Fishman Jerry Douglas Signature Series Aura Imaging Pedal

I love the sound of a good acoustic guitar, but the sound of an acoustic guitar amplified with an undersaddle piezo pickup sounds terrible to me. Terrible. I've walked out on shows because of the buzzing, quacking piezo tone that sounds nothing like an acoustic guitar. A piezo pickup doesn't have a linear response. Of course it doesn't sound right, you are introducing distortion at the front end of your signal chain. Ick. Tragically, there are generations of young guitarists who seem to think that's what an acoustic guitar sounds like. Quaaaack.Some folks think this is an acoustic guitar modeler. It isn't. It will not make your Ovation sound like a Martin. It will not make your six string sound like a 12 string. There are boxes that will do such things (the Roland GR55, for example). What this box does is convert the undersaddle piezo output of an acoustic guitar to a mic'd sound of the same guitar using signal processing. The wizards in the secret Fishman laboratories hook up a guitar with its piezo pickup, and simultaneously mic the acoustic sound of the guitar. When they play the guitar, they electronically compare the mic'd signal to the piezo signal, and store the differences in an image file. When you play your piezo into the Fishman Aura Spectrum DI, it processes the piezo signal with the image to reproduce the mic'd signal. Pretty slick, huh? Science, man. Don't worry, you can still play religious music through it.I bought the Fishman Aura Spectrum DI hoping to tame the duck. It does! But it takes some time to match the image to the guitar. This can be particularly hard if an image is not available for your specific guitar. But there are enough images out there that you should be able to come close. For example, there is no image for my Luna AMD100, but after experimenting I found the Gibson Songwriter Deluxe Cutaway image sounds great on it. Even better, the different microphone models for this image have distinct personalities -- all good.The problems come when the image is mismatched with your guitar. The results can be all over the place. Some will nail the high end, but produce some strange resonances. Others will capture the low end, but produce a plinky high end. Some come tantalizingly close. In this, you can use it as an effect box if that floats your boat. For me, none of the mismatched images sound good. You sure can tell when you hit a well matched image. Boom! Magic! If all else fails, you can ship your guitar to Fishman and ask the wizards to make an image for your guitar. You can even select which microphones they will use. But it will cost you.The manual says to mix the image sound with the piezo. For me, the less piezo the better.I used to play out with a fairly high end acoustic through a magnetic pickup, and was never happy with the sound. I now play out with an inexpensive Chinese made guitar that costs about the same as the Fishman Aura Spectrum DI that is processing it. But I get a better sound than I ever did before. I've seen some folks complain about how much the unit costs. But if you can get great live sound with a modestly priced guitar through the Fishman, why expose your vintage Martin to the drooling, beer flinging hoards? This is a great technology, well integrated into a rugged, handsome, and convenient package. For me, it falls into the category of expensive, but worth it. And nothing else comes close.

I bought this on the reccommendation of reviews on line, here and elsewhere. And the reviews were right, this little box does everything I need.I was looking for a DI that would provide: a tuner, E.Q., feedback suppressor, and a pre-amp. I play a variety of acoustic instruments and neededa way to change instruments onstage without the noise associated with unplugging a guitar cable from a DI. The Fishman automatically mutes the signal whenthe tuner is engaged, cool! Now I can change from my guitar to mandolin or dobro without having to go to the PA to mute the channel. I wanted something that hadall these abilities in one unit, having too many little boxes on-stage is a drag during and after the performance.Now for the images the unit provides. I don't have any of the guitars imaged, my stage acoustic is a strange cheap Korean guitar that I hotrodded,(tired of dragging expensive guitars to bars), so I just choose the image of the "Concert Guitar" and found a mic image that sounded the best. They all sounded pretty much the same, which all are actually very usable sounds. I knew and expected I wasn't going to make my guitar sound like a vintage Martin, or my cheap but very cool(vintage) Harmonyelectric mando sound like a Gibson, but my instruments sounded great and were pre-amped just right, all with just one box!!!CUSTOMER support, I had a problem with the first unit the vendor sent, it quit working a week after I bought it, just before a gig I was planning and needed it for.I went to the Fishman website and wrote a letter describing my problem and need (the gig was in one week), they understood my panic, sent me a new unit without requiring me to send the old one in first (Trust and belief in customers is a new experience for me), THIS was WAY cool and the new one came a day before the gig.In using the Aura Spectrum on the gig, I was pleased to find the feedback suppressor worked miracles, the sound man had me way loud in the monitor, with a loud low frequency making everyone nervous, I just stepped on the feedback button, and POOF!, it was gone. I could tune up various instruments and get levels very easily, all without leaving my chair (I have to sit down to play dobro). This was a new day for me, life was good, I am a happy customer!!

For me - this is perfect. I play festivals with 1/2 hour changeovers & I need to plug in & sound good immediately.My Gibson J-45 pick-up is better than some but often the DI sound is scratchy & horrible.I sounds okay through a good acoustic amp but if I'm playing abroad or have to walk to a festival stage carrying an amp is impractical & cumbersome.The Fishman Aura takes your scratchy DI signal and turns it into full / lush sound like it would sound like if the guitar was mic-ed.A solidly built, high quality bit of kit.Things I would change:Swap the bass/middle/treble for a sweep eq & the anti-feed-back for reverb (so you can send the soundman your desired sound straight away).ps. The compression is also excellent.Throughly recommended.

El sonido no tiene la calidad que esperaba y lo encuentro poco natural. El selector de instrumento no va suave y parece que se vaya a estropear. Esperaba una mejor relación calidad/precio.

Holy grail when it comes to acoustic guitar tone when playing live, just love the sound of my guitar when going through this pedal. The tuner is an added little bonus. Wouldn't play acoustically live without it. Pedal has heavy duty construction. Love it.

I used this product for a week I play a godin A6 I was comparing to lr baggs venue. It sounded really good I found the lr baggs sounded better and had more features I was looking for. The boost feature and a better display for the tuner are the two features that tipped the scales for me.

Item arrived swiftly and was well packaged. My experience with this pedal is that you need to put a lot of effort into making the best of it - but it is worth it. You need to find the setting that most resembles your guitar and that will be the sweet spot. You will find that several settings more naturally enhance your sound and need to choose your preferred setting. You may not appreciate its effect immediately but after playing with it on/of/on etc you will and then you just need to leave it on that setting.permanently IMHO.Big downside of this pedal - It is very expensive!