Fishman Aura 16 Acoustic 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.

It's the worst pedal I have ever use. Would not recommend!!!

It's easy to understand how this thing could get a bad review by someone who is impatient or doesn't fully understand what it is and what it isn't. To be honest, when it first arrived I'd have to admit I didn't fully understand what it was supposed to do to my guitar sound or how - I only knew what I was *hoping* it would do. Oh I had read the reviews and the online manual and seen a bunch of videos, but even then I didn't truly know how good I could get my guitar to sound or how I could make the Spectrum do it. It's an expensive piece of gear and if it didn't immediately make your guitar sound like angels singing right out of the box its easy to imagine a less patient person looking for the receipt and packing material 15 minutes in.What I've discovered after downloading all the public images from Fishman (a MUST) and trying several dozen images and settings for maybe 3 hours is that a pristine, miked acoustic guitar sound is possible, but getting there requires a lot of experimentation. Consider the variables: Each image is going to shape the sound source according to the microphone and guitar used to create it. Some of the combinations of guitar and microphone have a *dramatically* different effect on the source sound. An important point here is, either find your exact guitar make and model OR use the image wizard tool in the software to get a list of "similar" guitars. If you find an exact match you have an advantage because you just eliminated one of the variables. If not (as in my case - I have a 1984 Alvarez Yairi dred) you must resign yourself to loading several different combinations of guitar/mic images into the Spectrum and doing a lot of A/B comparisons. Other suggestions that may help find that one "sweet spot" image:1. Eliminate everything else in the signal path. Plug directly into the amp if possible.2. Keep everything flat, and no effects! Very important - you want to judge the subtle nuances between images on completely uncolored sound.3. When you find a list of candidate images with the wizard, look up the guitars online and choose the ones that match the wood species of your guitar for back, sides AND top.4. Understand that if you're playing through an image that doesn't match your exact make & model, your guitar is another variable in the equation that will inevitably color the sound. For example, it you're playing through a Taylor image and your guitar has more depth in the lower notes than a Taylor, the resulting sound might be a bit muddy or boomy, regardless of which mic is used. The trick is to try to match the make/model of the image as closely as possible in woods and acoustics to leave the microphone as the only remaining variable affecting the sound.I've been working with a few dozen images and I'm only now beginning to zero in on some that sound really nice with my guitar. And when I say really nice I mean REALLY nice. Be patient - this is not an effects pedal or a modeler. It will take some time to get the Spectrum tweaked just right to get that beautiful, natural sound you're looking for, especially if you can't find an exact match to your guitar.