Product: Parker Guitars PB61
Price Paid: USD 795.00
Submitted
06/28/2009
at
05:28am
by
Don Hansen
Email: don at hansenappliance<dot>com
Features
:
9
Made 3-2008. Made in Indonesia: A bastion of traditional guitar-making...
24 frets, although I really don;t understand why a bass needs more than 20 or so... (If you're up that high, PLAY GUITAR!!!) 4 strings.
This bass has a nifty-looking spalted maple top. Spalted maple is a sort of maple that has rotted a bit, but it do look "pissa", as we say in New England!
My 2008 model has 2 vols and active bass and treble controls. The newer ones have 1 vol and a pan pot with the same tone pots.
It has 2 EMG active P'ups. Nice.
The finish is a satin thang that is really nice. The neck has the same finish and is far superior to my Fender Jazz which has to be polished daily to keep it's smooth feel, but the PB61 doesn't need polish at all to keep feeling smooth. (But, being a traditionalist, I keep polishing the sucker any how!)
Body style is Pure Parker. Perfect balance and unique!
The bridge is 4 separate, fully adjustable and lockable pieces.
The tuners are spiffy looking, but not the best, but, hey, it's a bass! It'll stay in tune with almost anything!
34" scale.
Sound
:
10
I can get any sound I want out of this sucker!
I play through a Carvin BR515N 500W combo with a 15" neodymium speaker and an old Peavey ext. cab. with a Carvin 18 in it. Nice amp, BTW! The whole combo only weighs 40LBS!!!!
No noise, except what I make!
You can get any sound you want out of this thing. I've been a bass player since 1965... And this is the best playing and sounding bass I've ever played or owned.
Action, Fit, & Finish
:
9
I got the bass from The Bass Place in Tempe AZ. The setup was fine, but the climatic difference took over the first week... I had to file the fret ends at first (if I'd waited a week the fingerboard probably would have swelled to make this unnecessary, but I'm not a 'waiter'! Also, when I changed the strings, the brass nut fell out, but a little wood glue fixed that!
After about a week, I had to loosen the truss rod. It's remained perfect since. (Over a month)
Reliability/Durability
:
10
This bass seems like it will last forever, or, at least, longer than me, which is long enough!
Although there is no provision to operate the bass in passive mode, I carry extra batteries and strings in my case, so I don't bring a backup.
Customer Support
:
8
I almost never deal with customer support. However, after I registered the bass online, Parker sent me a "Certificate of Authenticity" with my bass's serial # and MY name on it as well as a spiffy leather Parker luggage tag!
Overall Rating
:
10
I've been playing guitar since 1963. Bass since 1965... I started bass when you could hardly ever play the low "E" because the amp would fart out... This bass replaced a Fender Jazz bass with SCN's. The Fender can't come remotely close to this one. The neck-through construction and EMG's with active electronics beat the crap out of the Jazz!
If it were stolen I'd buy another in a nano-second!
If there were one thing I could change, it'd be the tuners, but they look so spiffy, I can live with them, and, really as I said above, it's a bass; it'll stay in tune!
