LR Baggs Anthem vs Lyric

[guitaniac]

Originally Posted by Joseph Hanna

No that's not true for a whole bunch of players, myself included. I'm of the opinion that what really makes a pickup system thrive is the player and decidedly not the hardware. It's how any particular system/hardware interacts with the person who's in command.

The Aura systems (and the Mama Bear system) provide for an extremely distinct disconnect when it comes to the touch sensitivity of the guitar. For me it turns what I know my guitar to be (that is to say the response of my right hand to the instrument) into something completely and utterly different. The Aura system is slow to the touch and once I lose that connection I'm forced to adjust my right hand technique and how I approach my playing. Of course every system out there forces the user to invest in some manor re-thinking. But for me modeling takes me somewhere that I just can't recover from I used the Mama Bear forever in the studio if I needed a quick, down and dirty cue. I'd grit my teeth and bear it (from a players perspective) and wind up with a pretty convincing sound to tape. It wasn't however a very musically expressive process and I only resort to the Mama Bear because of time restraints.

In the end the imaging and modelers of the world are far too invasive (for me) to ever make sense as a solution. That said they may well be the ultimate answer for you and only time will tell. Good tone however will never be a singular piece of equipment that's purchased. There isn't nor will there ever be a holy grail. It more a process and a synergy that takes time and patience and applied talent than a box purchased from Guitar Center,

This claim that the Aura sound imaging doesn't follow the player's touch very well is interesting to me because Harvey Reid (noted multi-instrumentalist, Winfield champ and Aura beta tester) claims that Aura follows his playing very well. Its interesting to me that two pros like yourselves have totally different takes on the Aura.

I'm not the biggest Aura fan myself (having used both the Aura Spectrum DI AND an onboard Aura system with model-specific sound images), but I do recall that Harvey claimed that custom sound images were necessary to achieve the Aura technology's full potential. Perhaps that's the reason (lack of custom sound images on Joseph's part) for the divergent Aura experiences.

There is one Aura-related issue that hasn't been too controversial. Most top-tappers feel they get a better reaction from a live mic or a soundboard pickup.

[Joseph Hanna]

Originally Posted by Rmz76

Have you played it on stage with a full band or solo? If so have you had any feedback problems with your Lyric when coming through an amp or PA?

I've gigged with it endlessly in a duo. Probably approaching 200 gigs now. It's a mic and like every mic on the planet it'll feed back if you don't understand the hardware. It took me several gigs to begin the process of synergy. Now I can't get it to feedback if I tried.

I've recorded it in a very dense mix https://soundcloud.com/joseph-hanna/lwkm-dense but I don't play out with a band. As far as a band situation goes the Lyric and the Aura would not be my choice of pickups. Acoustic guitars are historically difficult to make "sit" in a mix and what makes acoustic guitars great often fights a good mix.

[Joseph Hanna]

Originally Posted by guitaniac

This claim that the Aura sound imaging doesn't follow the player's touch very well is interesting to me because Harvey Reid (noted multi-instrumentalist, Winfield champ and Aura beta tester) claims that Aura follows his playing very well. Its interesting to me that two pros like yourselves have totally different takes on the Aura.

I'm not the biggest Aura fan myself (having used both the Aura Spectrum DI AND an onboard Aura system with model-specific sound images), but I do recall that Harvey claimed that custom sound images were necessary to achieve the Aura technology's full potential. Perhaps that's the reason (lack of custom sound images on Joseph's part) for the divergent Aura experiences.

There is one Aura-related issue that hasn't been too controversial. Most top-tappers feel they get a better reaction from a live mic or a soundboard pickup.

Yea Gary I mean I think we're all so different as to what we look for and listen for it would never surprise me that someone loved the Aura. I know in the right scenario they can sound wonderful. I saw Steve Earl last year at UCLA. He was using some form of Aura and there's not a chance it could have sounded better than it did. It just simply worked wonderfully. Of course I dunno what the touch response issues are as I was a listener. I do know James Taylor's rig of a few years back had James monitoring with his piezo and the Aura in the FOH only. That would lead me to believe there was some degree of "response" issues for him.

As to the images I'm certain the more accurate the image is to the guitar one's playing will inevitably make the touch response more accurate. I've thought about that process as well but always pull up just shy of going through with it!

[Rmz76]

Originally Posted by guitaniac

This claim that the Aura sound imaging doesn't follow the player's touch very well is interesting to me because Harvey Reid (noted multi-instrumentalist, Winfield champ and Aura beta tester) claims that Aura follows his playing very well. Its interesting to me that two pros like yourselves have totally different takes on the Aura.

I'm not the biggest Aura fan myself (having used both the Aura Spectrum DI AND an onboard Aura system with model-specific sound images), but I do recall that Harvey claimed that custom sound images were necessary to achieve the Aura technology's full potential. Perhaps that's the reason (lack of custom sound images on Joseph's part) for the divergent Aura experiences.

There is one Aura-related issue that hasn't been too controversial. Most top-tappers feel they get a better reaction from a live mic or a soundboard pickup.

Brad Paisley who unlike many country artist is actually known for his guitar skills went with the Aura as the stock pickup/preamp on his signature j-45. For every player who says it's not expressive there are plenty of pros who seem to love it.

[Joseph Hanna]

Originally Posted by Rmz76

Brad Paisley who unlike many country artist is actually known for his guitar skills went with the Aura as the stock pickup/preamp on his signature j-45. For every player who says it's not expressive there are plenty of pros who seem to love it.

That's never been my point. You're inclined to use the Aura. That's cool and it may be the absolute best solution you'll ever find. There can be absolutely no doubt that many use the Aura technology to great ends. No one here has ever said differently.

My point is any of these systems can be viable solutions. They all take time and patience to begin the process of mastering them. The Aura is no better (or worse) than any of the other solutions and what makes it tick properly is the player...not the pickup. Anyone familiar with Brad Paisley knows he's a self admitted slave to tinkering and tweaking his gear. His reputation of spending days at an amp manufacturer tweaking the minutest of details is well documented. He also has a staff and with him is a bevy of high paid and highly skilled FOH and monitor guys and gals. All of that skews the equation for those of us who are not as well staffed as Brad!

[Rmz76]

Originally Posted by Joseph Hanna

That's never been my point. You're inclined to use the Aura. That's cool and it may be the absolute best solution you'll ever find. There can be absolutely no doubt that many use the Aura technology to great ends. No one here has ever said differently.

My point is any of these systems can be viable solutions. They all take time and patience to begin the process of mastering them. The Aura is no better (or worse) than any of the other solutions and what makes it tick properly is the player...not the pickup. Anyone familiar with Brad Paisley knows he's a self admitted slave to tinkering and tweaking his gear. His reputation of spending days at an amp manufacturer tweaking the minutest of details is well documented. He also has a staff and with him is a bevy of high paid and highly skilled FOH and monitor guys and gals. All of that skews the equation for those of us who are not as well staffed as Brad!

I really think the pickup manufactures could do more. Granted they can't cover every guitar on the market but I don't see why they can't take the top five best selling guitar for each major vendor or at least the big three (Martin, Taylor, Gibson) and let you hear the same sound clip played though each of their pickup offerings for that guitar.

The only go-to company for strong comparisons is Music Villa/Acoustic letter and Acoustic Guitar Magazine also does an decent job when reviewing products but it's not enough given the doorway the internet opens to provide this information to their potential customers.

The way the system works now is you have to listen to on-line samples (a lot of on-line samples t make sure something else in the chain isn't creating the effect or a room mic isn't inovled, etc...) then go try to track down guitars for sale in your city similar to yours that have the pickup systems you are interested in.

The other option is just to go at it blind, completely trusting in a certain brand or artist endorsement both of which are inconsistent regardless of who is building the pickup and who is endorsing the guitar.

So you have to budget in the money you are going to loose experimenting or eventually you'll just get tired an settle. This whole process is a nightmare. I don't think any one vendor has done much to ease the pain. Surely they test their pickups in the best selling product by the big three so it makes no sense why they don't pass this information on. If would also be nice if the vendors would produce products that don't have to be tinkered with beyond the initial install to get perfect (here's looking at you all LR Baggs microphone pickups) no one wants to deal with that. Correct me if I'm wrong, but everytime you rip the adhesive tape off the top you're taking a little of that top with you, right?

[guitaniac]

Here you go, Rmz. I found a vid of my New England friend, Cormac McCarthy, using his Aura-equipped Guild with custom sound images and the original (old school) Aura preamp. As you can hear, Cormac runs his guitar very loud (near the edge of feedback, actually), but he controls it very well with his well-nuanced playing style. The Aura technology definitely works for him.
http://youtu.be/FYltONd3mdw

[rb1591]

Gary,
Thanks for the link to Cormac McCarthy ... not familiar with him until now. Wonderful stuff and great sound, IMHO. Like you, I've owned (and sold) a variety of Aura products along the way, but never got this kind of excellent result. The custom images apparently make a big difference. Is he using the basic Fishman UST?

Also, Joseph, really enjoyed the soundcloud link. Do you get this kind of authentic acoustic sound live? If so, what's in your signal chain and what have you learned about eqing the Lyric?

RB

[Rmz76]

Originally Posted by guitaniac

Here you go, Rmz. I found a vid of my New England friend, Cormac McCarthy, using his Aura-equipped Guild with custom sound images and the original (old school) Aura preamp. As you can hear, Cormac runs his guitar very loud (near the edge of feedback, actually), but he controls it very well with his well-nuanced playing style. The Aura technology definitely works for him.
http://youtu.be/FYltONd3mdw

Thank you... So far thinking the Aura modeling/imaging technology is the best sounding to my ears, but until I have some more time to spend with it it's hard to make that call... The video I found from Music Villa/Acoustic Letter is the most convincing as Tony clearly demonstrates the sound of a well placed, well recorded $900 Nueman microphone then switches to the Neuman image in the Aura going direct and when I close my eyes and listen I can not hear a difference. There is no other pickup system I can say that for. I started a thread recently with a link to that video.

Getting back to the Lyric comparisons I want to say this for those who would want to go down the path of claiming "well the Lyric is a real microphone", well if you go to LR Baggs website and read their description of the Lyric they even claim the Lyric has "... an entire rack worth of processing". If you think about it the Fishman "imaging" technology is just signal processing. Fishman used the word "modeling" and "image" but they are just buzz words for the magic happening. It's an abstraction. Maybe technically there is a specific way to go about signal processing that Fishman has dubbed "modeling" or "imaging" but it's still just signal processing... I'm sure some of you understand the technical differences to a point (to point I'm sure no one does except the engineers at Fishman and LR Baggs as their systems are proprietary and everyone has their secrets) at the end of day both Fishman and LR Baggs are doing a lot of processing inside their units to achieve the results they do... One may work for you and the other may work for me but again by LR Baggs own admission there is a lot of processing going on with the Lyric so I think it's disingenuous of them to claim it's a more natural sound... That's still highly subjective and to my ears from direct audio clips they don't at all.. In fact I've noticed that every time I hear a video or audio sample with the Lyric I immediately hear Lyric characteristics. It's a bright crisp sound with an distinctive low-cut. That's really not good, the fact that I can tell I'm hearing as Lyric means the pickup has way too much character of its own and when that's happening it's always stealing from the guitar. A good example of this is the video on Baggs website where you see Ricky Skaggs playing through one of the new PRS acoustics with the Lyric. Notice the physical characteristics of his guitar in that video... Then go watch Acoustic Guitar Magazine's demo of the Lyric which is in a very different type of guitar, different mixer, different effects chain and yet you hear the unique Lyric characteristics. I'm hearing the pickup and not the guitar.

[Joseph Hanna]

Originally Posted by Rmz76

Thank you... So far thinking the Aura modeling/imaging technology is the best sounding to my ears, but until I have some more time to spend with it it's hard to make that call... The video I found from Music Villa/Acoustic Letter is the most convincing as Tony clearly demonstrates the sound of a well placed, well recorded $900 Nueman microphone then switches to the Neuman image in the Aura going direct and when I close my eyes and listen I can not hear a difference. There is no other pickup system I can say that for. I started a thread recently with a link to that video.

Getting back to the Lyric comparisons I want to say this for those who would want to go down the path of claiming "well the Lyric is a real microphone", well if you go to LR Baggs website and read their description of the Lyric they even claim the Lyric has "... an entire rack worth of processing". If you think about it the Fishman "imaging" technology is just signal processing. Fishman used the word "modeling" and "image" but they are just buzz words for the magic happening. It's an abstraction. Maybe technically there is a specific way to go about signal processing that Fishman has dubbed "modeling" or "imaging" but it's still just signal processing... I'm sure some of you understand the technical differences to a point (to point I'm sure no one does except the engineers at Fishman and LR Baggs as their systems are proprietary and everyone has their secrets) at the end of day both Fishman and LR Baggs are doing a lot of processing inside their units to achieve the results they do... One may work for you and the other may work for me but again by LR Baggs own admission there is a lot of processing going on with the Lyric so I think it's disingenuous of them to claim it's a more natural sound... That's still highly subjective and to my ears from direct audio clips they don't at all.. In fact I've noticed that every time I hear a video or audio sample with the Lyric I immediately hear Lyric characteristics. It's a bright crisp sound with an distinctive low-cut. That's really not good, the fact that I can tell I'm hearing as Lyric means the pickup has way too much character of its own and when that's happening it's always stealing from the guitar. A good example of this is the video on Baggs website where you see Ricky Skaggs playing through one of the new PRS acoustics with the Lyric. Notice the physical characteristics of his guitar in that video... Then go watch Acoustic Guitar Magazine's demo of the Lyric which is in a very different type of guitar, different mixer, different effects chain and yet you hear the unique Lyric characteristics. I'm hearing the pickup and not the guitar.

Seems like you have a pretty clear path to what's gonna work for you. If it were me (and I know it's not ) I'd get away from the Baggs products as quick as possible. It's probably because you've had some bad luck with their products but in the end it's not worth the negative energy. I know it's not fun abandoning something you've spent hard earned money on but I continue to believe a pickup system (whatever it might be) takes a commitment and a bit of blood, sweat and tears. Your acoustic guitar sound isn't gonna get better being frustrated with Baggs and I'd think your energy better spent of creating your music. Maybe you could work a trade for an Aura system with you're iBeam?

[Rmz76]

Originally Posted by Joseph Hanna

Seems like you have a pretty clear path to what's gonna work for you. If it were me (and I know it's not ) I'd get away from the Baggs products as quick as possible. It's probably because you've had some bad luck with their products but in the end it's not worth the negative energy. I know it's not fun abandoning something you've spent hard earned money on but I continue to believe a pickup system (whatever it might be) takes a commitment and a bit of blood, sweat and tears. Your acoustic guitar sound isn't gonna get better being frustrated with Baggs and I'd think your energy better spent of creating your music. Maybe you could work a trade for an Aura system with you're iBeam?

That's fair.. Yes I am sorting though some angst with them right now I guess you could say, but also I think a lot of my auditory observations are non-subjective, too... Ricky Skaggs may love the way the Lyric makes his new PRS acoustic guitar sound and he's sold on it and puts him name behind it... Ok, but has he really considered that his guitar with a Lyric sounds almost identical to a Martin D28 with the same pickup? I just don't think a lot of people go that deep with... I didn't until I got kind of upset with LR Baggs... I guess I just get kind of upset with any company when the products are not quite what the hype cliams them to be. It's easy for any company to let it go there through and years ago LR Baggs did innovate and they've given us a lot... Legacy is more important to some than others when considering brand. It's about trust, with me Baggs has broken that trust with some simple oversights in design that no well engineered product would have. I've exhausted that so I'm just going to leave it there.

[limeb]

Well, I just installed the Anthem SL into my Martin DM, and it has lost some acoustic volume, but tone seems OK. It was a hassle to have to replace the saddle as the UST part was thinner than the piezo type pickup I replaced. I have read this may compress with time and volume may improve a bit. Gig last night I got lots of positive reactions to the tone through the p.a.. Really keen to try it at a gig through the Avalon u5.

As with the lyric, I dread the idea of having to do a battery change at a gig, with the battery bag set up.

[Petty1818]

Originally Posted by Rmz76

That's fair.. Yes I am sorting though some angst with them right now I guess you could say, but also I think a lot of my auditory observations are non-subjective, too... Ricky Skaggs may love the way the Lyric makes his new PRS acoustic guitar sound and he's sold on it and puts him name behind it... Ok, but has he really considered that his guitar with a Lyric sounds almost identical to a Martin D28 with the same pickup? I just don't think a lot of people go that deep with... I didn't until I got kind of upset with LR Baggs... I guess I just get kind of upset with any company when the products are not quite what the hype cliams them to be. It's easy for any company to let it go there through and years ago LR Baggs did innovate and they've given us a lot... Legacy is more important to some than others when considering brand. It's about trust, with me Baggs has broken that trust with some simple oversights in design that no well engineered product would have. I've exhausted that so I'm just going to leave it there.

I agree with you when it comes to the Lyric having a certain tonal characteristic. Whenever I hear it I immediately know it's the Lyric in the guitar whereas with other internal mics I hear more air and a more natural sound. Having said that, I think it's part of the design. Putting any internal mic into a guitar is a nightmare. To have one work with louder volumes is still a major step in the right direction. There's clearly some processing needed to make this work. I will disagree though that the lyric sounds the same in different guitars.

Also, we can't compare the Fishman Aura to the lyric. The Aura is clearly imaging. It might sound good but it doesn't produce any natural characteristics of the guitar that's running through it. The closest you can get with that is to have an aura image that was recorded by Fishman with the exact guitar being used. However, most people don't have this luxury.

[guitaniac]

Originally Posted by rb1591

Gary,
Thanks for the link to Cormac McCarthy ... not familiar with him until now. Wonderful stuff and great sound, IMHO. Like you, I've owned (and sold) a variety of Aura products along the way, but never got this kind of excellent result. The custom images apparently make a big difference. Is he using the basic Fishman UST?

Also, Joseph, really enjoyed the soundcloud link. Do you get this kind of authentic acoustic sound live? If so, what's in your signal chain and what have you learned about eqing the Lyric?

RB

Hi RB,

Cormac has a Fishman Matrix UST system in his guitar. I doubt that he's upgraded to the newer Matrix Infinity, as its important to keep the guitar/pickup rig exactly the same once you've had custom sound images made with that rig.

An Aura "sound image" is a essentially a set of computer instructions which tells the Aura preamp how to process the UST signal in order to make it sound like the same guitar being studio-miked. Harvey Reid has observed that a custom sound image (a sound image created using recordings, both direct-from-pickup and studio miked, of the same guitar/pickup rig to be later used with that sound image) will even compensate for a poorly balanced undersaddle pickup. That's because the sound image tells the Aura preamp how to get from that poorly balanced pickup signal (as recorded off that specific pickup) to a properly balanced studio mike signal (as recorded in the studio off the same guitar, at the same time that the UST signal is being recorded).

Off course, that same custom sound image would probably work very poorly with a different guitar equipped with a well-balanced UST. That's the kind of sticky wicket problem one gets into when trying to mix and match guitar/pickup rigs with sound images created from different guitar/pickup rigs.


The practical limitation of the Aura is that one can only effectively use a sound image blend of around 30% - 40% in a live setting. You're still going to have 70% - 60% dry UST signal in the blend, so you're still going to get some piezo quack with aggressive strumming, especially if its one of the old Matrix systems where the user has no control over the preamp gain, and one is strumming hard enough to overdrive the preamp.

For my taste and playing styles, one can do just as well with the Anthem SL or a combination of the PUTW I/O UST and the MiniFlex 2Mic.

For more of my Aura observations, see this other current thread:
http://www.acousticguitarforum.com/f...=331022&page=2


PS And yes, Cormac is something else - hugely respected among his peers. Here's a recent performance where I got the "Who wrote that song?" question after playing one of Cormac's songs. I love it when that happens.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJv0t...&feature=share

[jseth]

Originally Posted by limeb

Well, I just installed the Anthem SL into my Martin DM, and it has lost some acoustic volume, but tone seems OK. It was a hassle to have to replace the saddle as the UST part was thinner than the piezo type pickup I replaced. I have read this may compress with time and volume may improve a bit. Gig last night I got lots of positive reactions to the tone through the p.a.. Really keen to try it at a gig through the Avalon u5.

As with the lyric, I dread the idea of having to do a battery change at a gig, with the battery bag set up.

I hope you read enough of the posts regarding the Anthem SL on this Forum, before you installed your SL... God knows you would have read me posting about that very loss of volume and shift in tone after the Anthem was installed...

I have had my SL systems in both my Mark Angus 6 and 12 string guitars for several years now, maybe even 4 or 5 years? They still sound great when amplified; that's why they are still in the guitars!

I feel that a bit of the volume has come back on my 6 string Angus; not all, but most. I would equate that with the Element "squishing' more fully into place under the saddle. Unfortunately (only for the sound comparison) I had some major work done to the guitar, and that work changed the way the guitar "feels", to the point that it was almost like playing a different guitar from the one I have owned and played since 1979... so I can not comment on whether the tone is "back" to normal or not...