the Fly Clone Project

I’m not even sure that this would be practical but it’s a thought that crossed my mind. Besides making room in the guitar, what would stop someone from, say, gutting an acoustic simulator pedal and wiring the guts inside their guitar with a 9v battery…Knock off piezo! Haha ..Or with chorus, distortion, etc. would this be possible to do? I already have a few less technical but impractical ideas but it seems like people here know what they’re talking about, more than me at least haha

Hi @Mike987 it’s entirely possible! Here’s a thread where we’re fitting a custom PCB and microntroller into a gutted NiteFly.

Of course, the real issue is space Not a lot of room in a Fly or a NiteFly to begin with, but it’s possible! The other consideration is the control layout—how many additional toggles/pots would you want to add to control the effect, ya know what I mean?

As microcontrollers become more powerful, the ways in which you program them have become more sophisticated—for example, our lab piloted an FX Pedal Hackathon last year using a custom hardware and software toolkit we developed:

http://electricguitarinnovationlab.org/hackathon

The students who participated were not programmers, but by the end of the day, they worked in teams to make digital effects on a microcontroller the size of a stick of gum! I want to embed one of those microcontrollers in a Fly Concert so I can stop bringing my Fishman Aura to gigs!

Doing the same thing with analog components, again, requires much more real estate for the physical components.

Thanks for the reply! Glad to hear it’s not that ridiculous of an idea! Some of those pedals have a lot less internals than I imagined. But like you said, the room in the guitar would be the tricky part. I was looking under the backplate of my p40 last night and it had SOME room but not much.

Totally different subject but I’ve also seen piezo bridges that are the same as that of a p30/p32 and p4…they’re pretty standard bridges anyway. I already have piezo model Parker’s but I’ve toyed around with the idea of a p series type nylon or bronze fly If I can find a non functional p series guitar. I wouldn’t dare tear apart a fully functional Parker. Filling in the magnetic pickup holes although I’m not sure if it would mess with the tone of the guitar and going with a piezo bridge. It would look pretty neat and I’m capable of everything besides maybe the wiring. Not sure if the bridge on the nylon fly is a Parker exclusive one like the bronze fly but finding something close to it would be pretty neat. I guess I have an obsession with making oddball stuff even more odd, or at least thinking about it.

I thought about trying to fit a speaker somewhere on one of my guitars and realized someone had the same idea with theirs and modified a backplate on a Parker and put a speaker in it which is also a very cool idea. I ended up discovering the strum buddy, a small amp that suctions into the guitar. So that’s my much easier way of a mobile amp for now. Plus it sticks on all of my Parker’s besides the gator skin p36.

Hey wait a minute…are you the guy who has the 12 string fly? I recognized your username and read the article explaining the build of the 12 string fly and definitely saw your name on there!

Mike987 wrote: ↑Mon Jan 02, 2023 11:57 am I’ve toyed around with the idea of a p series type nylon or bronze fly If I can find a non functional p series guitar.

Yes, I’ve heard of others doing this—I did once string up a hardtail Fly with phosphor bronze strings and the piezo output sounded comparable to my Fly Concert. Understandably so, magnetic pickups didn’t really work

For the Nylon, you’d need an entirely new bridge like the one Ken made for this. The Fly Nylon also had a wider nut and a wider fingerboard than regular Flys.

Mike987 wrote: ↑Mon Jan 02, 2023 11:59 am Hey wait a minute…are you the guy who has the 12 string fly?

That’s me!

vjmanzo wrote: ↑Mon Jan 02, 2023 3:51 pm Yes, I’ve heard of others doing this—I did once string up a hardtail Fly with phosphor bronze strings and the piezo output sounded comparable to my Fly Concert. Understandably so, magnetic pickups didn’t really work

I had a similar thought of stringing up a regular Fly Deluxe with nylon ball end strings in spirit of Yngwie Malmsteens Stratocaster and found this video on YouTube where someone tries it on a PDF 85. Sounds convincing to me and might be an alternative to someone who wants a Nylon Fly.