Parker Guitars Nitefly Mojo Flame

Parkers are known for their use of composite materials on their guitars. Sometimes you just gotta go back to what you know best. This is one of their models that uses a lot of real wood. This is the Nitefly Mojo. This guitar has a mahogany body with a bolt on mahogany neck. The neck has carbon glass epoxy reinforcement so it will stay straight and true like a composite neck. The fretboard is Parkers composite design which is very similar to ebony. The fretboard is made from a carbon class composite. The fretboard is wide with a compound radius design. The frets on the fretboard are stainless steel which is great. Stainless steel frets do not wear out like nickle frets so once you get them leveled correctly they will stay perfectly leveled. The electronics on this guitar are very cool. The guitar comes with a normal set of Seymour Duncan magnetic pickups. You get the good JB Jazz set with those. It has a Parker tremolo system that has a built in Piezo as well.

UTILIZATION

These Parker guitars are super light and comfortable. The guitar is thin so it does not really feel like mahogany. The body has nice cutaways and bevels that give you good upper fret access. Even with the bolt on neck you can reach the upper frets fine. There are no inlays on the fretboard but there are always side markers. The composite fretboard is super smooth. This along with the stainless steel frets means you get nice smooth playability. Stainless steel frets dont get rough for worn out so they will always be smooth. The tremolo is Parkers own design and It works pretty well it seems and stays in tune well. I have heard from sources that these guitars are not very road worthy. They are quite fragile and seem to need a lot of adjustment. This may just be the lower end models I am not sure.

SOUNDS

Parkers are normally pretty bright sounding guitars so I am glad to see they are making more of them out of mahogany to try and tame the brightness. The Seymour Duncans are a good touch as well as they bring a bit of a familiar tone into the picture. The JB in the bridge with the Jazz in the neck is a very common set that is very versatile. The Jazz is similar to the 59 but with more bite on the high end. The 59 is so vintage and smooth on some guitars it can get pretty muddy. The Jazz fixes that by added some more treble to the voicing of the pickup. When playing fast leads in the neck position the Jazz will have a clearer sound than the 59. The 59 is more voiced towards slower bluesy leads while the Jazz is better for fast shredding or even jazz. Having slightly less low end than the 59 means the Jazz is less boomy and will have more clarity when it comes to playing. This also means the clean tones are very good. With less low end the high strings in the clean tones will really ring out and do not get overpowered by the bass end strings on the Parker. The Peizo gives you the typical Piezo sound. With a good acoustic amp you can kinda get a believable acoustic sound. Piezos always have a Piezoish sound.

OVERALL OPINION

These super modern Parker guitars are not very popular. People tend to like tradition and there is nothing traditional about a composite Parker. They also have a pretty untraditional sound to them as well. But with this moderness comes a lot of cool features. Stainless steel frets and reinforced necks are cool things I wish more guitars had. If you are looking for a modern guitar hardly anyone is playing with a sound that will never get lost in the mix. The Parker Nitefly Mojo is an alright guitar if you dont mind the looks.

USA made
Mahogany body, basswood bolt-on neck
Parker Carbon-fiber fretboard
Parker Carbon-fiber coating on the back of the neck
22 Stainless Jumbo Frets
Sperzel locking tuners
Parker custom vibrato system
Seymour Duncan Jazz and JB pickups
Fishman active piezo with stereo/mono smart jack
Push pull coil tap
Magnetic volume
Magnetic tone
Piezo volume
3 way switch for magnetic pickup selection
3 way switch for mag, mag and piezo, piezo
And a partridge in a pear tree!


UTILIZATION

I've marked the other Fly models as a 10 here. The Nitefly should be a 9.9, but I'm only marking off because they are slightly (and only slightly) less incredible than the Fly. The Nitefly weighs about 6.5 pounds, which is pretty light for most guitars, but not in comparison to the Fly. The Fly also has 24 frets and a set-in neck with no heel, whereas the Nitefly has 22 frets and is bolted on. The extreme high frets on a Fly are just slightly easier to get to. Even with it weighing a bit more than a Fly, this guitar is still very ergonomic.

Of course, the vibrato system is to die for. It is very smooth, can get radical, and still stays in tune very well.

SOUNDS

Here's where a Nitefly shines in comparison to a Fly. The sounds are richer, deeper, more full - a lot like an SG or a Les Paul, only with the capability to split the coils and also use the acoustic sound of the piezo. I think the piezo actually sounds a touch better on my Nitefly. The guitar loses a touch of clarity as compared to the Fly, but makes up for it in ballsiness.

I love that the output jack is a smartjack, so it knows whether you are plugging in a stereo or a mono cable, and adjusts output accordingly. If the cable is mono, magnetic and piezo outputs both go to the same amp - one can get some great blended tones that way. If the cable is stereo, one can split the signal to two seperate amps, and that sounds otherworldly good and full. I am a piezo fan for life.

OVERALL OPINION

Of course I'd buy another one - I already have! My rave about the Nitefly concludes here with reiterating how good the guitar sounds. It plays 99.9999% as good as a Fly, but sounds a bit better. There's a bit of a trade off, but I'm glad I have at least one of each to choose from. I'd really recommend anyone else doing the same - getting at least one of each. These guitars are honestly (in my humble opinion) the best guitars in the world. They are certainly the most advanced, technologically.