Trans Blue '97 Classic

[mmmguitar]

Marc here, with another profligate Fly purchase. Forgive the poor photo quality; as I snapped these on a kitchen chair, in the middle of the night, with lighting supplied through carnival glass.

Top is gloss poly over blue stain:

Trying to capture the grain under the stain:

The back appears to be Majik Blue metallic:

Trying to capture the metal flake:

Here's the family hastily leaned up against a living room daybed after I finished napping in it. The Tangerine MIDI's neck pickup is out having its baseplate swapped.

Left to right (in no particular order) is the '97 Classic, '11 Supreme (the only refined one), '97 Deluxe that's been to hell and back and, finally, a '96 Deluxe with a Ghost system in it. Lightest to heaviest is Black-Blue-Tangerine-Honey.

Considering I received the Classic only yesterday; this is an NGD of sorts:

I'd wanted a blue Fly for some time, but couldn't justify buying another Deluxe. This Classic popped up ticking a few of the boxes I'd been hunting for, lately:
1. Price, color, and condition were right
2. Extra springs included, and
3. Hiscox case.

Minus some minor chipping and buckle rash I didn't bother highlighting, the guitar plays and sounds as it did when it left the Wilmington factory 23 years ago. It stands in sharp contrast to the build quality of the far more expensive '11 Supreme detailed in my other thread.

Considering I'm not too fond of either generation of the stock Dimarzios, I can't say with any authority that it sounds significantly different from the Deluxes - Perhaps a bit rounder/warmer.

May 2021 update: Turns out some connections had been rewired by a previous owner; so I donated the remaining original parts to Dayn in exchange for swapping Graphtech ones in.

[vjmanzo]

Whoa! That’s a gorgeous Fly family you’ve got there!!!

Love the whole lot of them—especially fond of that transparent blue color!!!

[Musikron]

I’ll take that ribbon assembly off ya! HNGD!

[mmmguitar]

I’ll take that ribbon assembly off ya! HNGD!

Thanks. I have a ton of projects ahead of rewiring the Classic; so hopefully I don’t keep you waiting forever.

Update: Finally set the guitar up today. “Wow”, is all I can say. After setting the relief and action, and removing the pickup baseplate pads to back them off a bit, this surprised me by being the first Fly I enjoy the stock pickups in (Gen 1). This also has the best factory fretwork of any of my guitars - Not just the Flys. I’m leaving this baby factory-original until all my other projects are finished - It exemplifies Ken’s vision and skill.

Edit: As mentioned above, the parts ended up being donated to a project Dayn was working on. As of 2024, Aristides' fretwork is the cleanest I've seen.

[Mr303]

Nice score!
Good looking foto....you can see the family resemblance

[ahmadimran]

Amazing collection. Congratulations

[MadMac]

would also say... fantastic 4
love the tangie color...
most sexy guitar...
the fly is a love affair
M.

[nightengale82]

@mmmguitar That's really interesting that you liked the Gen1 pickup once you took out the pads to lower them a bit. Can you describe how they sounded once you did that? Cheers!

[mmmguitar]

@mmmguitar That's really interesting that you liked the Gen1 pickup once you took out the pads to lower them a bit. Can you describe how they sounded once you did that? Cheers!

Firstly: “Welcome!.” In case the following bit of long-windedness isn't descriptive enough to be helpful, just let me know.

Disclaimer: I coincidentally intend to sell this guitar in the near future - So please take everything complimentary I have to say about it with a grain of salt:

The short answer is that this Fly happens to sound great on its own; and backing the pickups off from the strings that extra bit of distance though removing the mounting foam just made it sound a bit more open and air-y in a way I felt complimented what I already liked about the guitar.

The more in-depth answer is that I’m not a fan of the Tone Zone/Air Norton or JB/Jazz combo that comes stock in so many guitars I’ve owned; and always replace them with a set more in the PAF range (in terms of balanced coils and lower output). So it’s rare that I plug a guitar in and am impressed with how it sounds in spite of my personal bias against a particular set of pickups. As a bit of a single-blind test, a forum member who has owned dozens of Flys played and rated it as being amongst the best they’ve encountered. It seems I was just lucky: I bought it on a whim as a scratch-and-dent beater gift to myself, for the sake of feeling better about having to work a lot of overtime hours. Therefore, I wasn’t expecting much.

For the record, anyone can make any era of Fly pickups sound good - I’m only picky when I’m the one having to play it. And one of my main gripes with the Fly design is that the pickup routs are generally too shallow to allow me sufficient room to lower or angle the pickups until I’ve achieved a “sweet spot.” So removing the mounting foam and modifying the stock pickups to have less inductance (generally through replacing the humbucker spacers with plastic ones in the manner of Dimarzio “Air” pickups) is a common mod for me when I get a new Fly with Gen 1 AlNiCo V magnets (the ceramic magnet Gen 2s with 18.2k of wire on them just get replaced altogether).

In the case of this Fly, however, I was pleasantly surprised by how the Gen 1s mated with it; to the point that I never bothered to swap them out. That said, an unfortunate consequence of leaving the stock pickups in is that I play this guitar less often than my other Flys (which is partly why I’ll be selling it).

When I finally get around to listing it, I’ll bump this thread and the one for my black ‘96 Deluxe with photos and updates as to what states I ended up modding them into.

[nightengale82]

@mmmguitar thanks a lot for all that, I really appreciate the in-depth answer! I used to own a few Parker's and never liked the Gen1 Dimarzios as well as the Duncan's, and years ago I regretfully sold them having never known you could change their height, modify them, or even swap them out.

But after reading up on all the things you can do to tweak their tone I figured a second chance with them was in order. I just got a mint '05 Classic with Gen2 PUPs at an absolute steal and can't wait to see what I can do with the guitar now.

I've been loving reading up on the wealth of knowledge on this here from people like yourself. I've played Parker's since the 90's so I was thrilled to find this forum even exists!

Cheers!

[mmmguitar]

I just got a mint '05 Classic with Gen2 PUPs at an absolute steal and can't wait to see what I can do with the guitar now.

Congrats! I hope we get a chance to see and read about your Classic. Please feel free to post or message me with any questions or thoughts you might have.

On the topic of not bonding with Fly pickups: I find many owners overlook the effect the piezo preamp has on their impressions of how the magnetic pickups feel and sound. For the most part, I have all my Flys wired to bypass the preamp for a 100% passive signal path when in “mag only” mode. Even owners who don’t necessarily mind the mag signal being buffered have opted to do this in the case of the later Flys with Graphtech preamps, due to extraneous hiss it introduces into the signal.

Oh, and thanks for the kind words. I doubt I would have bothered buying any Flys after 2015 if it wasn’t for this community and knowledge base. I’ve since been spoiled/corrupted by just how exceptional and inspiring these instruments can be to a mediocre musician such as myself.

[nightengale82]

@mmmguitar I'll make sure to post pics & details on the introductions page. I'd like to put up some audio recordings of any pickup changes/tweaks so others can hear some of the differences as well.

That's a very good point about the preamp bypass, again something I never even considered possible when I had my Flys in the past. I'm definitely interested in trying that, especially since the refined Flys wiring seems quite a bit less daunting to mod than the pre-refined.

[mmmguitar]

@mmmguitar I'll make sure to post pics & details on the introductions page. I'd like to put up some audio recordings of any pickup changes/tweaks so others can hear some of the differences as well.

Looking forward to it! I’ve been telling myself I would do the same for three or more years, now; so any and all recordings are much appreciated.

[InsideInfo]

You're trans has nicer figuring than mine, congrats, nice pick up!

[Patzag]

Het Marc,
Please consider embedding the images. Can't access the remote server.
Cheers,
Patrick

[mmmguitar]

Het Marc,
Please consider embedding the images. Can't access the remote server.
Cheers,
Patrick

Done! I've likely been forgetting to do so for the past three years. I'll post better/new photos soon (currently replacing a faulty pot).

[mmmguitar]

Here's what I ended up doing with the guitar after deciding I'd be selling it:

Much like my '96 Deluxe, the magnetic circuit for the Gen 1s is 500k Volume and Tone, with a FreeWay selector switch for series and split combinations (I wired the neck-facing coils of each pickup to be active when split). The mag/mix/piezo switch bypasses the input of the Acousti-Phonic preamp to go straight to the 1/4" jack.

Due to how the signal paths interact, the mag/mix/piezo switch has to be in the "up" position for the magnetic pickups to be routed through the Graph Tech preamps and sent down the 13 pin cable; with the piezo volume pot needing to be turned to 0 if you want only the magnetic pickups. I feel the difference in the 100% passive signal path option is worth it (click to enlarge).

[jb63]

That is a really useable configuration!

[mmmguitar]

That is a really useable configuration!

Thanks for saying so. I'm still hoping to refine the control layouts further with my Supreme and '97 Deluxe.

[InsideInfo]

Beautiful pickup!