Any Aura Spectrum DI/Anthem users?

[Joseph Hanna]

Originally Posted by Duncan121

Not to hi-jack..but Pete using the Spectrum is one of the reasons I checked it out and fell in love with it. I share very little in common or talent musically with Pete but his sound with the Spectrum is greatness and enough to convert the toughest of critics...Check this clip

Hey Daniel,

I love Pete's playing and he's in my top 10 or 12 favorites for sure. His tone in this clip is really good as well, but still a couple things come to mind. I can see Pete "working" the system. I've said this time and time again that each system out there has a varied degree of success emulating the actual touch of a non amplified guitar. I've always felt that given enough experiment time I could arrive at a pretty great "live" Aura sound. But I hate the response. It's slow and spongy and quite honestly very much like a real mic responds.

For me touch sensitivity a MAJOR component of how I get along with a system. It appears to me that Pete's adjusting his right hand touch to accommodate the Aura. You don't see Pete using much dynamics here and I suspect that's a trade-off he's willing to concede to. As a similar note James Taylor (who's been using Aura stuff for a while now) prefers his monitor mix heavier on the UST side presumably to address how the guitar "feels" in larger venues.

I'm somewhat rambling here (as is my nature) but the discussion of adjusting right hand technique to make any system perform better almost never comes up here. Just thought I'd throw that out there from an observational perspective.

YMMV, just my 2 cents and horses for courses

[rmyAddison]

As someone with 6 years Aura experience I found that over time I kept dialing the Aura blend lower and lower.........

What I found eventually was find the image you like best, EQ it, you can save those settings. Start with 100% UST and slowly add image until any quack goes away, then stop. I realize this is probably masking, but hey use a microphone (which I prefer anyway) if you don't want to use electronics.

Just enough image to counter the shortcomings of the UST is what works for me and you can get a very natural sound. When I play showcases I may not be the best player but I am disappointed if the sound tech doesn't say I had the most natural sound.

The Auras, old and new are very powerful, and it takes some time to really know the system and then get subtle with it, the tendancy in the beginning is to overdo everything IMO, later it's fine tuning more than heavy settings.

[Joseph Hanna]

Originally Posted by rmyAddison

As someone with 6 years Aura experience I found that over time I kept dialing the Aura blend lower and lower.........

What I found eventually was find the image you like best, EQ it, you can save those settings. Start with 100% UST and slowly add image until any quack goes away, then stop. I realize this is probably masking, but hey use a microphone (which I prefer anyway) if you don't want to use electronics.

Just enough image to counter the shortcomings of the UST is what works for me and you can get a very natural sound. When I play showcases I may not be the best player but I am disappointed if the sound tech doesn't say I had the most natural sound.

The Auras, old and new are very powerful, and it takes some time to really know the system and then get subtle with it, the tendancy in the beginning is to overdo everything IMO, later it's fine tuning more than heavy settings.

I couldn't agree more! On several levels. First thing that comes to mind is any of these systems take a lot of work, time and patience to wrangle the best out of them. Sometimes I feel like many of us think the answer is simply in a purchase..it's clearly not.

Originally Posted by rmyAddison

The Auras, old and new are very powerful, and it takes some time to really know the system and then get subtle with it

I couldn't of said it any better. This of course applies to EVERY system out there. The understanding of the subtleties wind up being sonic hammers on the other end of the listening experience.

In the Pete video you can at times CLEARLY hear a piezo at work but it's a sound that (especially live) that's very good although I'd caution that there is NO room in that mix. It's very dry and clearly direct. The system as I said has some great sonic potential still the touch bothers me a bit.

I kinda got off topic so sorry to the OP......carry on.

[guitaniac]

Originally Posted by Joseph Hanna

Hey Daniel,

I love Pete's playing and he's in my top 10 or 12 favorites for sure. His tone in this clip is really good as well, but still a couple things come to mind. I can see Pete "working" the system. I've said this time and time again that each system out there has a varied degree of success emulating the actual touch of a non amplified guitar. I've always felt that given enough experiment time I could arrive at a pretty great "live" Aura sound. But I hate the response. It's slow and spongy and quite honestly very much like a real mic responds.

I presume that last sentence is supposed to read"not very much like a real mic responds."

When I corresponded with beta tester Harvey Reid about the Aura, he observed that custom sound images followed his every playing move faithfully. Perhaps an advantage of custom sound images (created using the intended guitar/pickup input rig) is a more faithful touch response.

In any event, its obvious that Lloyd Baggs feels that touch response is an important issue with many players. His claim for the Anthem is that the response is so natural that one can play the guitar rather than the pickup. That's probably the Anthem claim which intrigues me the most. I can't recall ever using a pickup system (pure analog or digitally enhanced) which didn't need to be "played" to some degree.

Gary

[Joseph Hanna]

Originally Posted by guitaniac

I presume that last sentence is supposed to read"not very much like a real mic responds."

Ah ha! No actually Gary even though I'm one who dreams at night about successfully gigging with a microphone there are some things about a mic I don't like. If the room is any kind of sonic challenge I find microphones slow, that is of course assuming that your gigging at volumes that would make it difficult to hear the guitar in the first place.

Originally Posted by guitaniac

In any event, its obvious that Lloyd Baggs feels that touch response is an important issue with many players. His claim for the Anthem is that the response is so natural that one can play the guitar rather than the pickup. That's probably the Anthem claim which intrigues me the most.

I am absolutely drawn to the Anthem for the singular reason that a component of it's sales pitch is it's touch response. As I've mentioned I have had the opportunity to play my guitar repair guy's Anthem and my short trial proved very, very interesting along those lines.

Originally Posted by guitaniac

I can't recall ever using a pickup system (pure analog or digitally enhanced) which didn't need to be "played" to some degree.

Yes of course. That falls under simply obvious for me, but the reason I bring it up is because the vast majority of conversations here never work that into the discussions on any level and that, in and of itself, is very curious. It was just me merely pointing out that fact in a round about way, in a discussion about the pro's and con's of various pickup systems.

[jennconducts]

Hi,

Last week I promised that report on trying the Anthem with the Aura Spectrum. I finally got around to it (lots of work of late). In my opinion:

Not so much. I couldn't get the combo to sound good at all. No surprise, since the Aura technology is not meant to work best wish anything other than an UST. Both the Highlander and the Bose was WAY superior.

By the way, the Bose T1 increasingly impresses me. It's a neat piece of gear that allows you to do a whole variety of things very well. I wish that it ran on batteries, but that a small thing. I highly recommend the T1.

Jenn

[denmar355]

When I talked to Pete in the winter of 09, he had just had Dtar system put in the OM and was using it with the Aura with much satisfaction. He sounded better with that set up then when I heard him with the same guitar in 08 without it.