Fishman Aura Sixteen

[tomj]

Greetings, fellow Avalon fans.

Am new to the forum ( first post ) but wanted to see if any of you fine persons had acquired any experience with the newly released Fishman Aura Sixteen? If so, I'd appreciate your feedback with regards to its use specifically in recording.

Cheers
Tom

[tomj]

Anyone?

[philjs]

Greetings, fellow Avalon fans.
Am new to the forum ( first post ) but wanted to see if any of you fine persons had acquired any experience with the newly released Fishman Aura Sixteen? If so, I'd appreciate your feedback with regards to its use specifically in recording.

I had a jumbo pedal for awhile but sold it when I sold the jumbo (though now, with Fishman allowing them to be modded/upgraded to 16s with downloadable images, maybe I should've kept it!).

Anyway, I did try recording with it but found that it was very easy to overdrive it and introduce distortion. In the end I much preferred a pair of decent mics for the good acoustic sound of the guitar in the first place, with a straight feed from the internal pickup to the recorder for some extra bass definition and crisper effects.

I'm not saying it was bad, beyond the caveat that you really watch the clipping levels (set them as per the manual then back it off another 1/4 to 1/2 turn!) and keep the image down to no more than 1/2 of the signal...I suspect it would've been better had I followed the caveat myself.

Phil

[tomj]

Thanks for that Phil. Useful to know.

I know the best recording method is to use a good mic in a good room with a good guitar ( natch ) however I only have 2 of the 3 criteria - the mic ( KM84 ) and the guitar ( L-10C ). The room, however, isn't good. So was just looking for other ways of accommodate this circumstance which I know will always be a compromise.

[philjs]

I know the best recording method is to use a good mic in a good room with a good guitar ( natch ) however I only have 2 of the 3 criteria - the mic ( KM84 ) and the guitar ( L-10C ). The room, however, isn't good. So was just looking for other ways of accommodate this circumstance which I know will always be a compromise.

Try close miking (20 to 25cm off your favorite "sweet spot") to reduce the room influence to a minimum, then copy the track to a new empty track. Offset the new copy by just enough to hear the difference when the two are played together (not necessary but sometimes it helps to "thicken" the sound) and pan the two tracks left and right (not necessarily hard panned but just enough to broaden the field), with your pickup track in the centre, EQ'd to bring out the bass and definition.

I much prefer two good mics in ORTF (with a DI track) but the doubled track trick might help.

Phil

[tomj]

Thanks Phil, I'll give it a try.