ten thousand dollars on the guitar equivalent of a "lite" software suite. My main takeaway is that Adrian must live on the bridge pickup; given anyone else can only achieve single coil or even bridge+neck pickup switching combinations by way of the Variax banks.
Serviceability
Uh...Yeah. I have Dennis's phone number. Other than the generosity of the piezo junction board, the lack of what I'd describe as service loops for the three parallel circuits stacked on top of each other says everything, concerning the degree of maintenance intended for the owner to perform. The RMC and Sustainiac components (modifications made by Dennis for space constraints notwithstanding) are still produced - But between the proprietary switching pots, selector switch, and various trim pot boards, switch boards, and housings/casings Dennis fabricated to integrate everything, I can't help but think that buying a second Belew and earning my place in Modhalla through reverse-engineering Dennis's reverse engineering might prove two necessary evils. I'm not exactly looking forward to either.
Consequences of the Kitchen Sink approach
I get the impression that Terry was shooting for a base Fly Deluxe specimen in the range of 4 lbs, for the final product to end up at 5.7 lbs with everything fit under the hood. Other concessions seem to have been made, however, with regard to increased body thickness and how that was compensated for. I'll try to illustrate this with the following photos:
Informal measurements of the thickness of the body at the rear behind the high E (control cavity-facing) side of the bridge rout shows inch measurements of 1.40 for the '96 Deluxe, 1.436 for the '97 Classic, 1.52 for the 2011 Supreme, and 1.53 for the '08/'09 Belew. It seems as though the height of the fingerboard relative to the decreased distance between it and the top of the thicker body hasn't been compensated for in the Belew, due to the string ball end retainer holes sitting below the surface of the rout. It may occur to you to ask how that can be the case for the Belew, and not the similarly shaped Supreme - And I'm currently of the mind that what's exacerbating this is the difference in saddle height:
The tops of the Graph Tech Ghost saddles sit nearly flush with the side walls of the bridge, whereas the RMC saddles sit much taller as a consequence of the piezo element being a separate piece which sits atop the saddle, rather than being fabricated as one integrated piece (as the Ghost saddles are). Richard McClish's design succeeds in achieving his intent to concentrate the transducer area to the essential point of contact with the string, for the sake of minimizing the microphonic crosstalk between elements which typically result in poor tracking, MIDI conversion, and sample triggering performance in 13 pin systems (all issues the Graph Tech design exhibits, by the way, and which must be compensated for in input sensitivity settings). The RMC PolyDrive also has a much lower noise floor than the Graph Tech Hexpander (the combination of dialing in noise suppression and minimizing crosstalk artifacts via system settings in the guitar synth setup menus results in a drastically lower effective dynamic range for the Graph Tech system, compared to RMC). I should disclaim that neither piezo system performs as well as the Roland GK hexaphonic magnetic pickup.
So, even though there would be an obvious fidelity downgrade in some respects, I imagine I'll eventually replace the RMC saddles with a set of Graph Tech ones - Having the bridge set so far down into the body just doesn't feel right after having owned six other Flys not exhibiting such a quirk. The trem performance seems to be compromised, as well - But there's also the "leaning posts issue" to sort out:
As you can see, the fit between the bridge assembly and rout is loosest in the case of the Belew. That has me wondering if the bridge posts require more vertical stabilization than the prescribed plastic rings increasing the post bushing height can provide.
All that being said, the achieveable action, fretwork, and cut of the nut are all as they should be in contributing to the feeling that the guitar is a joy to play. Which brings me to some positive notes:
Pleasant surprises
The first aspect to make me smile was finding that the Belew has a fat, C shaped neck. This is what my '08 Mojo had, as well. My 2011 Supreme has a fatter neck than my '90s Flys produced in the Ken era - But is not nearly so substantial as the Belew. It seems the neck shape alone makes 2008 my preferred year of production - Despite preferring everything else about the Ken-era Fly, and knowing Buffalo Grove churned out a bunch of lemons that year. A personal bonus is that this frees me to sell my similar-feeling Vigier toward recouping some the expense of the Belew.
The next pleasant surprise dissolved my reservations to do with settling for a 1.0 Variax system after parting with my 2.0 Variax due to being unimpressed with the fidelity of its modeling. My finding highlights a detail that many Variax owners tend to overlook: The principle of Garbage In, Garbage Out - The Variax modeling superficially conforms the base character of the guitar to a set EQ curve, and basically adds an impulse response for "resonance" artifacts (a gross oversimplification on my part which will not stand up to scrutiny).
So I smiled upon finding that the base guitar sound processed by the Variax 1.0 modeling being a Parker Fly Deluxe results in something much improved over a typical 1.0 Variax (if it ever breaks down, I'll probably have to figure out how to retrofit the guts from a Yamaha-era Variax Standard, then see how that sounds transplanted into a Fly).
One last note about finally having obtained a Belew is that this means I'll have to part with some of my other Flys I had intended for future mod projects similar to what I did with my Supreme: I'll be listing the black Deluxe and blue Classic for approximately what I've put into them, once I get around to rewiring them to be more in line with what typical Fly owners seem to prefer.
Now we move on to the tech dissection!
The first two photos are to show off how neatly Dennis has the various boards layered in a shelf-like manner, with space between components to minimize risk of shorting.
In the next two photos, I'm lifting the Variax mainboard out of the way to show the Sustainiac board and RMC PolyDrive tucked away against the thin guitar top. I'm afraid I lacked the third hand or slack in the wire runs necessary to achieve better lighting or views of the innards.
I *think* the shrinkwrapped board pictured below is what i can use to integrate the Variax RJ45 connector in a future project (Dennis claimed it could be done, when I inquired on the old forum). But seeing as this guitar is a kind of kitbash project, it's also likely that whatever's in there isn't what I'm looking for.
Next is the beautiful piezo lead junction board which Dennis fabricated to ease the terror any tech of Adrian's is liable to experience when maintaining the guitar:
The following four photos are of my favorite proprietary component of the Belew model: The switching tone pot! It appears to consist of a Tocos switching pot with its detent moved to the end of the track and the carbon cut so there's no load difference from the pot with the switching detent for connecting the violet and gray Sustainiac harmonic mode wires activated or not, and the DPDT section of an alpha push/pull attached via a long shaft. The two are attached to a brass framework also acting as a grounding casing for various nearby components.
It seems Mike had the Tocos component stocked, at one point.
At first, I thought Dennis had crudely cut a "500" into the brass frame to indicate the pot resistance - But it seems to actually be "005" (perhaps the fifth one he assembled?).
Next are three photos of the PolyDrive board. I actually swapped the 18.7K PHWP2FBK (Gen 2) bridge humbucker for a DP202FBK Al DiMeola bridge pickup while I was in there, and swapped the 9 spring for a 10. Both are doable - But more difficult than either needs to be.
I didn't have enough hands to document what an ordeal accessing the underside of the PolyDrive to swap the pickup hot and ground wires was - Suffice to say, I'm not in a hurry to do so again. The PolyDrive 13 pin jack actually has no threads for the small hex screws on the outside of the guitar to secure to - So holding very small nuts in place with tweezers while turning the screw with a driver is necessary, while being much more difficult than it should be due to the awkward placement of the jack under the Variax components needing to be held out of the way. There's very little room within which to do this delicate work.
Well, that's basically it for the moment. I'm happy to (attempt to) answer any tech questions about the Belew model you may have, as well as take more specific component photos. Drawing up a diagram for this might wait until I actually need to get in there to repair something.
Lastly, here's a gif of that green LED Sustainiac preamp power switch being toggled on and off:
