Reviewed by:
tihmay, on january 18, 2008
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Purchased from: Sam Ash Chicago
Features: My Parker is a Nitefly Mojo Flame, 07' made in North Chicago at the Washburn plant. Parker Guitars is a division of Washburn. I have owned it for about 5 months. 22 frets, stainless steel. Mahogany body, grade AAA flame maple top, sunburst blue color to hide the seam between the 2 woods. I have uploaded some pictures to my profile. The neck is mahogany with a carbon fiber wrap, bolted on. One thing I really like about the body style is design correlation between the headstock shape and the body wings. The bridge is a Parker designed exclusive floating tremolo. It can be a full floating, downward only, or a locked-down/fixed bridge. This is done with a screwdriver adjustment. I have mine set to full float. With my floating tremolo set up, holding tune is good, not excellent. The sustain suffers a little from the full floating trem set up also. I would not consider these 2 things to be negative enough to not consider buying it. The tremolo arm's swing can be adjusted to personal taste, full spin or stay put when let go. Nice touch. There are 2 humbuckers, Seymour Duncan JB and 59. Either one can be coil tapped off into a single coil. There is a Fishman Piezo acoustic pickup in the bridge, making the guitar sound like an acoustic. Locking tuners work with the floating tremolo to hold tune. No allen wrench bolts needed in the nut to clamp the strings down. Sweet. Came with a case, tools, and a cord that splits. This is for sending the acoustic pickup signal to one amp, and the magnetic pickup signal to another amp. Which I have not yet done. I've added strap locks to it. I also did not care for the Trem Arm's foam cap. I put a Fender Trem Tip on mine. // 10
Sound: Once you have that page open click on the "show tracks info". I described the FX settings and pickup configurations I used when recording those MP3s. I recorded them using the 3 varying pickup settings, piezo, humbucker, and single coil. My music styles are reflected well in those MP3s. I really like the sound of the guitar. Great range, when you pull on the coil tap, that 60 cycle hum kicks right in. I would not say it is a replacement for a Fender Texas Special, but is does the job, all on one ride. For my amp and FX setup used while recording Fender Hot Rod Deluxe, Korg AX3000G MultiFx, Boss RC-2 Looper, Boss DR-3 Drum/Bass machine. I have read that the carbon fiber neck and stainless steel frets cause a git's sound to be more "tinny", I also read that Parker has Dimarzio and SD custom wind their pickups for Parker to account for this and have the output signal compensated. The drawback to this is, you can't buy off the shelf pickups to change in and out. // 8
Action, Fit & Finish: The truly incredible thing about this guitar is the carbon fiber fretboard's action. It is so much better than the Strat Deluxe Plus maple neck I've owned for years. It also blows away any rosewood fretboard I've played. I played it next to an ebony fretboard ESP in the store. The Ebony was a close second IMHO. If you have never tried one, you should do yourself a favor and search out the nearest dealer to test Drive one. I can't say enough about it. It is a smooth as you could dream one to be. The store did a quick action and neck adjustment and re-stringing for me. I adjusted the pickup height a little, one was loose. I have one saddle with the intonation off. I need to adjust that. You gotta try one of these necks. // 10
Reliability & Durability: I am a hobbyist, not a professional. The guitar goes right in the case when not being played, for fear of one of my 3 kids banging it with one of their toys. So I'm not qualified to comment on it's "gig-ability". When at the store, I tried one of the Parker Fly models. These have excess wood from the back side of the body machined away to save weight. I tried one of these and it just felt wrong to me. Too light, like it was made of plastic. When I picked up this one, the Nitefly Mojo model, it felt so much better. It has a consistent thickness across the whole body, except for the area where your right arm rests. There it is machined back like a Strat, so the soft of your arm doesn't rest on a hard corner. The thin headstock doesn't impart the feeling of strength. But man it looks cool. It's $2000, I'll forever baby it. // 7
Impression: This guitar is feature loaded, 3 motion settings on the tremolo/bridge. 3 pickup styles. Original design. Locking tuners. But I still can't get over the action. That is still its greatest feature. Even if you hate the look, you need to test Drive it. Before buying it, I would've like to have known that off the shelf pickup changes won't work. As a matter of comparison, I've been playing since '89. I own a Fender Strat deluxe plus (93' bought new) and a Chandler electraslide. I've owned multiple ESP-LTDs and an Epiphone LP (buying/selling used on eBay). I wouldn't ever own 2 parkers. But I think I will always own one. One thing I'm wondering, Is why do you not see any pros playing one of these? The styling? I hope you liked listening to the sound samples. I think it a good trend to start, for people reviewing gear to upload mp3s of it. // 9
/ my profile 
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