Parker Guitars PM-10

I'm not entirely sure what year this was made, but I know it was made in Korea. It's a solid top guitar with 22 frets, all mahogany, through-neck construction, natural mahogany gloss finish. It has 2 coil splitters which can be pulled up. Pull the volume knob up and it splits the neck pickup and bull the tone knob up and it'll split the bridge pickup. One volume, one tone. 2 Parker Stinger pickups. It's similar in shape to a Les Paul but sort of with more of a parker feel. I'm pretty sure the tuners are Gotoh tuners, which aren't locking tuners but they stay in tune pretty damn well. Tune-o-matic bridge and a 3 way switch. Fantastic construction, too. It has medium frets, fat neck and an ebony fretboard. No fret markers on the fretboard but it has side markers. I give it ten because of how well I feel the pickup splitters work.

This guitar suits my style pretty well. I mostly play hard rock and metal but I also play a some jazz on it. The neck pickup, with the right setting on an amp, sounds very jazzy. I can also get some nice strat tones out of this when the pickups are split. One thing that irks me is that I can't really get, IMO, a good EVH tone out of it because of the mahogany body. But hey, if you're looking a sort of Les Paul meets Marshall amp sound, this guitar can deliver the same sounding tone regardless of the amp. In full humbucker mode I can get Slash's tone circa AFD and the Use Your Illusion albums. The bridge pickup is amazing. I really would not swap these out for anything else. They do the job just fine and even more amazing is that they're stock Parker Stinger pickups. I give the sound a 10. This thing sounds awesome and if you play one in a store and get a bad tone from it, check your amp!

Nothing negative to say about the action fit and finish on this thing. Came perfectly set up from Thomann.de. Nice, low action and in tune to E standard.

The wiring in this guitar is very good. My other guitar, an OLP, is starting to conk out on me. I need to get that rewired after only a year of playing but the only thing that'll kick this guitars ass is an M1 Abrams tank. It's had it's fair share of falls and such, but by looking at it you'd never guess. It's still perfect.

I've never had to deal with them.

Overall this guitar completely satisfies me. I'd buy other guitars in the future, but I'll never sell this. If it were stolen I'd be heartbroken and I'd buy another one just like it. What I love most about it is the neck. It's incredibly comfortable and the compound radius ( 10"-13") only adds to the joy of playing it. I highly recommend!

Mahogany neck through (clear finish).

With the coil taps, there really is a lot of versatility.. resonates and sustains very well. Others have said they upgraded the pickups.. and with other guitars I have done the same.. usually to Seymour Duncans.. but I say wait and try these first before you decide to do that!

Needed a pro set up.. my luthier said that the neck has a 12 radius but the tuneomatic has a 10 radius (I guess the Koreans do this a lot).. he filed down the first and last saddle and intonated it and now it plays terrific and stays in tune.

I also wish it had medium/jumbo frets.. just my personal taste.

Seems solid. Nice Grover Tuners.

have to give it a 9 for the quality of the sound for the price.. just have it professionally set up and you'll be happy too, I think

Clear Finish on Mahogany body.. neck through construction. 2 parker stinger pickups, coil tap, tune o matic bridge, grover tuners.

Got it cheap because it supposedly came with a 'flaw' in the finish but I can't find it for the life of me.. looks gorgeous!

Very resonant.. pickups are really great.. I was thinking I might have to upgrade to Seymour Duncans as I have in the past with other guitars but it's just not necessary. Lots of versatility with the coil tap function.

The setup it had when i got it was terrible but that might be the guitar shop's fault (I got it on ebay).

That said, even after I took it to my setup guy he said that the guitar has a 12 radius neck but a 10 radius bridge.. so he filed down the first and last saddles.. plays MUCH better now. Nice fretwork but I prefer medium/jumbo frets.. but that's not the guitar's fault.

Very well made. Plays well.. Terrific value for the money, no question.

haven't dealt with them.

Here are the features that I like: the body shape reminds me of a Gibson L6-S and is very comfortable to play; the frets are some of the smoothest I have ever played; the ebony fingerboard is terrific and I like that it has no inlays, just all nice wood; the coil splits on the pickups give it a lot of sounds; the neck joint is amazing and give great upper register access; the tuners work well; it has 22 frets, allowing the neck pickup to be properly placed in the sweet spot; and overall, this is just a beautiful and well-designed guitar. What I don't like: um, no hard case? The gig bag is nice though. Really, there are no features that I don't like. No acoustic blending like some of their other models? Hey, you get what you pay for. I am glad that I waited until this model came out to get a Parker.

You can get a lot of sounds with this guitar. I play without a pick and it is very sensitive to touch. It can cover styles from country to jazz to blues to rock. It is on the bright side, and I prefer a bit jazzier sound, but it is never piercing and cuts through the mix well. In fact it is difficult to get a bad sound out of this guitar. Some are not great, but its versatility is very usable. I play it through an old Ampeg and a Trace Eliot Velocette, sometimes a Roland JC-120. All sound nice. I have too many pedals to list--it plays nice with most of them.

This guitar is just flat out beautiful and played great out of the box. I was shocked at the high build quality. No issues.

Seems durable. The hardware is OK. My only concern is transporting it with the gig bag. Other than that, we'll see, but I've had it almost a year and so far so good.

Haven't dealt with them, so I'm not rating anything here. I got it used without a warranty. They have a nice web site, though.

I've been playing for more than 30 years and have lots of nice guitars. This is one of them. I got this cheap on eBay and am really glad that I did. I originally intended to give it to a beginner as a gift but I liked it so much that I kept it. This is too nice for a kid anyway. I highly recomend this guitar, especially if you like the thin body, single cut, L6-S thing. I have nicer guitars, but none are a better value.

I've already reviewed Parker's PM20, so refer to my entry under that model (see review by Dr. Jim). I loved the PM 20 so much I decided to snag this model. It's just as good--maybe better--than the fancier model.

This is the stripped-down version, the only apparent changes being the plain black gloss finish (w/o a fancy top) and the stop bar tailpiece (in lieu of strings-thru-the-body as on the 20)

The tone is brighter and snappier than that of the PM20, but retains its open quality and note separation.

I decided to upgrade the pickups (decent in their own right) to DiMarzios, a super distortion at the bridge and humbucker from hell at the neck. The SD gives more umph, bite, and sustain; the HFH produces a pretty good strato-tone. I got DiMarzios w/ white coils that look really cool against the black finish. The Dimarzios were a worthwhile investment.

There is a little chipping in the lacquer at the end of the fretboard, but this isn't a place people are bound to examine so closely. I can't find a thing wrong anywhere, inside or out. The Korean manufacturers (is it Cort?) know their stuff, and have done a superb job in building these babies.

The palyability is incredible, & the intonation spot-on right out of the box.

Seems pretty solid, so 'id expect it to be reliable.

I've been playing since the early seventies, and this model (along w/ the PM20) seems to be what I've been waiting for most of my life. I've been selling off other instruments to make way for more of these, each will be hot rodded for different uses.

Comes with a really keano gigbag, too, complete w/ a built-in coat rack hook and pockets galore.