NailCommunication wrote: ↑Wed May 04, 2022 3:54 am
Have you ever played a Manne Guitar?
I’m afraid it’s been too long since I was last near one to recall what my impressions were - They always seemed like high-end boutique guitars with a lot of fit-and-finish labor, rather than a brand emphasizing or showcasing new technology. I became aware of Manne in 2006 or so; when I studied an instructional video and accompanying book by a guitarist named Alessandro Giglioli, who played a red Taos. Sadly, NAMM conventions were the only time I got to check out Italian guitar brands in person. I still want to get my hands on one of MarconiLab’s Ego guitars after a build I was speccing out with them in early 2020 ended up fizzling out. It would have been an R EVO model similar to the one in this video:
What’s the issue with your Taos, if you don’t mind my asking? Most of the models seem straightforward enough for techs familiar with Ibanezes and the like to repair.
mmmguitar wrote: ↑Wed May 04, 2022 5:22 am
They always seemed like high-end boutique guitars with a lot of fit-and-finish labor, rather than a brand emphasizing or showcasing new technology.
That's a pretty spot-on assessment. Andrea "Manne" Ballarin seems to be more about incorporating and refining his own ideas than using others'. He has a beautiful philosophy on lutherie that he blogs about on his web page, which had me yearning for one of his guitars. Although Manne guitars don't seem all that well-known outside of Italy (especially in the US), they are highly regarded by their players. I myself have not known of Manne guitars for long, maybe four years or so, and have only played the one I bought.
What’s the issue with your Taos, if you don’t mind my asking? Most of the models seem straightforward enough for techs familiar with Ibanezes and the like to repair.
The issue is not with the Manne Taos guitar itself, but rather a custom paint scheme that made any maintenance impossible without damaging the finish. All the techs I asked refused to touch it, so I ended up shelving the guitar. I only heard of Parker guitars last summer, when I was looking for a new guitar and did a Google search for "best guitar ever made". As you can imagine, quite a few people were gushing about their Flys on various forums. Really, if things had worked out with my Taos I would probably not be here writing this. But, the Fly Deluxe I have now has that "it" factor that makes everything work out in the end.
@NailCommunication, I must admit you now have me curious as to what your Taos looks like. I would agree that some of the Flys produced are specimens worthy of inclusion amongst the "best" electric guitars ever built - But then again, I haven't had the opportunity to play a Sankey, Bill DeLap, Canton, Teuffel, Blackmachine B6, Hello Kitty Squier, original '59 Les Paul, or some of the other fabled instruments I've heard players gush over. So my frame of reference may prove totally off base, at the end of the day.
Ah. If it’s this or anything like it, I dig it. Shame about techs being afraid to work on it - Perhaps if you give them the choice between working on the Taos or the Fly, you can frighten them into doing what you want.
Bump. Just giving updated impressions/news on two of the brands frequently claimed to be carrying the Parker torch:
Though my day job doesn't keep me off Fly Clone, it unfortunately does separate me from the house where my guitars and other toys accumulate dust. It's disappointing to admit that I must have picked up that blue Aristides fewer than ten times between the end of April and the middle of August.
I finally got around to rewiring the git to be more in line with my preferences for a humbucker/single rout and, though it’s been getting more play as a consequence, I have to say that many of my original impressions remain. Aristides has even released a video detailing how tedious the string changes on the (ultra-stable, nonetheless) Hantug bridges (hardtail and trem) are:
Being as I’ve never been in love with Aristides' neck shape (At 2mm thicker than an Ibanez Wizard, there just isn’t enough material to support these long fingers of mine which an elementary school classmate once described as "telephone poles") or the H/06's multiscale fan (26.1-25”), I found myself longing for the other guitar I had been looking at when the Aristides popped up: A Vigier Excalibur with the brand's proprietary needle bearing Floyd Rose.
The difficulties in digging up a Vigier in the contiguous US in recent years are twofold: Firstly, retailer prices on new Vigiers have climbed steadily over the past decade, in spite of their depreciation rate remaining high (historically, this has been a consequence of competing with "proven" superstrat brands better-known in the US market). Secondly, the month of March 2022 saw Patrice Vigier's retirement announced via dealer communications from the brand's in-house EU distribution arm HiTech Distribution. As a consequence, the brand's ultimate shutdown and cutoff for new orders were unambiguously included in this communication.
From what I understand, completed Vigier instruments will continue to be delivered to dealers into 2023 (i.e., until the last of the orders placed prior to March 11th, 2022 have been fulfilled). The current resale market additionally places owners - already in a position to take a bath on eBay and Reverb depreciation if they're original owners - in the predicament of knowingly parting with potentially irreplaceable instruments. In these respects, Vigier is finally catching up with Parker .
I wasn’t enthused with the prospect of spending from $3,600 to $5,000 for a new Vigier Excalibur Original or Custom (the Floyd-outfitted models); so I waited until a used one popped up for the right price. Just to put a perspective on how severe the depreciation is: Importing a secondhand 2015 Vigier from the opposite side of the planet was still two thousand dollars cheaper than purchasing a 2022 model from a US retailer.
So how do the two compare to the Parker Fly? It's all still luxury apples likened to luxury oranges and pears, I'm afraid.
The (Ken-era) Fly has most guitars beat when it comes to feathery weight, ease of string changes, unique timbre, and that nifty trem calibration process which requires neither tools nor taking the guitar off your shoulder. If there’s one area where the Vigier and Aristides compare fairly to the Fly (other than sharing exquisite fit-and-finish work), it’s the novel construction which, sadly, doesn’t lend itself to ease of repair (e.g., fret wear and differences in string tension at different gauges and tunings affecting Vigier neck relief cannot be compensated for with relief adjustment, superficial damage to Aristides instruments cannot be addressed with a woodworking luthiers' approach, the H/06 multiscale pickups have a proprietary skewed baseplate and bobbin shape necessitating either a rewind or replacements imported from Sweden or UK, etc.).
As has been discussed elsewhere, Strandberg might be the current brand managing to land nearest to the Fly ballpark, while also managing to be the most polarizing (If you’re not all-in on headless guitars, the EndureNeck shape, a half inch scale length fan, and a single-locking knife edge trem that doesn't feel anything like a Fly's, you’re liable to be disappointed with the typical Strandberg Boden offering).
I hope others will continue to chime in as they see new guitars and innovations which remind them of Parker. But speaking as someone spoiled by owning a variety of great guitars: Nothing replaces an acquired taste until you’ve decided to move on to a different flavor. There’s simply no replacing a Fly. Yet.
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