Parker Guitars PM-20

PM20 honeyburst model
Made in Korea
To many to list. Check their websight.

The sound is amazing. Can play as distorted as you want. To a great clean sound for church. I`ve found no limitations so far. By distorted, I mean alice in chains, to nickelback.

I have the honeyburst model. The guitar is beautiful. The action was perfect for me. Great setup. No finish flaws at all.

Being as light as it is. And the neck so thin. I wonder how it will hold up. So far so good. Everything else seems pretty solid.

Been playing for 22 years. I`ve owned everything. Still own 12 high end guitars. Les pauls, Old charvels, esps & fenders. That doesn`t mean anything. For the money, this is by far the best guitar I`ve ever played. If you can find one used for 400 to 500 bucks. You won`t be sorry. If mine were stolen. I`d buy another one for sure!!

2006 model, with honeyburst finish. All the standard Pro upgrades including Seymour Duncan pickups, Sperzel locking tuners, Tune-O-Matic bridge, etc.

Can get a variety of quality sounds from this guitar, probably largely due to these pickups. I would say this is primarily a rockers' guitar as I've been able to closely match the distorted sounds heard in some famous rock songs. The clean sounds are clean, but in my opinion not as rounded or smooth as I would like. Probably wouldn't be well suited for jazz players.

The finish was a dissapointment, and here are the details...These models were brand new, and none of the local stores carried them (some say because of poor quality control), so I searched for one online. I looked carefully at the photos, as the wood grain, finish, and color, seem to vary from guitar to guitar, and don't look anything like the model picture on Parkers website. I eventually found one at a reputable online dealer that looked decent, and I took a chance and bought it. When I received it, I immediately noticed there was some discoloration on the edge of the fretboard, there was a filled-in hole on the fretboard, some discolored spots on the side of the guitar, and overall the guitar was just not as beautiful as it I hoped it would be. I thought I paid too much to have such poor quality control on a new instrument. I agonized over this for several days, played it everyday, and finally decided that with Korean Parker's frequent quality control problems, I'd be better off keeping the guitar, rather than risking getting something that looked worse! Sad, huh? In any case, the top was adequately bookmatched. The action and fit were fine. I beleive the guitar set-up was fine-tuned by the dealer. The strings have a very "live" feel, and bending notes on this guitar is a pleasure.

I think this guitar is well build, especially considering it's small size and light weight. I'm not too worried about its durability, except when I transport it in the included gig-bag. I'm mostly concerned about the neck. I have always used hard cases for all my guitars. If I were gigging seriously, I'd try to find a hard case, but Parker hasn't offered any.

Once emailed customer support with a question, before I bought the guitar, but didn't get a response. My rating of 1 for this catagory is based only on this experience.

I've been playing for too many years. I've owned a few electrics in my day, but haven't kept more than 2 at a time. This one is fun to play rock leads on, and it feels very expressive. The neck is narrower than I'm used to, so for me it's not as suited for playing chords. I like the light weight and the shape of the body, and from a few feet away, this guitar looks pretty good. It feels and sounds great when playing rock leads. While it won't satisfy all my musical needs, it does have some strong points. Quality control on the finish brings my score down from a 9 to an 8.

I bought the pm-20 pro in white. Very well put together and no flaws in the finish. The body is bound with abolone perfiling. Ebony fretboard. 2 S/D hummbuckers with coil tap and locking tuners. Stung through with black hardware.

Many options for sound with the coil taps. The guitar sounded a bit dark at first and I checked the pickup distance and brought them in a bit closer to the strings. It gave the tone a bit more bite and brilliance.

I always adjust the guitar to my own preferences. Truss rod adjustments and string height, pickup distances etc. Can't complain.

I've only had it for a few days.

no opinion in this area.

Great over all value. Plays well and looks great.

The PM20 is a new look for Parker, a single cut with the distinctive bottom cut that makes it clear you're playing a Parker. If that doesn't make it clear, the moderately thin and somewhat rounded neck will make it clear as will the light weight and wonderfully balanced feel of this guitar.

I purchased the Bubinga topped PM20. It's quilt is more subdued than in many pictures. By subdued I mean not garishly shiny yet still obviously quilted and simply put, different from most guitars you see these days. Note, the Flame Maple looks beautiful as well and is more traditional. It also has a subtle change to the sound, with Bubinga seeming to be a bit warmer and even in it's sonic character. By even I mean steady in it's sound. As it is Parkers have some of the best controls to be found with the volume pot steadily lowering volume but not at the expense of tone, and that tone was most consistant with the Bubinga top. The single tone control has so much capability that most guitarists won't mind not having a tone pot for each of the two Parker Stinger pickups.

The tuners are Grover and use an 18:1 ratio. Once tuned they stay tuned. New in the "P" series is a glued neck, and a welcomed difference this is. I have a P42 and love it's neck and feel, but the feel on this painted neck is surprisingly fast and easy to play on, even when sweat gets into the situation.

Also new are independent coil taps for each pickup. The volume control is a push-pull tap for the neck pickup as the tone control is in regards to the bridge. The strings go through the body onto a tune-o-matic styled bridge. Besides the volume and tone controls are a three way toggle switch.

The nut is polycarbonate, meaning synthetic substance, but at $590 what is there to expect? Besides dual humbucking pickups with individual coil-taps and a Gibson meets Schecter by means of Ibanez "S" series thin bodies and neck with a beautiful neck joint to boot there's hardly anything to screw up, and Parker makes sure to make one hell of a guitar in the PM20.

The clean lines and simplicity are typical of a new breed of American based guitars via Korea at a truly affordable price level. Though not feature laden what is here is excellent.

Picture a Les Paul with it's lower mids in the middle and neck position, consider the crunch in it's neck position, and then think of all these positions with either single coil styled sounds or even nicer, a combination of a humbucking/single coil with either the bridge or neck being single or humbucking. That adds two extra dimensions to the PM20's general sound.

The general sound is big in it's native humbucking setup and closer to a P90 than single coils found on Fender, GSL or traditional single coil designs. There is more brawn and heft to the coil tapped sounds of the PM20. It is a traditional sound with a minimal noiseprint. If the sound isn't noisy the chances of it's single coil version being different is rare. But if there is noise, it will get louder.

The PM20 runs the gammut of new school furious distortion to sweet tones depending on amp, multieffects and to a huge extent the volume and tone controls, which shape sound better than I've heard in a guitar of this price, or quadruple it.

If you can't get your tone you are playing on hyped up, active pickups which, in my opinion, tend to sound good for their specially designed sound and not much else. If you can't get enough distortion or volume you will want custom pickups and are essentially buying this, or most guitars as a good shell to bury these specialty pickups in. And while it's none of my business what you may play with the PM20 my first thought is, "what a waste of a wonderfully expressive guitar.", but you will probably find the feel very useful and live happily knowing you are getting good quality.

But play this guitar before dropping custom pickups in it. This is too good a guitar to suck the expression out of it. Most users wouldn't get rid of Les Paul stock pickups and to me, the Stingers are awful close to any high quality stock pickup, maybe more considering the tonal colors you get out of the box!

This is a teriffic sounding guitar, one worth exploring for what it is.

In describing it's tone it ranges from a Les Paul sound of many ages, especially with the coil taps and their slightly less ballsy sound but equally compelling warmth in the upper mid-range frequencies, even better exploited using one coil tap and one regular humbucking position in the middle toggle.

While a bit thicker in spots than the traditional Parker design, the added mass seems to have warmed the general sound so that a Les Paul to SG comparison with the SM20 as Les Paul and P42 as SG seems not unlikely. And while it's doubtful Parker were trying to do a Les Paul sound it is also likely that they looked at the design, saw the merrit and took their overall lively sound and found a design to take a bit of that lively modernist sound and take the tone to a more traditional mode.

This neither means the PM20 is old school although, like most Parkers that is an element of the design and in the PM series, perhaps a larger amount of old school made it's way into the sound. Ironically, leaving the single coil sound to change things into a more modern P90s styled single coil design.

No matter, if you spend any serious time you will find a sound or seris of them to make your own tone; or if you are looking for it, the qualities found in modern and traditional guitarists.

At 7 lbs, there's nothing to dislike here. Large sonics to emotive sounds rarely found in guitars at this price, there's nothing to dislike on the PM20.

There is a ever so slight amount of fret wire touching outside the Ebony fretboard. Beyond this, the guitar was all but in perfect pitch outside the box upon arrival.

It may be light and thin but the Parker PM20 feels like it could take a beating, but that would be fairly dumb, unless you like bashing on finesse guitars or finely cut wood.

If you are the type that punches your guitar instead of struming it; yanks strings rather than bending, then I'm not sure what to suggest. A 12 pound Les Paul may take a beating but why would you waste the guitar's life expenctancy? This would be the kind of guitarist suited for an inexpensive axe and replacement pickups due to the poor quality of most inexpensive guitar pickups.

However, if you plan on taking care of your guitar and treating it as a quality instrument you'll probably be happy with this well made Korean guitar. Parker were one of the first companies to go to Korea, train and maintain a strong relationship with the luthiers overseas and see the benefit in affordable pricing for most guitarists.

A glued neck, well balanced guitar that will take road use with a roadworthy case, the Parker PM20 should work for the vast majority of guitarists playing all kinds of music.

The gig bag is great for taking to practice and back, but if you want to toss it in a van full of equipment, invest a bit more and get an appropriate case.

No experience to date

I've been playing since 1968, professionally between 1974 to 2003 and for session work since then. I purchase guitars for function and design. I must like playing the guitar. For decades the guitar that fit the bill were Gibsons.

Parkers, with their outstanding blend of both past and present features and capabilities, with excellent quality parts with lots of sonic range and good looks make for a fun to play, exceptional sounding guitar.

2005 Bubinga top, mahogany back and mohagany set neck. Trim as described in all the other reviews. Comes with a really nice gig bag, but I'm going to get a HSC for it.

Great range of sounds from the two pickups and coil split. I've played everything from jazz to shred with it. Good clean sounds and great single-coil screech when you need it. I use a variety of amps including a Fender Princeton, a G-K with 12" Celestions (for jazz) and a modded Carvin Nomad for blues and rock. Also sounds clean and quiet when recording direct with Sansamp or Zoom 2.1u

I bought this off eBay as a "blem" from Funky Monkee (great name, great shop). For the life of me, I couldn't find anythng wrong with the finish. It looks great: the finish, frets and setup were perfect. As with most Korean guitars, the frets seem to be finished better than most US production models.

Finish looks deep and strong. I own a lot of guitars, including a vintage Gibson 335, a EBMM Axis and a Taylor T5. Given the size, shape and slimness of the headstock, I worry a bit about its durability compared to a standard headstock. The hardware is all solid, but I immediately switched out the strap buttons for Dunlop strap-locks, as I do with all my instruments. I never gig without a backup. In fact, this Parker is the backup to my Axis on rock gigs and the Gibson on jazz gigs.

Haven't dealt with them, but they have a great reputation.

I've been playingg since the Kennedy administration and gigging since the Johnson administration. (Old fart, huh?) In addition to the gear mentioned above, I use a pedal board with several Boss effects, George L cables, and have begun to use the Zoom 2.1 to try and replace the pedalboard (not yet)... If the PM20 was lost or stolen I'd get another one a.s.a.p. The PM20 is one of the great bargains in instruments. It's very light, and that may take some getting used to. I'd like to have one like it with a Floyd Rose on it.

This is a 2005 PM20 Pro, a prototype with Sperzel locking tuners, a Tone Pros bridge, Seymour Duncan humbucking pickups ('59 neck and Custom Custom bridge), star inlay at the 12th fret and a gold top. Coil taps on both the volume and tone controls. Black hardware. Came with metal Washburn hardshell case. Apparently this model will be available in 2006 in bubinga, flamed maple, and white, but not in the gold top.

Outstanding sound quality from the Seymour Duncans. Warm jazzy tones from the '59 and a range of rich, full, solid lead sounds & crunch from the Custom Custom. Good quacking, chicken pickin' sound with the coils tapped as well as some real gritty snarling tones with high gain. I am using a Line 6 Spider II 2 x 12. I have not heard the Stinger pickups but the SD's are superb with this guitar. I play a wide range from blues to jazz to alternative rock and this guitar covers these bases with aplomb.

Exceptional workmanship throughtout. Had to do minor bridge adjustment to elimainate some fret buzz. Action is nice and low. Ebony fretboard is very well done. Gold top is both classy and stunning. no finish flaws at all.

Can't realistically rate this yet. It appears solid in every respect, however.

N/A

This is a boatload of guitar at an incredible price. With the hardshell case included, it felt like stealing. Parker should sell plenty of the Pro models. Tremendous value. I would try to replace this guitar if it were ever lost/stolen but not certain that I could obtain one given the unique specs.

2 HB's, coil tapped, Mahogany bod, Mahogany Neck, ebony fretboard, honeyburst quilt maple top, Grover tuners. Shaped like an LP but about as thick as an SG. Lots of goodness here.

Pups are weak in HB mode not enough depth & character for my tastes and deficiencies highlighted by tapped mode, swithching these out for a SD JB/Jazz combo. Awesome resonance due to string through body and quality of materials used. Pups are main gripe here.

Perfect playability out on the box. Even frets,Perfect intonation. Clean routing. No cosmetic flaws. Despite being fairly lightweight shows good balance and is not neck heavy.

Good quality materials used in construction resulting in the PM20 beig extremely durable.

Good alternative mid priced guitar to the big three of Fender PRS & Gibson. some minor tweaking and it becomes an absolute monster of a guitar

2005 model Walnut limited run finish. Twin humbuckers of parker origin (stingers i think) Grover tuners. Gibson esque shape but with Trademark parker squared off horn. Came with good quality gig bag and some accessories. Ebony fret board , no dot markers on fret board (stylish?). No more features and extras than are necessary, has just what is required and no more.

Sound is just superb, loads of gorgeous sustain but it bites if you want it too. coil taps work well and easy to operate but sound best using both pickups in humbucker setting. played through a variety of amps and effects it sounds good all round.-

cant fault it at all, have looked closely all over and frankly its so close to perfect it hurts, something quite unexpected at this price level. Action once set up properly is quite exquisite, again something youd expect to pay 5 times more for. Poly carbonate nut is just superb. Cant fault it at all.

This is a light guitar but feels strong, only time and a few gigs will tell but for now feels like it can take the pace. Finish seems very tough and will go on looking good.

Dont know , never dealt with them directly

Considering I had this shipped from the states to the UK, I saved a small fortune (even after paying shipping!!) its a bargain and a half compared to other UK prices. THe same money (?320) barely buys an entry level Fender in the UK and this Parker PM20 blows them into the middle of next year. incredible. Already saving for a parker Fly, if the PM20 is this good the Fly must be astonishing. I am a Parker Convert

Either 2004/2005 Parker PM-20. Stringer humbuckers w/coil push pull coil tap. My color choice was natural mappa burl.Grover tuners,tune-o-matic bridge,22 frets(no inlay),string thru design,black polycabondate nut,22 frets. Body design is kind of like a single cutaway and roughly the same size as a PRS,Wolfgang. Nice gig bag with built in metal support for the neck, truss rod wrench and a cheapo chord.

I prefer 16 bar rock n roll,boogie,blues and just a touch of jazz. I play through a crate amp and have a Behringer effects unit. The pick ups are very quiet and sound especially bright in the bridge position. Personally I don't like the sound with the coil taps on in any of the positions and feel that they just muddy the tone. These Stringer pickups sound loud, clear and bright and suit my style of music.

When I got the guitar in the mail the high strings were dead and buzzing on the first two frets. I broke out the truss rod wrench and went to work. A few turns later the problem was gone. Still had a problem with the D string though so I raised the tune-o-matic 1/8 inch of a turn on the low strings and problem solved. Now the action is low, mean and a blast. I mean you can literally fly all over this fret board. The fit, finish, hardware etc were in perfect condition.

This guitar is very well built although I certainly don't believe it would withstand a good thrashing. This is a guitar to stroke, not bang on; and having said that I would gig with it. I would never gig without a backup no matter what my main axe was - nuff said.

Never dealt with the company. I know there is a warranty but couldn't say what the terms or length are.

I've been playing for thirty years and own three fenders, a Les Paul, Rick 330, couple of Dillions (nice guitars for the $$$),Peavey Wolfgang and a Washburn 330 style guitar. If this were lost or stolen I might have trouble replacing it as there are only 100 of this color around. I like the way this guitar feels, the neck is small and feels real nice especially when your hand rests along the headstock while playing an e-chord. It's light and feels just about right to me. I don't dislike anything about this guitar and feel it's very unique. I wouldn't compare this guitar to anything ,it has it's own personality and as previously stated, these Parkers are unique. All in all this is a well built, fun to play guitar and if you hurry you can get it in one of the limited edition colors.

Bubinga top, two humbuckers, conical fingerboard radius - check parker website for details

The guitar plays very well in tune with itself. I play jazz and gospel. Quiet humbuckers make by Parker. Coil split is nice, but I have yet to hear 1/2 a humbucker sound like a good single coil pick up. Lovely Jazz tone after I put flat wound 11's and mucked with the truss rod, intonation a bit. Bridge pick up probably does not have enough bite for some tastes, but it suits me fine. I have other guitars for twang.

My set up is PM20->Peterson Strobo Stomp Tuner->Fulltone Distortion Pro->Cry Baby 535Q->Fulltone Choral Flange->Roland DD-20->Peavey Classic 50 Head->JDesign Speaker cabs

Perect factory set up out of the box with 9's. I hesitated re-stringing with heavier strings because it played so well, but I wanted a jazz tone so I re-strung after ~ 2 weeks. One of the best playing guitars I found at any price. Bubinga top is beautiful, only slight finish marks around string through holes. Amazing neck joint. Fret edge finish if fine, but not as smooth as higher end guitars (at > 3x the price!)

It will probably be fine, but I only had it for 2 months. OK to gig without a backup. I noticed a PM10 in the store that had some type of crud growing on the finger board, but that could have been from someones hands or odd body chemistry that can sometimes react with strings, fingerboard. No signs of the crud on my unit.

Never dealt with them.

I've been playing for 30+ years, serious amature at church and jazz combo for the last 5 years. I have a real day job so I can afford toys. I have a Carvin DC127 and an Epiphone Emporer hollow body (+ ~ 12 others). I wanted a solid body humbucker to play jazz without feedback (even when the drummer and bass get loud) and this fits the bill. You can'd beat it for the price. I never took Parker guitars seriously becaus of the unusual looks, but now that I spent some time playing one I'm a convert. They really do defy physics by having great tone and sustain in a light body. I plan to try the Southern Nitefly when one gets to a store near me, and will very likely purchase another Parker.