Parker Fly bass

Fender Jazz's and P's have a serious amount of neck dive?? You must not have been around in the 80's They sell an import Parker bass in the $500-600 range.

 

You can find them used for less than $2000.
The Parker web site describes in detail the import basses.

I love the 4 string one.

 

I'd like to know where this Fly bass is. Apparently, Parker claims little demand and thus no more supply. I'd really like to pick this one up. These were really cool bassses.

 

http://images.google.com/imgres?img...&svnum=10&um=1&hl=en&rlz=1T4GFRC_enUS207US207

It looks like bass central has some.

 

While J's and P's do have a some neck dive when seated, I surely don't notice any neck dive in strap position..so not sure about that.

Regarding the Parker. They are VERY modern sounding... you can really hear the composit neck and the unusually light body wood in the tone... that's neither good nor bad, but very different from traditional basses. I found the piezo pickup relatively useless on a typical gig... it added everything you don't want in a good bass tone... boom and click. However, it sure sounded pretty when playing solo!

The string spacing is tighter than typical, and VERY tight on the 5 string... which again is not inherently bad, but can be a negative if you are used to the traditional .75 bridge spacing.

Fit and finish, look and general quality are great on these. If you are looking for modern tone (think Modulus as an indication of the general tone family), lightweight, and a very 'small feel' regarding neck profile and spacing, these are pretty cool.

 

+1

These use (or at least originally used) DiMarzio Ultra-J's, which are already a pretty modernized J tone, but that composite neck and whatever preamp really emphasize that aspect. I also found the piezo stuff to be pretty much no fun. Super clacky and boomy... like the Steinberger Synapse, which I also didn't really like much. These are really well made basses, but just not my thing.

 

Cool basses!

 

Lets remember there is also one model with active emgs, but passive circuit

 

the music shop by my house has at least 3 or 4 of them I never bothered picking one up to try because I think they're disgustingly ugly. I might test one out because you say the're sweet

 

IIRC, the frets on the domestic models are actually glued onto a thin piece of composite material than laminated on the neck....or something like that. How would you do a refret should the need arise?

Riis

 

They are actually stainless steel frets... very unusual. The basses shipped with Fodera Nickels installed. Since the stainless steel fretwire is harder than the Nickel wire, there would never be any need to do a fret job. Even with SS strings, it would take decades and decades. Pretty cool.

 

Here's a link to a couple, the PB-41, PB-51 and PB-61...

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/search.php?s=parker+bass

Not involved w/Sweetwater, but wish I was getting a kickback ;-)

 

I'd be well up for one of the import models, if they did a 5-string.

Bit of an oversight there, I think - many people who'll be on the lookout for such a modern-looking and sounding bass will be wanting one with more than 4 strings.

 

Couple of things to note about the Parker Fly Basses...

Not all the models have to graphite neck, which IMO is the main attraction for these, so be careful. The 5 string graphite-neck Fly I've played has probably one of the nicest necks I've tried in a long time.

Before you buy try it on a strap. Unfortunately going with the body shape of the Fly guitar but scaled up has resulted in a very uncomfortable bass body shape. For me the body was so uncomfortable that it outweighed all the benefits of the wonderful neck. Had it not been for this I'd probably be a Parker Fly Bass owner.

 

Moondoggy on here has a 4 string import for sale...

 

I just wanted to chime in here:

The US-made Parker bass necks (like the original Parker Fly guitar) aren't all composite like the Modulus, Moses, or Zon necks. They're actually 99% mahogany with a composite skin encasing the wood. The composite is really no thicker than your average finish.
The original necks made in the Wilmington, MA factory were made from mahogany laminates glued up in heat under multiple tons of pressure. The bodies were made the same way using layers of sitka spruce.
Apparently this process proved to be problematic for Parker's new owners (Washburn) and they switched to a solid mahogany neck under the composite skin.