A few things: 1) The Flyclone Project has remanufactured the Ribbon Cables. Not cheap but they are available 2) Dimarzio will still sell you Parker Fly compatible pups. Available via Custom Order 3) Both Dimarzio and Seymour Duncan pups are screwed to the guitar body using Pole piece screws and body inserts. Dimarzio use "A" Pole on coil closer to the Neck and "B" Pole on coil closer to the Bridge. Seymour Duncan use the Low & High "E" screw pole pieces. 4) Graphtech Piezo Saddles are available for the Parker Fly. Ditto the Ghost Acoustiphonic board & optional Hexpander for Midi functionality. These items were fitted to the final variants of the Fly/Maxxfly/Midifly guitars. Two items that are a potential PITA for Fly Owners: 1) The plate springs are still available in short production runs but they're not cheap. Shipping costs (via Reverb) outside the USA (plus local import duty & taxes) make them verrrry expensive 2) The Plastic Trem bushing used on the early Nitefly/refined era models has a habit of splitting/falling apart. OEM items are no longer available. Some enterprising souls have 3D printed replacements but they don't look nice. If you're handy with a Dremmel, it is possible to make one out of a Black Nylon Spacer...

I saw one in church, of all places, in 2005. It’s beautiful and sounded great.

Ken Parker built the most advanced guitar on the planet. Unfortunately the industry is one of the most backwards with dominant designs and tech staying the same for over 60 years. I believe if the original fly came out in 2030 it would be a hit.

I think the same, I love my strats but you are always fighting with it, I once had the opportunity to play a Parker on a rehearsal and I was on fire that day, I was playing without anything holding me back. It's the perfect guitar, the natural evolution of the instrument. Here in Mexico 🇲🇽 you can see some people still playing Parker guitars, I have a friend who plays one every weekend with his cover band. I wish they still make it, with the original specs of course.

I worked for Ken briefly. Amazing guitars! I loved the sound of Ken's spruce guitars!

I have Parkerfly deluxe! I bought it 1998. I played a lots of gigs and studio sessions with it until 2006, when I played more PRS and Fender... there was really no reason for this :) I liked it very much. Then I forgot Parker in its own bag in the studio. Then 2021 I brought it up (for a project in the theater) and yes it was still in TUNE (after 15 year)!!

Always wanted one back in the day, but they were expensive and i could tell they would be a pain to work on. Now they're even more expensive and impossible to repair or modify. I do think they look cool and play well.

I hope Parker makes a come back. They are such gorgeous guitars .

I love my Parker Fly Deluxe. I bought it in 1996 and love it.

Informative .. thank you. I have a (98?) pre-refined fly in great condition. Everyone who plays it loves it.

I was a senior in high school, and had taken to hanging out at the local Guitar Center after class. Got pretty friendly with the crew, good guys with wildly varying tastes and interests in gear. I remember how stoked the manager was to show me the "Fly Yellow" Parker Fly he just got in. The headstock was the most striking part, I remember, but I was overall underwhelmed. Did my best not to show it, though I'm sure he saw straight through my "Ohhhh.... neat...? 😬" _but I was young and foolish then, I feel old and foolish now..._ Had no idea what I was looking at, I really didn't know jack back then, to be honest - I had just traded a perfectly fine Am. Std. Tele for a Candy Apple Red Japanese Mustang and thought it was the absolute pinnacle of cool (twenty years later I still have it and I still do, lol)

Just watching this. I'm a bass player, but I always wanted a Fly, ever since I saw Adrian Belew playing one. I actually didn't know about half the innovative features you've covered in this video, so thanks for that. As a bass player, I've been playing MusicMan Bongos for around 12 years now, and they still get a lot of hate from bass players who just can't look at anything that wasn't designed or heavily influenced by Leo Fender. This, in spite of the fact that the Bongo does offer some great ergonomic advantages over more traditional designs. It's worse here in the UK, where you can't even find Bongos for sale most of the time.

I bought my first Fly Deluxe when I was 17 and kept it for over 20 years. Sold it for 50% more than I paid for it. I did love it, but I always kept other guitars around to modify. I also owned a hardtail Deluxe from a very early '93 run, with a Redwood neck. I'm convinced that many people were confused by the humbuckers more than anything, because it was designed to sound like a Fender, and with the proper amp settings, it did. The vibrato system was inspired by the Jazzmaster, and early prototypes had three single-coils arranged like a Strat. Leo Fender also hoped his later companies would make his Fender designs look primitive, but guitarists are notorious Luddites. As Les Paul put it, "people listen with their eyes."

The Fly is an AMAZING guitar! I love mine!! I have played 3 Fly and one NiteFly. Hated the NiteFLy, loved all 3 of the Fly though. They are amazing!

I really loved my parker guitar, so light and so versatile. Someone wanted it more than i did and stole it from my house and never found out who or where it went. Checked all pawn shops but it never showed up and i never could really afford another one. But awesome guitars!!!

I never took the FLY seroius until I saw Joni playing one, it was obvoius after that they must be great pieces of gear.

I would *love* a Fly!

I love tech and cool designs, so when I saw ads for the Fly I was stoked. They played nice, and sounded good, but not nice and good enough for me to fork that kind of money over back then. What scared me however was that the guitar had more bespoke parts than a McLaren F1, making anything on it potentially (and eventually) expensive to repair or replace. And that's before issues with frets popping off. And I've met Ken a few times, at acoustic guitar shows where he would exhibit his amazing archtops. Again, great sounding and playing, but you pay for the styling and I couldn't say they sounded as good as a traditional archtop. Both are great for those with disposable incomes, a problem I wish I had.

I yanked out the piezo electronics soon after I got my Fly, in the early 2000s, because they didn't work when I bought the guitar. They're just not needed. The piezo will still work if wired directly to the jack, you can then just use an acoustic preamp, which is what I did for a while. With all the extra space I had left in the cavity, I installed Roland VG system GK pickup and wired it together with the rest of the pickups and installed switches for everything. Needless to say I'm not planning on ever letting go of this guitar. I'm not a huge fan of shallow necks but overall this is one of the nicest playing guitars I've ever picked up. And for me, I always thought it's a beauty in all black.

Nice! I just posted an hour long video about Ken Parker, the company and the Fly that I had been working on for the last few years... I found that many videos and reviews I saw did not talk much about the influence of the Lute, so good job! I also did not know that Larry Fishman bought the parker company in 2021 so that is really good news! maybe they will make a come back... but I doubt it. would be cool though.

Thanks for this video! I’ve had my Parker Fly Deluxe for quite a while now, but I never knew much about it. The only problem I have with it is that when I palm mute, I touch the pick-up, which gives a low buzz or background noise. Ive never had this problem with others guitars though. Is there a different fix than learning a new right hand placement?

Back in the 90's they were to expensive for me. Finally got one in 2021. Makes me a better guitarist every time I play it. Someone is making a new ribbon cable. DiMarzio quoted me about $90 per replacement pickups in 2022. Subscribed and Best Regards and Best Wishes!

I had a Deluxe in the early 2000's - pre-2003 for sure (so must be Ken's era). I sold it. The reason being I couldn't get over the upper horn digging into my sternum when playing sitting down. Other than that it was a flawless instrument (albeit somewhat sterile sounding if I'm completely honest), and I have played it at many gigs as it was a very comfortable guitar to both play AND carry to a gig. Since then I have changed the way I play sitting down - now I hold the guitar on my left knee, and I think the horn would not be a problem anymore. I'm thinking of picking up a Fly again. But the prices now, of course, are ridiculous.

It's an amazing guitar. Just a small correction - the refined fly was created before the Washburn acquisition - not long before that, though. I have a 2002 Fly Deluxe that is refined , but it was still made pre acquisition

Love my MOJO

Love mine

I guess there is a market for replacement PCB's, they would be expensive though as the run would be relatively small.

I love unusual shapes. I have Moderne and Breadwinner shapes guitars, so the Fly shape appeals to me. I cannot abide thin necks though. So, no Parker for me.😢

Ya gotta hear Gustavo Cerati of Soda Stereo play one on "En La Ciudad de la Furia" unPlugged version! 👍🏽

The Parkers were great guitars, especially the FLYS. The only thing I disliked about them(THE ONLY THNG) was the top horn. It dug into my chest really bad , but other then that, they were/are great guitars. Especially the early ones. I love teles, strats, 80s style super strats, etc, but I have been playing now for 40 years. I have changed music styles since then, and also the guitars I play. I play mostly headless guitars now, because they are more balanced, and lighter. My poor back and hips and shoulders cant stand a heavy strat or Les Paul anymore. Nor can I stand to lug around a huge amp head and cabinet anymore. Those days are over. Quilter for me now.

Guitarists are traditionalists for the most part. The parker fly is still by a huge margin the best guitar ever made, even better if Ken had been allowed to build it how he originally wanted. The world just wasn't ready for it and probably still isn't.

I owned a couple of original Fly Deluxe guitars in the 90's and early 2000's. They were great, but the upper bout sticks in your ribs, and the headstock does not allow the use of a regular hanger. The later version addresses these issues, but you lose the cool look IMO.

Ken Parker didn't just design the Fly - he designed the tooling to manufacture the Fly. There are many new brands with even more outlandish and non-traditional designs selling for higher prices today, but they are highly customized and the ergonomics are tweaked to fit the owner. A mass-produced instrument will never be truly ergonomic for any one musician. Also, even "custom shops" that don't offer different scale lengths, multi-scale, and extended range options will be stuck with the traditionalists. Rick Toone knows what's up!

cmoooon larry. put some fluence in there. direct usb + 5 pin midi out. you got the tech! and the dough

It’s the Segway of guitars

The add in Guitar Mag had me hella hyped to play a Fly when I was a yung dirt bag. It felt terrible and sounded terrible. It was extremely disappointing. It was so lame that I played nothing but LPs for years after that.

hated this thing the moment I saw it. Thank god

It's a bit disheartening to learn about these great musical instruments such as Parker and Relish that have ceased production.

“Bloody assault rifle” 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Promo`SM

Keith Rixharda talking shit about parker... go complain about BC Rich!

Literally just the shape of the top horn for me 🤣 tech and everything else is cool but its so damn ugly. Not even a fender/Gibson nerd lmao. If I was rich I'd get an original one

Yeah, totally Parker’s look way cooler than an old telly… If you’re an Incel!!!!!!

If it was really that great, it would be have been widely adopted. There's a reason that one of the most popular PRS guitars of all time is a copy of a Strat. Those shapes are classic for a lot more than just nostalgia. Sorry your favorite guitar is a POS.

Vettes, have been ugly since the late 1960's. Leo got it right, time after time. The fly is FUGLY as it gets. Looks matter. Beauty in the eye of the beholder. I hate the look of PRS guitars. But like the Fly, they are extremely well made, but to me, they sound generic. Maybe that's because the music made on them, I find generic. Parker Fly's sound. . . too perfect (lol). The engineering is AMAZING, for sure! But. . .that's my take.

They dont sound great. And they were competing at the price range of higher end Gibson and American Fender.. Parts are not available and they are impossible to work on. Terrible planning made them basically throw away guitars