the Fly Clone Project

Coming across these (low quality) pics during some tedious computer housekeeping spurred me to reminisce in this subforum:

Around the start of 2011, I had a laidback job and frugal living situation which allowed me to waste a lot of time and disposable income on guitars (I’d often make a racket playing them in my office while on the clock). I still couldn’t bring myself to throw nine grand at a Belew model, though - So I figured I’d wait for a used Tangerine Deluxe or Mojo to pop up for a decent price (which they did in those days, believe it or not), then scratch the itch by slapping a Sustainiac and GK pickup on that pig.

At the time, Guitar Center’s used section on their website advertised franchise inventory, only - You had to call the physical store and get connected to the pertinent department during business hours, then perform the transaction with a sales person over the phone to obtain anything. I pounced as soon as I saw the listing pop up, and the generous GC employee at the Connecticut location explained that he was discounting sales tax to thank me for making the decision for him after he’d spent the previous day agonizing between saving the Fly for himself or buying the PRS he’d been squirreling away cash for. The guitar shipped in the factory hardshell case with all the original tools, accessories, and paperwork in order, and arrived safe and sound.

Given the only other Fly I’d played had been a 4 lb prerefined in Italian Plum, imagine my surprise when the Mojo ended up weighing nearly 8 lbs. Though the guitar was a 10/10 in every other respect, the weight ended up being the first of several disappointments to lead to my offloading it.

Though drilling for the external GK3 pickup didn’t faze me, I was in no way comfortable with the idea of a Fly being my first Sustainiac installation. So I paid Alan Hoover to do it, not knowing that he HATED Fly installs; and was going to make me regret it. To make a long story short, I ended up swearing Sustainiac off for nine years. I’ve since come around to a more productive understanding with Alan; in which he just sells me the Sustainiac kit, then I take care of everything else and don’t talk to him again until I want to buy another kit.

Pictured below is the layout of the stock Fly controls, plus the Sustainiac on/off and normal/mix/harmonic feedback toggles. I don’t have photos of the backside to show off the rear-mount driver height adjustment screws or dual 9 volt compartments (for the Powerchip and Sustainiac).

I ended up selling the guitar to some guy in Arizona after it went unplayed for the first six months of 2012. This was due to a combination of my negative experiences, the guitar weighing more than the Vigier Shawn Lane which succeeded it, the House of Kolor Tangerine Kandy finish not living up to how vibrant and orange it can appear to be in photos under optimal lighting (I found it to be an underwhelming red-orange in person), and my never having been happy with the sound of the Duncan JB pickup, compared to what was in my other guitars.

I’m happy to report that my four subsequent Flys are all much lighter.

Love this! What a great project!!

Yeah—the Mojo weight issue is an interesting one—my first Fly was a Mojo, so I didn't really have much of a comparison other than to my much-heavier Strat. I can understand why the weight would contribute toward your decision to sell this.

Looks really cool, man!

When Hoover installed the Sustainiac, did he drill through the back of the body to mount the driver in the neck pickup pocket?

vjmanzo wrote: Fri Sep 09, 2022 9:45 am When Hoover installed the Sustainiac, did he drill through the back of the body to mount the driver in the neck pickup pocket?

Yes. I had and still have mixed feelings about the form vs function aspects of having pickup adjustment screws countersunk into the rear of a Fly. I’d personally rather have pickup rings, at that point. With my own Sustainiac installations, I just make shallow routing passes and test-fit the driver until the height seems “good enough” to semipermanently mount with double-sided foam tape (I can always deepen the rout - but the priority is to avoid having to shim anything as a consequence of removing too much material).

mmmguitar wrote: Fri Sep 09, 2022 2:42 pm ...I just make shallow routing passes and test-fit the driver until the height seems “good enough” to semipermanently mount with double-sided foam tape...

Yeah—I ended up doing this with my other Fly Sustainiac install—Hoover installed my first one as well before I knew any better about an alternative like this. Not the worst decision I've made in life

I seem to recall a time when you could gut a Line6 Variax guitar and install it in another guitar—none of that here? I know that was @dayn's thing for a while too...

Cool guitar, Marc! BTW—I also agree that the Duncan JB in the Mojo is not my thing, though the Duncan Jazz neck pickup, to me, is ooh-la-la!!

vjmanzo wrote: Fri Sep 09, 2022 3:32 pm I seem to recall a time when you could gut a Line6 Variax guitar and install it in another guitar—none of that here? I know that was @dayn's thing for a while too...

I used to be all about that; and actually had the guts from a Variax 300 set aside for a transplant, circa 2010/11. I never got around to it, due to the Variax 2.0 being announced around the same time. I’m afraid the parts disappeared somewhere in the decade between then and now.

At present, my sentiment is that the Variax tech just hasn’t aged well.

Yamaha/Line 6’s radio silence on the matter of bringing it into the current decade - combined with the inherent artifacts/limitations resulting from using DSP to make a piezo-generated signal superficially resemble a mag pickup waveform being a constant sticking point that I couldn’t unhear - led me to sell off my last Variax a few months ago (Update: I eventually got another one). It was disappointing to A/B it against all my other guitars and admit that it sounded the worst for anything but acoustic stuff; because I was very much in love with the whole Variax line 10+ years ago.

So it’s all about the 13 pin Roland COSM modeling, now. And my Vigier with the needle bearing Floyd Rose blows away anything my JTV89F was on its own. I’d like to further bridge the gap by installing a 13 pin Ghost/Hexpander setup under the hood - but it would be tricky to drill through the Vigier baseplate for the element leads without ruining it, and I know a GK kit would actually be better-suited for modeling.

Update: Line 6/Yamaha officially ended continued Variax production and development in September, 2023.