Fishman Aura

This unit is very easy to use. It starts out with 16 sound images of classic guitar and Mic combinations. Each patch is easy to edit while the unit remains extremely flexable. It comes with a very useful manual and a quick start guide.

The unit just sounds great. I have had a lot of experience performing live in a great variety of situations. I have used the Aura with a Taylor 514 CE, A Martin HD 28 VR with Fishman Rare Earth soundhole pickup (better that a Sunrise, and a Taylor LKSM 12 string. I have used this with a P.A., a Fishman Acoustic Performer Pro, Ultrasound AG30 and you really get the sound of a great guitar with a great microphone. It really shine plugged into my Rolad VR recorder. Great Natural acoustic tone from an undersaddle or soundhole pickup. Light years beyond the Yamaha AG Stomp.

Built like a tank. All metal enclousure. The dials all have a solid feel. Nothing flimsy here. A studio quality piece.

Easy to get a hold of and a great website to download new patches from.

I use this unit both for recording and performing live. I leave my amp at home and just use this with the P.A. I have been using acoustic pickups starting with the old DeArmond sondhole pickup nd Barcus Barry Hot Dots (remember those). I play solo finger style guitar and it is nice to have the different presets fot the different guitars. What a great box.

I purcahsed the Aura in January 2004. I am not much of a technophile but found the Aura to be incredibly easy to use. The unit was very easy to use and the manual written in a clear and easy to follow manner. The sounds from the unit are fantastic and measure up to their billing, not something that can said for other processors.

I am essentially a home musician but will perform as part of duo (two guitars two singers)maybe 4-5 times a year. For live performances I use a Berghiner mixer, a dbx tube/digital pre-amp and FBT powered speakers. Live I play a Brazillian Rosewood Breedlove with an active Rare Earth Pick-Up and a Gibson ES-175. Mostly these days I home record using an akai 16 track machine. I also have a number of stomp boxes I use, mostly boss and vintage mxr. The vintage stuff was purchased new so you have an idea of my age. For recording I also use a Gibson ES-330 and a Hummingbird. OK with that said the Aura has been absolutely fantastic in adding to the sound that I record. In the past I have used a Sans Amp which was fine but nowhere near the Aura. The 16 preset combinations of guitars, tonewoods and mics are truly superb. No noise at all just a clear transparent sound of great quality.

Since I have had this unit for three weeks can't comment really. But the thing is built using a strong metal case. All parts seem to work well and made of durable high quality material .

I e-mailed Fishman once for some input on the LED lights. They responded quickly and in non technical language which is important to me.

At this point I am playing mostly acoustic music mixing flat and finger picking. The music is a mixture of standards,folk, country, blues and jazz. I have been playing for over 40 years, sing and write a fair amount of music. And truth be known the weakest part of music these days is my ability to use technological innovation. The Aura is very easy to use and understand even for a guy like me. So even now I am still on the hunt for tone and sound (when will it end?). The Aura has helped me move "the sound from inside to outside my head". Thanks Fishman!

Pretty easy to use but it does require some tweaking. The sound images are pretty to edit. I've only had a short while but I put in a lot of time with it. It has a steel design and built in chromatic tuner. The manual is very well written and really helps you to understand how to use and set up the Aura for your guitar and recording and/or amp.

This is where the Aura is in a class all by itself. I've used the Sansamp acoustic DI , the Yamaha AG Stomp and the Zoom 504II and well as a tube preamp and the Aura blows them all away!!! The Aura has 16 different sound images that feature world class guitars with world class mics. There are 50 user patches where you can store these sound images after you tweak them to suit your guitar. The sound images are not simulations of guitars or effects for guitars but are instead acoustic environment patches. Fishman and AKAI teamed up to produce images of the way a high end guitar interacts with a high end mic in the ultimate studio environment. It's almost like they took a picture of the way the sound of the guitar interacts with air and the mic. I know this sounds crazy but you have to hear one to understand how awesome this unit is. I can actually plug my Carvin AC375 guitar (that is only about 2.5 inches thick) into the Aura and select a sound image of a Taylor grand auditorium guitar and then mix the sound of my guitar's pickup(fishman prefix pro) with the sound image and record what sounds like a mic'd Taylor. The sound images are dead on accurate! I recently listened to a mp3 of a high end Taylor acoustic with a Fishman prefix pro blend pickup which consists of the undersaddle piezo pickup and an internal mic. For the recording they mixed the mic and pickup sound 50/50 and it sounded like the best professional recording of an acoustic guitar. Well, now it you have a undersaddle or soundhole pickup in your acoustic you can do the same thing!! Just plug your acoustic guitar into the Aura and select a Taylor or Martin, Gibson j200, etc. sound image and mix that sound with your pickup by simply tweaking the settings on the Aura and you can get the same sound. You can even just use the sound image alone without the sound of your guitar's pickup. You can actually make a cheapo acoustic with a pickup sound like a several thousand dollar guitar miced with and expensive mic in a studio!!! You can plug the Aura into a amp or PA for live use or a digital recorder, computer or tape deck for recording. So far I'v only plugged mine into my Roland recorder. The really great part is that fishman is opening a website just for the Aura where there will be all kinds of additional sound images that any Aura owner can download and save to their Aura!! Be sure to check out www.fishmanaura.com

The Aura is steel not plastic and seems very sturdy and well made so far. I would definetly gig wothout a backup. Like I said earlier, I've only had mine a few weeks but it definetly seems well made.

Fishman customer support is top notch. I am actually the world's first consumer to own a fishman aura and I found out about them about 2 months before they were released. I contacted Fishman many times with questions during that 2 months and they were always extremely helpful.

I give the AURA the highest possible rating because it actually does what was until now impossible. It really makes a plugged in acoustic guitar sound like it's mic'd!! Many other companies have promised this but no one else has delivered. I was planning on buying a Boss AD-8 as soon as they were available but then I heard about the Aura and I'm glad I did. I play mostly worship music and today's contemporary christian music has some of the best recordings of the acoustic guitar in any kind of music today. The Aura makes recording the beautiful sound of acoustic guitars easy and you can take that same sound with you anywhere you play, gigs, church, coffee houses, etc. I have been playing guitar for about 5 years now and I haven't found anything that sounds this good. It's kind of like the POD for acoustics but better! If it was lost or stolen I'd definetly buy a new one. Once you tweak it to the sound you want, that sound is there any time you want it. No more messing with mics and mic placement, etc. There isn't anything about it that I hate. Well, I guess I did hate waiting for 2 months to get the first one available when it was released. If you're thinking of buying any other acoustic guitar processor or direct box or anything like that you owe it to yourself to check out the Aura first. Just so you have an idea how good they sound, I recently was thinking of getting a Fishman Prefix Pro Blender( Piezo & Mic combo) installed in my Carvin in place of my Prefix Pro preamp. I spoke to a guitar dealer who sells the Prefix Pro Blender. I told him about my guitar and what I was looking at doing and during the conversation I ask him if he ever heard an Aura. He said that he had and that it sounded "awesome". He said that a Fishman representative brought one to his store and took an expensive Martin off the shelf to demo the Aura. The Martin had the Prefix Pro Blender setup so the representative said to turn the mic off and just use the pickup because you can't use a mic with the Aura. They plugged the Martin into the Aura and it sounded INCREDIBLE. The fishman representative then told the store owner to now try the mic/pickup combo without the Aura and get the best sound he could out of it. They then compared the best Mic/pickup sound with the sound of the pickup alone plugged into the Aura and the Aura blew away the sound of the mic!!! The salesman then said that the Aura would definetly sound better than even a mic/pickup combo like you see on many high end Taylors and Martins. That says a lot when I was willing to pay about $250 for the Prefix Pro Blend and that dealer wasn't even carrying the Aura. I suspect that the Aura will far exceed what the POD was for electric guitars.