The $10,000 Parker Fly and My Dream Guitar
Posted on Monday, March 09, 2009
Adrian Belew has a new signature series Parker Fly. The thing is like The Homer of guitars:
The Adrian Belew Signature Fly features an exclusive Dimarzio bridge pickup along with a revolutionary Sustainiac Stealth PRO neck pickup which produces intense, predictable and infinite feedback sustain. With the Sustainiac, musicians can create amazing tones, from screaming feedback at any volume to upper harmonics using the unique harmonic mode control. Onboard Line 6 Variax Modeling Components allow guitarists to select from 25 preset sounds including classic acoustic and electric tones. For even more versatility, the Adrian Belew Signature Fly features computer connectivity that allows artists to customize and create their own tones and custom tunings. Sound equalization is provided by six separate sensors within the RMC bridge saddle, which allows each string's volume to be processed separately, giving the player unsurpassable tonal control.
Guitar players are notoriously conservative when it comes to technology. And when guitars do incorporate technology, they tend to do so in a funny way that stretches the tech to make it feel traditional. For example, the Line 6 modelling stuff in this guitar seems very strange to me: you go out and buy a Line 6 modelling amp with 300 amp simulators & then plug in a guitar that simulates 25 different kinds of guitars. But between the guitar preamp in the guitar and the preamp in the amp, you’ve pretty much got a standard guitar-amp setup. And if you want to switch sounds, you’ve got to twist a bunch of nobs on the guitar and change settings on the amp. This makes sense if the goal is to sell the amp and guitar separately, but what if we remove that restriction?
Here’s what I want to see: use the tech to simplify switching sounds by settling for a little less flexibility. On the guitar, have a simple 5-way switch, volume knob and second “tone” nob. Ditch the traditional guitar cable though and replace it with a heavy duty USB cable (or some kind of digital cable) that goes straight to your amp/preamp. When you adjust the 5-way switch on the guitar, you’re switching completely different amp/guitar/pickup configurations, all in one simple move. So I can have my bridge position set to a full-blown humbucker+Marshall sound and a switch to the neck switches to a single-coil Strat+Fender sound. Or whatever.
You can configure these settings all in one place, the preamp. Completely separate EQ and whatnot for each preset. Imagine making the tone knob useful too: you could make it do whatever you want for each preset: make it a traditional “tone” knob (though maybe with an actually useful EQ curve) or use it to blend between two completely different sounds: who knows.
The actual interface of the preamp could be whatever: your standard preamp, or an amp head or combo amp, or even a laptop with special software that plugs in to a power amp. I’m kind of in favor of a small, separate box though: just carry the guitar & your small preamp around and plug it into different power amps. (You could have different “power amp profiles” to make adjustments to each of your presets for each power amp.)
The point is it would actually simplify things: going from a good overdriven solo sound to a chunky rhythm sound to a clean tone is as simple as switching a good old-fashioned 5-way switch. The key unit that you switch between when you’re playing is the sound, not a particular guitar/pickup configuration and then a separate amp simulation. This actually fits with the way guitar players like to make technology fit with the way they already play, it’s just the radical step of pairing up amp and guitar that’s a stretch.
(You might even be able to do all of this with the Line 6 stuff already: if you’ve got a Line 6 guitar and a Line 6 amp is there a way to coordinate switching between combinations of settings in one place?)