the Fly Clone Project

My first post, after searching,but not finding an answer.

I am considering buying a Fly Artist with a spruce body. Does anyone have experience to share about: 1) the softness of the spruce body perhaps being more susceptible to scratches and dings, and whether they are particularly noticeable and 2) the sound of the guitar, e.g., natural vs artificial, warm/fat/lush vs cool/bright/spare, etc, really any description you can offer. Thank you very much for your help.

Kurt

Hi @Keckerst,

Happy to respond and speak highly of my Fly Artist, other Fly Artists I’ve played, and my two Fly Concerts, which are effectively Fly Artists without magnetic pickups. Of all the Flys I’ve owned, the Fly Artist, to me, sounds the least like all the others; granted, the different tonewoods all have their own character, and no two guitars even of the same model and same tree sound the same.

The Fly Artist is more acoustic-ish than a Deluxe, for example, and, with moderate overdrive, breaks up in a more diffuse manner. The Fly Hardtail (a.k.a. Stealth), by contrast, has a much more prominent fundamental and a very tight frequency response that is particularly noticeable in the low end.

Clean, the Fly Artist will sing and be full-bodied and potentially the fullest electric guitar you’ve ever played and with a pleasing clarity in terms of note separation. To be fair though, most Flys are capable of this.

The Parker Guitars website had this tone-wood guide, which, in my opinion, was helpful and accurate.

#WoodTypes

"sounds the least like all the others"

is perfect!

I have a soft spot for the middle switch position of the dimarzio Gen 1 pickups played through spruce.

It isn't like that in any of the other woods I've tried.

But you need to achieve some volume and air between you and the amp to test this.

I used a fisherman aura with the piezo and a hold J. Rockett Allan Holdsworth Overdrive for the mags straight into a Roland JC-40 Jazz Chorus and was able to use just those for quite some time before feeling the need for other effects. Spruce wood is soft (don't dent it!) and bright and it may leave you with a hankering for Walnut or Koa if its not you thing.

BUT, all that aside, the 1999 fly artist was the best put together piece of kit I've ever held.

jb63 wrote: ↑Fri Jul 24, 2020 9:37 pm I used a fisherman aura with the piezo ...

Routing the piezo on our Flys through an Aura is, to me, very useful!! In case anyone is wondering what the Fishman Aura sounds like when you run the piezo out to it, here's a demo I made with my Fly Concert (spruce body, @Keckerst).

Love it!

Now send the mags through a ts808 tube screamer and I swear you can do anything with just those tools and the right amp!