It's a shame Parker went out of business only after a few years. Someone needs to start it up again!

This guitar was waaaay ahead of it's time... amazing!

@ChristopherStandardTime

Жыл бұрын

we still haven't caught up to them.

Very impressive building technique

I don't care what anyone says, parker guitars will always be the sexiest looking guitars in my book. Especially the Adrain Belew Signature fly with that car paint finish. The ideal guitar.

Certainly the most in depth video I’ve seen on parker construction and the factory. Thanks so much for posting.

Phill sent me 🤘🤘

Fantastic guitar, great sustain. Awesome video. Parker guitar is in my desires

Wow! Awesome post man! I've owned my emerald green Parker NiteFly for 25yrs and this is the first time I see the making of the guitar. Thank you so much Bill.

Awesome video! How amazing for such a video to come out after all this time. Parker Flys are incredible instruments, ahead of their time, even by today’s standards. Great to be able to see the manufacturing process in such high quality video.

So much work went into these guitars and it makes me understand why it was just not viable to keep it going. I do adore Parker Guitars and own two (a Nitefly and a P-Series), and I would love to see them come back in a less hand-made fashion to make it more viable.

Great bit of Parker history. Thanks for posting!

The video is fantastic indeed, even though the host at times goes off into salesman rant. I've had 3 Parkers so far. As far as the pre-refined fly goes; if ever your onboard circuit goes inoperative (you won't find a new one), try this: order Alnico 8 bar magnets from China and replace original magnets. Alnico 8 will bring the coils to a better output and better midrange than the onboard preamp. Fly pickups operate freely of the battery but they still do get EQ'd by the preamp. A way to save a fly - alnico 8. Cheers.

Instead of redesigning the ugly headstock and broadening their product line to make less expensive guitars, the company needed to have focused on high-tech electronics, better pickups, single string pickups, midi and 12 pin connections, graphene technology, internet marketing and direct to customers sales (sidestepping dealers and scalpers). Hopefully they will see the light and ressurrect the original space age approach Ken Parker had and embrace the fact that linking guitars to digital modeling, acoustic modeling, guitar synthesizers, effects was the right idea from the get-go. I wish I had the moolah to buy the company and bring it back to life in the manner that would keep the vision alive.

@hansemannluchter643

Жыл бұрын

You do realise that many guitarists think "cheap" guitars are shite, right? Personaly, I want a Bronze Fly, to practice 50 alternate tunings on a Roland JC...

@hansemannluchter643

Жыл бұрын

Also: The headstock isn't ugly..

@joeking433

21 күн бұрын

Funny, I just bought a Nitefly that had a 13 pin pickup installed inside it! Pretty awesome! One thing I didn't agree with is that you thought it needed new pickups. What's wrong with DiMarzio pickups??? They are a premiere pickup maker up there with Seymour Duncan, Fender, and Gibson! And don't tell me you're a freakin "boutique pickup" snob! Pickups are simply copper wire around magnets, it's not rocket science! The rock and rollers in the guitar heyday of the 60's and 70's didn't need boutique pickups! Parker actually had an autotune guitar but I don't think it did very well so adding digital modeling probably isn't a good move.

This video is pure gold!

Fantastic video! Thank you very much.

great vid - thanks for posting!

Parker was ahead of its time. It was and still is, expensive. Not a good combination for universal acceptance. But it is an exceptional instrument.

Love my Parker’s I once did “walk this way” at a gig And my valve amp died so I carried on the piezo through acoustic amp. It went down so well we started playing it that way every gig until the Last chorus

The last of the hand made American 🇺🇸 guitars 🎸. Such a shame they went out of business.

At min 16:46 he say he cannot reveal the detail of the scarf joint but at min 18:18 he show it to us. Given the cost of production I wish Parker could sell the licence to the Chinese and get this fantastic guitar back on the market.

Specs ahead of their time

Guys like Mark Farner and Adrian Belew play Parker. This fact speaks for itself.

Amazing..............

As a pre-refined Parker snob I'd love to see footage of the original factory in Wilmington, MA. All the "refined fly' guitars I've played pale in comparison and have started falling apart due to the cost cutting measures introduced after the company sold to USMC and the moved they factory.

@pavelvodicka7819

9 ай бұрын

1:50 1:50

Ken Parker is a really great craftsman

I loved the sound of the deluxe model and the weird pickguard model with two single coils and a humbucker forgot the name to many models

😍 That Eden rig though. 🤤

This video from about 2005 is way late arriving and possibly was so delayed because of cost and product design changes not reflected in the video.

I never knew about the incredible versatility of the tremelo and I never knew Parker used stainless steel frets! They were WAY ahead of their time! Everyone thinks Eddie Van Halen came up with the idea of stainless steel frets but it looks like all he was doing was copying Parker!

@Fafnir33

8 ай бұрын

Actually Eddie played Parker fly for a brief time, so probably Parker introdused SS frets to him

Hi guys? What do you think about the Parker PDF 22 strats? I bought one brand new yesterday

More jam video

So what changed with the stainless steel frets because just about every guitar Maker today is banging them into the wood fretboards without any splitting.

@gimmeeinboxback3860

7 ай бұрын

I'm thinking he misspoke and meant that it would have split the composite fret board of the fly.

@stringsattached67

7 ай бұрын

@@gimmeeinboxback3860 ahh ok that makes sense

@themechanix393

5 ай бұрын

@@gimmeeinboxback3860 I dont think that the toughness/hardness of the frets is the key component to split any fretboard. AFAIK they glued on the frets because they couldn't get fret wire in the usual shape made from the steel alloy of their choice.

P.S, why did Parker Guitars 🎸 go out of business?

This company was bought out just to kill competition. hope to own one someday

@fluidalchemist68

Жыл бұрын

i'm going to build a dozen of them

“Once they come out of the oven we let them cool”…. Guitars thrown all over the floor. 😂

Parker Guitars were just too late coming into the game. If Parker Guitars debuted their products in 1982, they would be the best and most popular guitar company in the world. Ibanez guitars wouldn't have had a chance at success. It is a shame that the most technically advanced guitar company is now out of business. This is a lesson to all that knowing the trends in music and timing is everything.

@hansemannluchter643

Жыл бұрын

Joni Mitchell switched from at least 5 Ibanez George Bensons (and Martins) to a Parker Bronze Fly. Can you get better endorsement??

@MattParkison

4 ай бұрын

I don’t think that Ibanez would have suffered if Parker had been more successful. I have paid attention to both of those companies and their various guitars and basses over the past 30 years or so, and I think each company has/had its own unique and worthwhile offerings and contributions to the guitar world. I certainly have owned several instruments from both companies and they are two of the manufacturers that set the scale by which I judge most others, haha. I definitely agree that timing is everything. Your comment got me thinking and wishing that Ibanez would seriously consider purchasing and resurrecting Parker. I know that’s a pipe dream, but it does make sense…Ibanez definitely caters to progressive players that like experimental/rogue/bold new designs to guitars and basses. I think they were the first mass-producer of 7- and 8-string guitars and they’re certainly a major go-to for extended range basses. I’d love to see Ibanez resurrect Parker and find a way to retain all of those great Parker qualities and apply them to modern multi-scale and extended range guitars and basses.

i wonder why they went out of business😂

I was quite shocked that workers were filing carbon fibre without a respirator, carbon dust is highly carcinogenic,

They proprietarily ran their selves out of business.

Blah blah blah.. All you needed to do was have Joni Mitchell play a song or 3..

whyyyyyy are they out of business... so annoying. ..

Why do people talk? It's so annoying 😂❤