Composite Acoustic Onboard Aura Preamp

braymil · #1 12-11-2008, 08:14 PM

Does anyone here have experience getting good sound out of the onboard Fishman Aura preamp that was installed by to folks at CA? I have a Bluegrass Performer with such and have a dickens of a time getting anything close to a decent sound. The B and E strings a way to bright/tinny and over power the rest of the strings. EQing them all the way down helps but not nearly enough. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Bob M.

ljguitar · #2 12-11-2008, 09:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by braymil

Does anyone here have experience getting good sound out of the onboard Fishman Aura preamp that was installed by to folks at CA? I have a Bluegrass Performer with such and have a dickens of a time getting anything close to a decent sound. The B and E strings a way to bright/tinny and over power the rest of the strings. EQing them all the way down helps but not nearly enough. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Hi Bob...
First things first...hello and welcome. Sounds like you love to play.

First a question, what are you playing the guitar through for an amp? Have you heard other players having the same issues?

braymil · #3 12-12-2008, 09:48 AM

Larry, Thanks for the welcome!

I am using a Crate Acoustic Taos (CA30D). I typically go through a Boss Loop Station to the amp. I suspect that I do not have uniform contact between the saddle bottom and the piezo UST with the guitar top. The string-to-string balance, or lack there of, seems rather noticeable to me (i.e. the D and G strings seem to have significantly less volume than the B and E). However, it might just be the brightness/tinny sounding B and E that I perceive as volume differences.

I have searched these forums and have not found others complaining similarly.

Larry, thanks for your response to my questions.

Bob M.

biggs2 · #4 12-12-2008, 07:30 PM

Bob,

Have you tried bypassing the Boss Loop Station or perhaps even trying it in a different amp to see if it makes any difference in tone or he "brightness/tinny sounding B and E or the volume of your D and G strings"? The Fishman Aura gets great reviews and I think I would try to eliminate the external variables first.

While I don't own a CA equipped with the Aura system, I do own a CA 7M-CE with a Fishman Ellipse VT onboard pickup/preamp. With no additional EQ other than that on my SWR CA Blonde amp, it sounds just OK. With a bit of experimenting, I find I get the best results from the pickup, when I go thru my Baggs PADI. However, when I initially played it through a small PA at the store it sounded perfect with no need for any external EQ. Just a thought.

ljguitar · #5 12-12-2008, 07:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by braymil

...I am using a Crate Acoustic Taos (CA30D). I typically go through a Boss Loop Station to the amp. I suspect that I do not have uniform contact between the saddle bottom and the piezo UST with the guitar top. The string-to-string balance, or lack there of, seems rather noticeable to me (i.e. the D and G strings seem to have significantly less volume than the B and E). However, it might just be the brightness/tinny sounding B and E that I perceive as volume differences.

Hi Bob...
So are those high strings overpowering the other strings when you play without the amp?

braymil · #6 12-12-2008, 08:05 PM

Larry, no not at all. The guitar sounds fine by itself or miked (SM57).

Biggs, I guess I have not bypassed the Loop Station, but I will try that. I do not have another amp.

I recently purchased a Baggs PADI, but did not have much success solving the problem with it. For example, where do I set the sliders on the Aura if trying to use the Baggs? I put everything to the center position and tried to EQ with the Baggs. At first I thought it sounded better, but I think I was just fooling myself.

Any idea what happens if I don't have a good "sandwich" between the saddle, UST and the the guitar top?

Thanks again,

Bob M.

ljguitar · #7 12-12-2008, 08:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by braymil

...Any idea what happens if I don't have a good "sandwich" between the saddle, UST and the the guitar top?

Hi Bob...
The Aura is not a typical pickup. I have a friend with one in a Martin D series guitar, and honestly, he's not very technically savy so most of the time it sounds really too thin and tinny.

There is an owner's manual for his that is lengthy - and when I asked him if he'd reset the factory defaults, he couldn't figure out how to do it, so he continues to mess with it...and I hope he gets it figured out one of these days.

With that in mind, have you reset the factory defaults and tried adjusting it from scratch? You sure should not require a ParaDI to get an Aura to sound decent.

braymil · #8 12-12-2008, 09:10 PM

Larry, thanks for your input.

I just printed off a users manual for the Aura at the Martin website. It looks to be much more extensive than the one provided by CA - which was a single sheet of paper with micro print. I did see how to set the factory defaults in the Martin instructions and I will give that a go.

It seems confusing to me that you can set the EQ settings for both the images and the UST - with a single set of sliders. Maybe I need to contact Tim Stafford as he seems to be big on the CA/Aura setup.

Take Care and if I learn anything useful I will jump back in.

Bob M.