Fishman Aura Spectrum DI

As any gigging acoustic musician knows, one of the most important factors in getting your acoustic sounding great is having a good DI box (Direct Injection) to carry a nice, clean signal to the PA. But what if a DI box isn't enough, and you need to shape your tone, add compression, destroy feedback, check your tuning and even add a mic'ed signal to your acoustic tone? Enter the Fishman Aura Spectrum DI.

This unit houses a preamp made up of volume, a three-band EQ and a one-knob compressor. There's also an onboard feedback detector that can hone in and destroy three primary feedback frequencies. Also included is an onboard tuner, TRS effects loop, trim knob, phase switch, USB connectivity (to access the Aura Image Gallery) and of course the Aura image selector, designed to blend the sound of a microphone to a direct source. Even without the imaging system, the preamp sounds fantastic, with a high-quality slickness synonymous with the Fishman name. Throw in some compression and anti-feedback and this pedal becomes an all-in-one solution for the gigging musician.

The digital imaging Fishman has developed is different to digital modelling, and if a vastly different image is added to your guitar's acoustic tone you'll probably end up with poor results. The idea behind this feature is to select a model that sounds most like your guitar and slowly introduce the mic'ed image back in. There are eight banks available with 16 images in each bank. The banks are titled Dreadnaught, Orchestra, Concert, Jumbo, Nylon, 12-String, Bluegrass and User Images.

I plugged in a Takamine TAN15C Dreadnaught with a solid cedar top and rosewood back and sides. Instead of running through an endless bank of presets, I went to the Fishman website and downloaded the Aura Gallery software. I then connected the unit to my PC, booted up the software and did a search for a guitar with the same body shape and woods. I scrolled through a bunch of different microphones until I found one that best represented my true acoustic tone, saved it to one of my user banks and slowly blended it until I achieved a more three-dimensional sound. The result was more zing, air and presence that's much softer to the ear than a piezo pickup. Everything else on the Aura worked beautifully too. The three-band EQ was very musical and set to the right sort of frequencies for acoustic guitar. The onboard compressor was hands down my favourite thing, as it only had one knob and worked brilliantly at keeping everything at a consistent volume. When levels got a bit too excited and feedback became an issue, the anti-feedback function was outstanding at detecting and eliminating the problem frequencies. Also included is a series effects loop, so you don't have to put your effects pedals before or after the DI and can use the master volume to turn your whole signal chain up or down, very handy indeed. I find it very hard to fault this all-metal construction “Swiss Army Knife”. There's just about everything a musician would need to get a perfect acoustic signal into a PA.