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  #46  
Old 10-16-2007, 03:37 PM
emersongs emersongs is offline
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Default Taylor ES Guitar with Fishman Aura Pedal?

Hello, This is my first post. It's time to invest in a new acoustic. For recording mostly but definitely live performance later on. I'm reading such great things about Taylor guitars, but mixed reviews about the electronics.

Has anyone tried a Taylor ES Guitar with Fishman Aura Pedal?
Best of both worlds or Frankenstein?

Last edited by emersongs; 10-16-2007 at 03:54 PM.
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  #47  
Old 10-17-2007, 12:41 PM
rainsong rainsong is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Joe Barbieri View Post
Hi Gary,
It's an across the board electronic upgrade for all Aura products. They all (Imaging pedals, Ellipse Aura, Onboard Aura and Aura Pro) share the following specs: Digital signal path:A/D, D/A conversion: 24-bit - Signal processing: 32-bit
As for Mag use with Images, although they will drive the Image, Images cannot be created with mag pickups. No change there.
The adjustable gain control you mention is an input trimmer. All Aura Products, including the original Aura Imaging Blender have an input control. This allows the player to adjust the input to get the hottest pickup signal possible without overdriving the preamp. Different playing styles require different trim settings for effective use of the systems.

JB
I don't suppose that there is a software download that would make those of us with the older blender benefit from this newer technology?
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  #48  
Old 10-17-2007, 01:04 PM
Herb Hunter Herb Hunter is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by emersongs View Post
Hello, This is my first post. It's time to invest in a new acoustic. For recording mostly but definitely live performance later on. I'm reading such great things about Taylor guitars, but mixed reviews about the electronics.

Has anyone tried a Taylor ES Guitar with Fishman Aura Pedal?
Best of both worlds or Frankenstein?
The Fishman Aura is designed for use with piezoelectric pickups which the ES doesn't have. Because of this, the Aura technology won't work with the ES. The whole purpose of the ES was to get away from piezoelectric transducers. The harsh sound quality of piezoelectric pickups is what created a market for products like Aura and Mama Bear.
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  #49  
Old 10-17-2007, 01:25 PM
Herb Hunter Herb Hunter is offline
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Originally Posted by sdelsolray View Post
1) Signal to noise: You indicated that the second generation Aura products (Pedal and Ellipse) have lower noise. The specs bear this out. The published signal to noise specs for the three products are as follows:

Blender: -74dBu, 20Hz to 20kHz, A-weighted
Pedal: -92dBV, A-weighted
Ellipse: -92dBV (A-weighted)

...the Blender's spec is stated in "dBu" and the Pedal's and Ellipse's specs are stated in "dBV". Those are different reference systems and the numbers associated with them cannot be compared equally. It's apples and oranges. The dBu reference system is used for professional gear. The dBV system in generally used for consumer gear. Converting one to the other allows an "apples to apples" comparison.

2) Dynamic Range: The dynamic range published for the Pedal and Ellipse is 94dB. That's basically the range between the noise floor and the onset of clipping. The dynamic range of the Blender is not published (at least I couldn't find it anywhere), nor can it be deduced from other specs. The Raven Labs PMB II is about 104dB (I had to do some math based on their specs, not my best subject), the D-TAR Solistice is 108dB and the Pendulum Audio SPS-1 is 114dB. The $99 M-Audio 2496 soundcard has a dynamic range of 100dB. Every 6dB of increase doubles the voltage/volume of the signal/sound.
http://rane.com/note145.html
Mama Bear noise and dynamic range specifications:

• Noise, 20 Hz to 20 KHz, bypass mode, referenced to input:
- 109 dBv, input shorted:
- 97.5 dBv, input open
• A/D Conversion
- 24 bit
- 64x oversampling
- S/(N+D): 94dB
- Dynamic Range, S/N: 108dB
• D/A Conversion
- 24 bit
- 128x oversampling
- 24 bit 8 times digital filter
- Ripple: +/-0.005dB, Attenuation: 75dB
- S/(N+D): 94dB- Differential outputs
- Dynamic Range: 110dB, A weighted
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  #50  
Old 10-17-2007, 01:56 PM
Joe Barbieri Joe Barbieri is offline
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Default Specs.......sigh

All great audio comes from devices that have great specs. Specs are wonderful measurements. Specs can be evidence that you are dealing with a well designed product. Specs are what they are. That being said, I hate specs. Specs are like statistics. Without changing a single number, they can be interpretated or manipulated to validate any argument. They can, and often do, mean nothing.
If you plug in a guitar and it sounds lousy, are you going to keep using it because the specs listed in the user guide are state of the art? Doubt it.
Never once in my life have I heard something that sounded great plugged in and thought "Wow, I wonder what the output impedance of this pickup is!!" or "The slew rate on this puppy rocks, I can't wait to get to page 3 so I can see how the differential output turns out!!"
It just doesn't work that way. You'll like or not like it based on your ears, nothing more. Specs are for engineers, who thankfully exist so we can just play guitar while they play with the specs.

JB
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  #51  
Old 10-17-2007, 01:59 PM
Joe Barbieri Joe Barbieri is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Herb Hunter View Post
The Fishman Aura is designed for use with piezoelectric pickups which the ES doesn't have. Because of this, the Aura technology won't work with the ES. The whole purpose of the ES was to get away from piezoelectric transducers. The harsh sound quality of piezoelectric pickups is what created a market for products like Aura and Mama Bear.
Hi Herb,

The first part is correct. The second part, not so much. I think what created a market for the Aura is the performance of the product, not the harsh sound quality of pickups.

JB
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  #52  
Old 10-17-2007, 03:29 PM
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wthurman wthurman is offline
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I didn't read the thread. However, I can say that my recording engineer liked the ES fairly well, but was blown away by the Aura and still talks about it. Currently, I use the K&K Pure Western Mini, which in his opinion comes in second to the Aura.

Luckily, it matches my opinion as well. The only reason I chose the K&K is that I don't have to change batteries and the setup is simpler for idots like me, and sounds pretty darned good.

Pickups are always a compromise...
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  #53  
Old 10-17-2007, 03:40 PM
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Joe F Joe F is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Wade Thurman View Post
Pickups are always a compromise...
That I will have to 100% agree with. I had an onboard Aura equipped guitar for awhile. A Martin OMC-Aura. It is one of the better sounding plugged in guitars I've ever had....in certain situations. It was fantastic for recording and solo work. In a band environment however, it flat wore me out with all the knob diddling required to try to get it to sound good...but still cut through....and not feedback.

I ended up going back the simplicity and incredible feedback immunity of the ES.

I posted my thoughts on each here:

http://www.acousticguitarforum.com/f...d.php?t=106601

Given a choice and money to burn, I'd have one of each!
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  #54  
Old 10-17-2007, 04:32 PM
Herb Hunter Herb Hunter is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Joe Barbieri View Post
Hi Herb,

The first part is correct. The second part, not so much. I think what created a market for the Aura is the performance of the product, not the harsh sound quality of pickups.

JB
I appreciate your participating on this subject and providing authoritative information about Aura products.

The second part of my post may be a matter of opinion. As I see it, it is the shortcommings of the piezoelectric pickup, its harshness and, in its most popular application, its response to only string vibration that created a need for a product like Aura.
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  #55  
Old 10-17-2007, 08:24 PM
MattM MattM is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Joe Barbieri View Post
Hi Herb,

The first part is correct. The second part, not so much. I think what created a market for the Aura is the performance of the product, not the harsh sound quality of pickups.

JB
I gotta stick with Herb on this one...lets face it, if people were truly thrilled with the warmth and richness of transducers, they wouldn't be shelling out $$ for complex dual source systems, mic modelling products and the like.
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  #56  
Old 10-17-2007, 10:03 PM
sdelsolray sdelsolray is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Herb Hunter View Post
Mama Bear noise and dynamic range specifications:

• Noise, 20 Hz to 20 KHz, bypass mode, referenced to input:
- 109 dBv, input shorted:
- 97.5 dBv, input open
• A/D Conversion
- 24 bit
- 64x oversampling
- S/(N+D): 94dB
- Dynamic Range, S/N: 108dB
• D/A Conversion
- 24 bit
- 128x oversampling
- 24 bit 8 times digital filter
- Ripple: +/-0.005dB, Attenuation: 75dB
- S/(N+D): 94dB- Differential outputs
- Dynamic Range: 110dB, A weighted
Those dynamic specs are for the digital part of the unit. Analog dynamic range is a different spec, and that's what I was referencing in the prior post.
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  #57  
Old 10-18-2007, 05:35 AM
Herb Hunter Herb Hunter is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sdelsolray View Post
Those dynamic specs are for the digital part of the unit. Analog dynamic range is a different spec, and that's what I was referencing in the prior post.
I was only going to post the noise specs but didn't bother to delete the digital dynamic specs. I couldn't find the analog dynamic range specs on D-TAR's web site.
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  #58  
Old 10-18-2007, 07:50 AM
Joe Barbieri Joe Barbieri is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Herb Hunter View Post
The second part of my post may be a matter of opinion. As I see it, it is the shortcommings of the piezoelectric pickup, its harshness and, in its most popular application, its response to only string vibration that created a need for a product like Aura.
Hi Herb,

I'll grudgingly agree, but all pickups are not created equal. The original passive piezo crystal pickups ie; Fishman AG series, created a harshness that some people unfortunately do not segregate from the warmer sounding active pickups like the Acoustic Matrix. The efficient circuitry of the Matrix allows for much greater headroom (without needing extra voltage btw...) so the issue of high end harshness is greatly, if not completely diminished. The Matrix proprietary sensing material also senses bridge and top movement and is not as string oriented as the crystal pickups.
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  #59  
Old 12-09-2007, 03:42 PM
Troisnoir Troisnoir is offline
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I've been disappointed, slightly, with my ES equipped GS. I've read many postings here which indicated that the ES has very low susceptability to feedback, and Taylor says the same thing. But my guitar feeds back quite easily, as reasonably low amp volumes. I was wondering if there have been any recalls/field notes re: probs with the ES that can be corrected/repaired.

I also find the sound to be a bit honky, and have not been able to tweak the sound to my satisfaction, but I'll keep dinking with it. I love the tone acoustically, however. Just thought from all the hype that I'd get a better plugged in tone.

BTW: I'm using a Bose L1 w/2 B1's, and I've tried both the Taylor presets and non-Taylor presets (though I haven't tried every one). I've gotten some fairly decent acoustic guitar sounds, just none that are remotely similar to my actual guitar.
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  #60  
Old 12-09-2007, 10:18 PM
guitaniac guitaniac is offline
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I believe that there's some inconsistency with the ES guitars. I ran sound, on numerous occasions, for a player whose ES-equipped 414ce worked pretty well until it just went dead one day. After the repair (at Taylor), it was suddenly more feedback prone for some strange reason. He quit using it and would borrow my (less feedback prone) Wavelength UST-equipped 314ce instead.

On Saturday night I noticed that my opening act was playing an ES-equipped Taylor with a soundhole cover. The soundhole cover seemed like a strange necessity for a solo performer in a small club, so I asked him about it. He claimed that he was having some feedback issues during his soundcheck. Go figure. His volume level during the show certainly wasn't excessive. Even with fewer bodies in the room (during the soundcheck), it was hard for me to imagine that the same volume level would cause feedback problems with most UST-equipped or ES-equipped guitars. I presume he must have one of the problematic ES guitars.

Gary
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