Fishman Aura Orchestra Imaging Pedal

If you have the correct acoustic guitar pickup for this pedal, it's extremely easy to use. Set an input level, and turn the knob. One of the images will probably sound really good. Another couple might sound OK, and the rest will be horrible.

If you don't have the correct pickup, every single setting will sound worse than the pickup by itself!

As I mentioned earlier, with the proper rig, this is an excellent pedal. A proper rig means an acoustic guitar of the appropriate body shape, outfitted with an ACTIVE Fishman undersaddle transducer, such as an Acoustic Matrix. I used it with my Larrivee fitted with an Acoustic Matrix I, and it sounds great.

Inspired by this, I carefully read the Fishman literature, stating that it has a nice high input impedence (10Mohm), was suitable for undersaddle transducers, etc. I had an AG series passive Fishman UST installed into my high-$ acoustic, thinking it was going to be the least invasive modification I could make.

That was a mistake.

Something that Fishman does NOT make clear in their literature, if you use a passive Fishman transducer, this pedal sounds horrible. Even worse than the transducer by itself. The sound is horribly EQ'ed and has all sorts of wierd phase-y sounds to it. Absolutely unusable, even as a joke.

I find Fishman's literature, and even the manual for the pedal horribly misleading in this regards. If you see that product review on their site that recommends using it with an electric guitar, don't believe it for a minute. I don't remember which magazine it was, but it speaks volumes about their editorial policies.

It looks decently constructed. Probably on par with any decent mass produced pedal.

When I asked about this issue, Derek at Fishman wrote:

"When it comes to the best overall sound and compatibility with our Aura systems, and active under saddle pickup is the better choice. I would have recommended our Matrix Infinity system over the AG pickup for use with the Aura."

Thanks a lot, Derek.

While I was excited about this pedal initially, my experience will keep me from ever purchasing another Fishman product.

I'll be ripping out the Fishman pickup from my nice acoustic, and replacing it with a K&K system with a Baggs Para Acoustic DI pedal. It's probably what I should have done initially.