Fishman Aura Sixteen Programmable Imaging Pedal Reviews

Easy to use and expands on great sound making it even better.
I use it with Taylors, McPhersons, and Martins. The flexibility of the pedal allows for the adjustment of the different acoustic strengths of each instrument and makes them better.

I use it with my Godin ACS nylon it really removes that piezo "quack" and gives it a natural mic'd sound.

I use this with inexpensive piezo equipped guitars, both nylon and steel strings, and it really improves the sound and adds a sense of realism. My steel string is very trebly and the sound in the room is not really pleasing, just ok. Putting the signal though this box improves the sound beyond anything I can get with a mic. While the nylon string guitar fares better when plugged directly in, it still sounds one-dimensional. Running it through the Aura adds that spacious, mic'd sound, just as advertised. In both cases, I run the Aura through an ART tube MP which tends to take care of the small remaining piezo transient, and I'm totally pleased with the sound. Two bonuses: you can use two different images with the same guitar to differentiate the sound say for rythm and lead tones, and without a mic, you don't need a pristinely quiet studio environment. Mostly, I set it to 100 % image, although in a live situation, you have to back off to prevent feedback. Due to a power surge, my Aura stopped working (it was out of warranty), but I was able to send it to Fishman and they fixed it for $50. So, good service and support too.

I purchased the Aura 16 to see if the nylon guitar settings could clean up or take away that piezo sound I was getting on my 7 string classical. Well it did just that and I am very statisfied.

This thing is all it owns up to and more. Right now i am using a Yamaha G-55 nylon string with an active p/u into the Aura 16 then into a Fishman Pro EQ Preamp ( from Sweetwater ) then into my Fender 30w Acoustasonic. I downloaded some 6 string steel jumbo and some nylon images and even a couple12 string images. Depending on weather i am finger picking or strumming chords or both i just set the blend and volumes and the room fills with quality sound. You can play soft or loud and the blend stays clean all through. Way to go Fishman.

Relieves the 'quack' of under saddle piezo electrics. Better selection than I had hoped. Both our Martin and Gibson sound more like they do acoustically when run though the PA.
Nice piece of work, but having played in the '60s, the print is impossible to read on stage!
Time marches on, but thanks for makin' things sound better as we go!

I didn't buy this thing for my acoustic guitar. I actually bought it for my Graphtech Ghost equipped Ibanez. The piezo sounds on that were decent, but they were........well, piezo sounding.
Sending the signal through this is a whole other world. While it's not going to replace my Seagull mic'd with a large condenser, it IS going to make my life easier playing live, and even recording quick demos on the go. I highly recommend it. It could use a little better IO (XLR for one), but it gets the job done as is.

At Gearfest, I ran into Corey from Fishman, about some problems I'd been encountering with an acoustic band I do sound for. The pickups on the guitars were awfully electric sounding. Good, but not nearly acoustic. And 14 microphones on a small, often hollow stage, was The Little Big Horn of sound nightmares, so I needed to reduce the microphone count. Corey demonstrated the Aura line. I was amazed at how the electric sound of an undersaddle piezo pickup could be restored to a passable acoustic sound. With the right image for the instrument, the effect can be striking. And surprisingly natural. So, I bought an Aura Sixteen and tried it in performance. And it did make quite the difference. Not the least of which, for the performer with the guitar, who actually enjoyed the new sound, and began to experiment with during the second set, breaking ground previously unheard by this performer. Needless to say, the other guitarists are now looking at an Aura for their own instruments, and the sound of the band has quiet noticeably evolved into something quite natural, but at the same time, quite compelling. And much easier on the ears.

Make no mistake...it doesn't cure cancer, or fix a habit of writing hot checks. And it won't make you look like George Clooney with headphones. But it does what's claimed for it. And makes for a very nice listening experience. Without breaking budgets. In an industry where hype is a lifestyle, this product really does make good on a promise.

Updates are effortless, as are selections of images to program into the device through the included software. Battery life is quite good, and operation, even for a novice performer, is intuitve, and non-threatening. I've been amazed at how quickly and readily they've embraced this device.

First, I purchased this unit for use with a nylon string guitar. I perform mostly jazz/ Latin/ Flamenco.

Based on the number of positive reviews, I had high expectations. Unfortunately, this unit comes loaded with dreadnought images so in order to try it with anything else, you must purchase and download images to test.

There are very few images for nylon string guitars and most are for relatively uncommon guitar models( Had I been able to actually preview the list of images beforehand, I might not have purchased this unit). The tone was very artificial and seemed to have lots of phase issues (again this could be due to the lack of images for very common nylon string guitars). I did test the unit with several different nylon string guitars using all of the available images.

This unit may work well for steel string (I did not try) but I would NOT recommend it for classical guitars.

I can only say this did not work well for my purposes.