Fishman Aura Nylon String Acoustic Imaging Pedal

It only has 3 knobs and 2 switches, not a whole lot to get confused with.

It does what it says it does, takes a UST and makes it sound like a microphone. It took some EQ-ing to flatten out the response, but the difference is night and day between on and off with this thing.

Heavier(and larger)than most pedals. Semms to be built solidly. Only had it for a week.

havent tried to contact them recently, but in the past they've been prompt in answering emails.

I used this at a gig and it worked great. Signal path was: My guitar with a UST into the aura, into a DI with eq, into my amp.

There's not much to setting this unit up. First, adjust the trim for your guitars output level. All the way up in my case. Then crank up the volume and set the mix to fully wet, and twist the selector knob to try out each image, and decide which one(s) you like best. Then decide how much effect you want mixed. I like it all wet.

The manual is pretty basic, but then it doesn't need much. I do wish they would tell you which image is which, but I do get their rationale for withholding that info.

I use this on my Ibanez GA6CE, which is a classical with a cutaway, and a fishman UST pickup and preamp. My signal chain is Guitar -> Boss TU-2 Tuner -> Aura -> DI box -> House/PA

I've always hated UST pickups. I got this particular guitar before I knew any better. Of course, there's not too much choice with an amplified classical. On my steel strung acoustic, I use a magnetic soundhole pickup, but that's not going to work with nylon.

The first time I plugged this unit in and played it, I thought it was a significant, yet subtle change, and poking around the image selector, I quickly settled on images 7 and 10 as my favorites (I wish I knew what these images were created with!) It did strike me as being much more boomy or woofy than the UST alone, and I usually crank down the lower frequencies to balance it out a bit. It wasn't until I hit the bypass switch and played again that I suddenly realized that from now on I can NEVER play with this guitar in public again unless it is going through this box! Without the effect, the guitar sounds like it is strung with rubber bands, and is filled with angry ducks.

It didn't sound just like what I expected, and at first I was a little alarmed about the sound. But I've come to realize that my ear has a certain expectation of what a guitar is going to sound like plugged in, and that has become the baseline. This unit actually does make it sound much more like a miked guitar, and that just doesn't make sense to my prejudiced ear when I simply plug it in, so my initial reaction is that something is wrong. It's not wrong. Just different than I expected.

The acid test is, of course, what you actually sound like at a venue, and since I've been using this, listeners have repeatedly told me how much better my guitar sounds, and the guys riding the faders have on several occasioned gone out of their way to tell me how much more "lush" and "full" my guitar sounds. Everyone who has commented on my tone has had nothing but praise for the change in my tone, without exception.

The manual suggests to mix in some unaffected signal with the effect when playing live, but to me, that just adds in a little bit of rubber band and duck. Why would I want that? I keep it fully wet.

Prior to adding this to my signal chain, I was also using the Zoom A2 to add in a bit of reverb and a tiny bit of chorus to fill out my sound a bit. But with this guy, I just don't need that at all. The tone is plenty full.

Again, it does not make your guitar sound exactly like it has been miked in a quality studio setup. That is the goal, of course, and it fails to meet that goal. But again, that's a ridiculously high bar. This unit comes quite close to succeeding, however.

It seems to be rock-solid. Everything appears to be well engineered about it. I don't worry about it flaking out on me at all. No backup.

I play mostly praise and worship music in a liturgical setting. We often have bass and drums, as well as keyboards (occasionally the pipe organ!) I've been playing for about 25 years, mostly in the closet though. I've been playing in Church weekly for about five years now.

If this were lost or stolen, I would RUN to the nearest dealer.

The only similar product I compared this to is the D-TAR Mama Bear, which is out of my price range anyway.