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Parker P36 Electric Guitar

 

Parker P36 reviewed by The Man in the Jar 

I'm a great lover of the Telecaster and believe that the Tele design should be protected under International Law (along with the double-hoop West Ham shirts that were so casually tossed into the dustbin of history). So when I was introduced to the P36 it was a blind date waiting to go wrong! 

Features of the Parker P36

Tuners - Sealed mini-tuners which are smooth and accurate.

Headstock - Now it might look a bit like Margaret Thatcher's nose in the pictures, but in the flesh this headstock is rather beautiful in its strangeness and compliments the upper horn on the body perfectly. The design is so sleek that the first and second string travel across empty space in their journey from the nut to their tuning pegs. 

Nut - The black polycarbonate nut is set in a slot in the fretboard (the configuration that I prefer) and is finished with precision.

Neck - This is a beautiful maple affair which is extremely thin and playable. The finish is of the "sanded smooth" variety and really is very fast against the skin.

Fretboard - The maple fretboard is joined seamlessly to the neck. There are no fret markers on the board itself but standard dots reside along the top of the neck. 

Frets - Medium, nicely polished.

Action - Really low and very playable right up the neck.

Body - It's a Telecaster on steroids!  This is a very unusual take on one of the oldest guitar shapes in the world. But it's sympathetic enough so that if you're used to playing a Tele you'll immediately feel comfortable playing the Parker. The strings pass through the body and the back of the body holds the access panel for the battery required to run the piezos. 

Bridge - This is a Fishman VT pseudo-Tele bridge design. Under each fully adjustable saddle you can just catch a glimpse of a pink wire which belies the presence of the piezos. The strings actually dive through the saddles themselves at the start of their journey through the body. 

Pickups - The obvious pickups are the classic Tele-style magnetic pickups which sit in their usual positions. These are Parker designed using alnico magnets. Inside the bridge there are six Fishman piezo elements that run into an active Fishman stereo preamp. 

Controls - Again the controls have a classic Tele look about them, except for the fact there are too many of them! The three position selector and the front two knobs serve their obvious purpose of (magnetic) pickup selection, volume and tone. The third knob serves to mix the output of the chosen magnetic pickup configuration with the output of the piezo pickups. A micro-switch behind and above these controls selects magnetic pickups only, piezo only or both combined.  

Pickguard - Like the rest of the P36 this is best described as "distorted Tele". It's made from a thick single ply of black plastic.

Strap-buttons - Large and secure. The top button is placed on the back of the upper horn. This guitar is beautifully balanced on the strap, something that's sometimes missing with rear mounted strap buttons.

Output Jack - Situated in the lower edge of the body in an oval plate. If you insert a stereo jack the guitar will split the magnetic and piezo signals. If you insert a mono jack the signals will be summed. Clever, huh?

Finish - The ash blonde finish on this model is as beautiful a finish as I've ever seen on any high-end Telecaster. Nuff said.

Sound of the Parker P36

Strapping this guitar on gives you an immediate feeling of quality. The sound of the magnetic pickups does not disappoint. Parker themselves describe the sound as "twang and shimmer" and I have to agree. Both pickups fulfilled and exceeded my Telecaster expectations and everything available in a top quality Fender configuration surely lives here too.
The piezos delivered a creditable acoustic sound that I suspect my old Roost struggled to do full justice to, but the boundaries really got pushed when the two sets of pickups are mixed together. There are so many tonal variations available from this guitar that it beggars belief. My favourite voice was achieved by running both magnetics and mixing in the piezos underneath to add an almost gravelly bark to the sound. Beautiful. 

Overall Impressions of the Parker P36

I approached this review with jealous prejudice against anything that took liberties with my favourite guitar style. Half an hour later my mind was duly broadened and I have to admit that the P36 is an absolute stonker of a guitar. I was hanging on to my Squier until the perfect Telecaster came into my life. I'm struggling to find reasons why the Parker P36 shouldn't fill that particular gap.

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