Grateful Dead Music Forum

An article about Fishman Fluence pick ups
Formosa explains, “The instrument cable carries a capacitance—the longer the cable, the higher the capacitance and the greater the high-end loss. That’s not a problem with Fluence, because the pickup connects to a preamp, which acts as a buffer. Tone-wise, what you hear with the volume set to 10 is the same as what you hear when it’s dialed down to 2, only louder. A 10-foot cable sounds identical to a 100-foot cable. Want to use a 100-foot cable with your guitar volume set at 2? No problem.”

The writer concludes, “All members of the Fishman team emphasize that they are not rethinking the way pickups should sound, though they are reimagining the way pickups are manufactured in pursuit of that sound.”

“Our goal,” says Larry Fishman, “is to drive all amplifiers to happiness.”
http://www.fishman.com/articles/fishman ... emier-guit

I know about 10% about pickups as many people here like Waldo or Brad... but here's my take on this:

The part you quoted not the new part about these pickups... That paragraph is just their way of selling guitarists on active pickups that have been around for 30+ years, since they were pioneered by the early Alembic crew (I think) and later brought to the mass market by EMG. Many bass players (myself definitely included) have embraced them for their great clarity and lack of hum, but guitar players largely have not.

The interesting part is that they're printing the "coils" on a circuit board rather than winding them around a bobbin, which has a lot of interesting potential advantages. They probably started with active pickups because they take a lot less winding than passive pickups.

Has anyone tried the Fishman Flatulence excuse me Fluence pickups? I like that fact that they are quiet and have different voicings.

Very interesting.

mk

Greg Koch is gonna make anything sound great.

The tele sound he gets out of the bridge pickup is incredible.

Any reason they can't be used in an OBEL?

mk

MK, the answer is no there is no reason they cannot be used with the OBEL, if they can drive a 100 foot cable, they can drive a cable to your effects input!

I was wondering about the electronic requirements. They require certain pots and if the signal doesn't hit the pot first, will that cause an issue?

mk

Here's a wiring demo - Non OBEL