Guitar porn/Gear Aquisition Syndrome (GAS)

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I've been putting money away towards buying a G&L Strat. Real beauties
How is your Parker guitar (I think you mentioned having one, sorry if I'm mistaken)? I have considered buying a Parker Fly for a few years. I've played a few and I was pretty impressed, especially by the piezoelectric pickup in the bridge

I have the cheap Nite Fly copy they made (the original run of it)...the P38. It's a great guitar. Parker has great build quality and consistency, just the design turns some people off and you can't hang it from a wall mount because of the headstock design.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Parker-P-38-Electri ... 4aaa1a9d63

^Basically what I have but I have it in sunburst.


If I were to get a Parker at this point, though...I think I'd go with the PM20 Pro...which is apparently now discontinued.

http://cgi.ebay.com/New-Parker-Hornet-P ... 3a64ed15f7


Doesn't have the piezo bridge but does have individual coil tapping.


Or if you want the piezo, maybe try to the P-36

http://cgi.ebay.com/PARKER-P-36-TRANSLU ... 3a64c2236e

Which was Parker's take on the tele (also discontinued...Parker went through a lot of changes in the past 4 or so years).

Sadly these command high prices because of the "Fender" on the headstock, even though they were built during the nadir of Fender. The Japanese 'Lawsuit' copies were better 'Fenders' then what Fender was actually producing. Even though the 'Lawsuit' copies have gone up in price, they are still cheaper than Fenders.

If you're into 70's guitars

Keep an eye out for a Greco Super Sound Stratocaster (they do tele's and les paul knockoffs too), ive played 2 and both were pretty damn good

If you see one of these for sale, and its a good one, straight neck (usually pretty good), buy it

They sometimes pop up on ebay etc and usually arent too unreasonable

During the 70's Greco, a japanese company was cranking out better built guitars than fender.

http://www.japanvintageguitars.com/Greco.html

True. The company that produces guitars under the Greco name is the same company that makes Ibanez, and also the same company that made all of the MIJ/CIJ Fender and early Squier guitars.

Already ahead of you. Made in Japan, to me, is a sign of quality to some extent....obviously depending on brand and what not but there's stuff like Greco that got it right in all the right ways. I'll take a Japanese manufactured strat any day over a Mexican manufactured strat.

Right on. I have an early 80's Japanese reissue of a '63 Strat and I have also played an actual '63 Strat and there is virtually little difference in feel & tone. I haven't played too many of the Mexican Strats but I haven't heard much positive about them




Yeah, they are strange looking guitars. I like the whole concept though. If I am not mistaken they are made of artificial composites? Or at least, the fret boards are. Perhaps I am mistaken.
Does the whammy bar system work as well as a Floyd Rose/Kahler/Steinberger locking trem at maintaining tuning?

The whammy bar is different between the p series and the actual Parker series guitars. The actual parkers, I'd say, are more similar to like G&L's where it has great stability but isn't locking. On mine, the stability is there but I really don't use it much so it could just be perception from lack of frequent use.

The actual parkers are made from composite bodies and synthetic fretboards. The neck itself on most are rock maple, the fretboards are normally a synthetic polycarbonate, the bodies are normally a mixture of a carbon synthetic and wood composite.

Unique guitars in almost every way...at least the original Parker version Parkers....they've since changed ownership and a lot of their manufacturing methods and materials.


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Z7M-eqNsFA[/youtube]


^Spacey T playing a Parker Fly...but his tone is about as synthetic as the guitar so I'm not sure it's a great example. He uses a lot of both the piezo and the magnet PU's.

The good ones are good and the bad ones are as bad as any Squier...except you pay twice as much.

I've played a few Mexican Strats, even a deluxe one with the Tex-Mex pickups. The build quality was fair, but the tone just wasn't happening. The best Tele and Strat copies I've ever tried were a couple of Hamers I pulled off the rack at a music store about ten years ago. I don't know if they still build them that way, but the ones I tried were beautifully made and sounded great. I don't know how they did it for the price.

Another company that surprised me with good guitars at a very reasonable price is the Godin company out of Canada.

I was fresh out of highschool and had no idea of what to study in college led to me obsessing way too much about gear which then lead to this: NOC3 Effects

My website kind of sucks but the gear is great! Excuse the shameless self promotion /spam but it seems relevant. I've built a few tube amps too for friends and friends of friends locally.

I just got some luthier tools to start work on some guitar projects, mostly fretwork but I also a full parts strat build... nitro surf green alder body, black pickguard, white pickup covers and knobs, rosewood fretboard, birdseye maple neck... she should be a beauty.

The pedals look nice. Boutique stomp boxes are almost always better than their mainstream counterparts and having a boutique maker here is just awesome.

Are you a fan of Robert Keeley's work?


You know, if I could get any completely custom guitar in the world, I'd probably do a clone of Bradley Nowell's guitar but with a few tweaks. Mainly, I'd tap the humbucker pickups (probably choose different pickups), trade out the floyd rose for a non-locking trem or a hardtail, and have the headstock be a big fender style rather than the modern fender style. But I love that weird body style that it has as well as the different design for the jack which goes in kinda like how an Ibanez S goes into the body but it's right by/under the pickguard. The body itself is like a melding of a strat and a jaguar but flattened out like an Ibanez S.

True, with the good ones, you still want to change the PU's to something decent. I looked at a couple of the Mexican 'Relics', (50's and early 60's ) and they were even heavier than the crap that Fender was putting out in the late 70's.

Also, NOC3, is the amp on your page a Dumble Overdrive Special Clone?

Furthermore, XLCH, I had a Godin for a while and it was a decently constructed guitar for a bolt-on, but the neck didn't feel solid on it. I've played cheap Korean Ibanez Bolt-ons that felt as solid as a good set neck or neck through.

My friend has one of the good Mexi strats and the only changes made to it were Fender Noiseless pickups.

Yes it is a d-clone, though it is voiced to my liking since I play mostly single coil guitars. How did you guess that? I know there are like no photos of it on my website. Its currently got a leaky cap somewhere in the preamp I need to scope out and replace.


I can't really say I'm a fan of keeley's work because he's a competitor but I really have no opinion. I can say I've tried some of his mods on some stock boss/ibanez/mxr pedals I've had over the years and there is always something I end up changing. Though I never play modded pedals anymore.

I prefer the blank slate of designing something new from the ground up instead of trying to work within an existing circuit topology. This also makes for cleaner work. No extra wire routing, oddly fitting components, etc.

I'd hope not since you can make your own.


Was just curious...Keeley is always one of the names that comes up for me with boutique stomp boxes.