How does an Aura pedal react with non-dobro piezo.

[Paul Seager]

At a recent Dobro workshop, talk inevitably turned to gear. Specific to my question here, was a shared opinion that the Fishman Reso Spider pickup, whilst providing a clear and balanced signal, is somewhat characterless without an Aura pedal.

My Reso doesn't have a pick-up, I prefer a mic. But I also own an old, battered, f-hole guitar with a twist in the neck that now does duty as an early morning lap-steel, played as far away in my house from my late-sleeping wife so as not to wake her.

Now the guitar looks cool but tonally, it's neutral. Way-back-when it was still half-way playable as a guitar, I mounted a piezo on it's floating bridge and I'm wondering how that might sound through an Aura.

I understand the Aura reproduces the nuances of different mics & positioning as "acoustic images". But do the images add anything of the instrument from which they were made. Will my battered f-hole become slightly more Dobro if played through the e.g., JD Aura?

[Paolo Conti]

Hello Paul,
For a new show, I’m using the Aura pedal with an inexpensive Weissenborn copy equipped with a piezo pickup. Acoustically, the guitar sounds pretty good, but it lacks volume in the high frequencies, and when plugged in, the piezo pickup doesn't produce an interesting sound. With the Aura pedal, the sound is much better, with a good balance between bass and treble. It produces a resonator guitar tone, which doesn't bother me in the context in which I use this instrument.
Hope that helps you.

[Howard Parker]

The Douglas Aura images were recorded for Fishman by Douglas himself on his guitar so, there will be elements of a dobro in the output. How much with your guitars is tough to predict.

If you're buying a pedal to experiment it'll be an expensive experiment (New at $400+)

hp

[Eric Dahlhoff]

Fishman also makes Aura pedals for acoustic guitars.
I bought a used "Aura Sixteen" ($100) and loaded some resonator and acoustic guitar images from their web site.

I've used it with both my resonator and a weissenborn copy with a piezo in the saddle.
Works fine and dandy for me.

Much cheaper option to experiment with.

[Howard Parker]

Fishman also makes Aura pedals for acoustic guitars.
I bought a used "Aura Sixteen" ($100) and loaded some resonator and acoustic guitar images from their web site.

I've used it with both my resonator and a weissenborn copy with a piezo in the saddle.
Works fine and dandy for me.

Much cheaper option to experiment with.

Agree completely. For Paul's purpose it'll be six of one vs half dozen of the other.

h

[Eric Dahlhoff]

Howard,
I really appreciated the viddies you posted about the Aura pedal a couple years ago!
Very very useful.

[Howard Parker]

Howard,
I really appreciated the viddies you posted about the Aura pedal a couple years ago!
Very very useful.

You are more than welcome. My Covid era projects.

Glad you found them useful!!

Many thanks,

h

[Fred Treece]

I use the Aura Imaging Blender, which I believe was the first product of its kind that Fishman made, with one of the much-maligned donut pickups mounted inside the cone of my Dobro round neck somewhere. It’s been a while and I don’t remember the installation details. It works great blended with a Scheerhorn L-body image loaded into the unit.

Anyway, the trick with Fishman Aura pedals is to load an image into the pedal that closely resembles the instrument you’re working with. The images do indeed add a lot of the character of the instrument being emulated.

I think the Fishman Aura pedals products all work pretty much the same as my original Blender - you blend the sound of your instrument with the image to get a realistic sounding result.

I don’t think you will be successful in trying to find a resonator sound image that will make your f-hole guitar sound like a dobro. You might find an image on the Fishman website that will do a believable job of recreating the sound of your guitar though, which might be kinda cool as a slide guitar. Just load it into whatever unit you buy and tweak away.

Those original Image Blenders can be found on Reverb in the $150 range. You would need a midi-to-usb adapter to connect it to your computer and load image files from the website.

[Paul Seager]

Thanks to you all for your replies. You've all pretty much confirmed what I thought.

Howard has summed my decision process up with his "six of one ..." comment:

• I have a $600 reso;

• I could buy a pick up and, adding installation cost and a used Aura, it would equal what I paid for the reso! extendable to other piezo equipped instruments;

• Buy a quality clamp-on mic, DPA or Neumann; Used they go for 350 - 450. Portable to other instruments and I already own an acoustic pre-amp. Probably my preference;

• Leverage the non-reso "train-wreck" and a used Aura. Lowest price entry, extendable to other piezo equipped instruments.

I monitor the used market and the non-JD models do come up and sell for as low as 200 €, an acceptable investment. I read up on the Fishman library and, given that I also strum an acoustic when I sing, a used Aura Spectrum looks a good match.

I'm very patient when it comes to used gear and seldom jump at the first listing. I also consider the gigs::cost ratio, how many gigs do I have coming to justify the cost. Sadly looks quite depressing at present. But really, thanks for your valuable input.

[Brooks Montgomery]

Your question also makes me wonder what would happen if you recorded a $12,000 Scheerhorn dobro on a L.R. Baggs Voiceprint DI Acoustic Guitar Impulse Response Effects Pedal,
would it make a $600 dobro sound awesome when plugged into the pedal?

[Fred Treece]

This is all in the name of making a dobro louder without feedback and still have it sound like a dobro. Your $600 dobro is probably worth it. My $350 one (in 1980) was. I throw in a little Roland AC60 amp in on it for stage monitoring too, putting the whole deal at well over $1000. For that sound

[Paul Seager]

This is all in the name of making a dobro louder without feedback and still have it sound like a dobro.

It is but at reasonable cost!

Your $600 dobro is probably worth it.

It is and I'm very happy with it! On two separate workshops, Sheerhorn and Beard owners asked to try mine out. Both of these respectable players, told me not to rush into buying a next level instrument as tonally, I have what I need. However, having tried their instruments, I know I don't have the acoustic volume!

I throw in a little Roland AC60 amp in on it for stage monitoring ...

Right and you wrote you have an Aura so you went the pickup route. For me that would be the more expensive option.

As I re-read all of your useful comments I am definitely leaning more to the "good mic" option.

[BJ Burbach]

Just chiming in that Howard's video resobits as well as his regular posts have made all the difference to me, as I continue to try to find my voice. Hard won experience plus common sense just does not come so easy and has helped me so much. Even just that quick mention of "attack" in #1 was a nudge that I needed to play more confidently, (not to mention understanding and tweaking my own guitars).
Happy New Year and thanks,
BJ

[Howard Parker]

Just chiming in that Howard's video resobits as well as his regular posts have made all the difference to me, as I continue to try to find my voice. Hard won experience plus common sense just does not come so easy and has helped me so much. Even just that quick mention of "attack" in #1 was a nudge that I needed to play more confidently, (not to mention understanding and tweaking my own guitars).
Happy New Year and thanks,
BJ

Shucks!!

I just tell folks that I don't claim expertise but, I do have approx 3,000 resonator guitars worth of experiences. Working for Paul Beard gave me the opportunity to touch and play a decade's worth of new builds, experiments, repairs, setups...and more.

The "Resobits" series is still up on YouTube with thousands of downloads...much to my surprise and amusement.

Cheers all,

hp

[Brett Lanier]

The combination of a Fishman Nashville bridge pickup into a JD Aura pedal works extremely well for playing live, whereas other types of dobro pickups could give you mixed results, sometimes even pretty awful and unusable. As for using it with a non dobro that’s also difficult to say without trying it. The Aura sounds amazing (just like a dobro) with my Marlen that has 13.5k Clinesmith pickups, but sometimes not so great with other pedals steel pickups.

[Jerry Overstreet]

I may have missed it somewhere in the discussion, but will the Aura pedal work with a clip on condenser mike using phantom power, or only with a piezo?

[Howard Parker]

I may have missed it somewhere in the discussion, but will the Aura pedal work with a clip on condenser mike using phantom power, or only with a piezo?

Instrument level (pickup). 1/4 inch unbalanced in/out. No phantom power.

JD Aura

[Jerry Overstreet]

Thanks Howard. My condenser mic is an Apex 565 and terminates to an XLR balanced plug. It requires phantom power as I recall. It's been a while, but I've used it into one of my Boss 900 units and it doesn't work into that without Phantom power active so I was just curious what issues might come up using it into an Aura pedal to either an amp or to the house.

[Howard Parker]

Thanks Howard. My condenser mic is an Apex 565, I believe, and it requires phantom power as I recall. It's been a while, but I've used it into one of my Boss 900 units and it doesn't work into that without Phantom power active so I was just curious what issues might come up using it into an Aura pedal to either an amp or to the house.

It is a condenser and requires phantom power from somewhere. Even if you could power the mic you'd risk damage to the Aura. Also suffice to say that the input levels would be all wrong.

Best to stick with the tried and true. (Unless you have $$$ to burn).

h

[Jerry Overstreet]

Alrighty then. No, no money to burn. No money left. Thanks for the expertise. I appreciate that. I edited my last post with the proper description which I had forgotten and had to review.

[Howard Parker]

Well,

Resonator guitar (ie dobro G-B-D-G-B-D) has been my primary instrument for 45 years. As a "contemporary" player I've had to accommodate many different performance requirements. That means keeping my eyes on a variety of newer technologies. Some are applicable to me. Others are not. Once I find something that works for me I tend to keep it until it breaks.

The Aura pedal & Nashville pickup combo is now 16 years old (Released at 2008 NAMM) and has has become the cornerstone for players like me when required to plug in.

It has never failed me.

I like that.

[Paul Seager]

... will the Aura pedal work with a clip on condenser mike using phantom power, or only with a piezo?

IMO it would defeat the object because the Aura's design is to put back the tonal character of a dobro that a piezo pickup cannot capture - the sound of the cone.

Through this thread, I have discovered Howard's "Resobits" videos on YT. Wonderful - thank-you!

Howard's first video demonstrates the Fishman pickup and Aura and convinced me that my "fake dobro" may gain some dobro colour but, I am now more inclined towards a quality mic system with a body clamp instead. DPA and Neumann are my "watch lists".

That will allow me to use my dobro rather than the "fake" option that inspired this thread and, is actually a lower cost option than Fishman combination. Plus the same type of mic's will work on upright bass, my other passion.

Btw Howard, the other videos were also very helpful to me.

[Jerry Overstreet]

Thanks Paul. Yeah, I'm not sure what I was thinking. I've chased through this before, just forgot I guess.

I have everything I need to mic the dobro including a Fishman Platinum with DI and phantom power so I'm good.

I sure appreciate Howard playing with us here and sharing his knowledge. Great community of knowledgeable people willing to help us here.

[Howard Parker]

Thanks Paul. Yeah, I'm not sure what I was thinking. I've chased through this before, just forgot I guess.

I have everything I need to mic the dobro including a Fishman Platinum with DI and phantom power so I'm good.

I sure appreciate Howard playing with us here and sharing his knowledge. Great community of knowledgeable people willing to help us here.

Heck, it works both ways.

I'm just a "journeyman" that got lucky. Right place at the right time. Learned a few things in the process.

I'm also a mediocre pedal steel player and get way more out of the forum than I give.

Cheers all!!

h