Alternative to Fishman fluence

[Mathemagician]

full tone wood luthery

Wat?

 

[cip 123]

Those are not the X-bars ... and they are better in a full tone wood luthery , unlike this tele with could lack bass and low mids .

Not really sure what you mean by "full tone wood luthery"? My tele is made of... Wood?

What about actives are you liking? The compression? The clarity? The gain? The usability and evenness of the tone and volume knobs? Or something particular to the EQ profile?

The Fishmans moderns are moderately compressed (less than EMG's, but more than a lot of passives). They have a lot of clarity and are gainy as &%$#

As much as people rag on EMG's for being compressed, that's actually one of those things that people like about many pickups. A lot of high gain pickups are pretty compressed compared to say a PAF. You can get the compression from a lot of overwound pickups especially with ceramic magnets (e.g. Duncan Distortion or a BKP Ragnarok). Most BKP's and certain pickups from other builders (e.g. Custom 5) have clarity that is competitive. There is no way around the way the volume/tone interact with the pickup - that's a high impedance / low impedance thing, but you can make up some of the behavior in a passive setup with things like a treble bleed.

It's a shame you cannot fit in the battery pack somewhere. That really takes the pain in the but out of batteries. I used to always swap batteries before a gig, because I was paranoid of the battery dying. Now I just charge it.

I generally like actives due to the clarity, I usually find I can't hide mistakes so it's always forced me to work for it. The overall tone is pretty great too. Like I said in the OP I'll probably keep them even if I were to try something different, because I really like the fishmans.

The battery thing gets on my nerves though.

 

[larsmul]

This guitar was an eight strings , now 7 , all wood and bone nut and bridge , I can tell you it sounds gorgeous acoustically , and the x-bars are just heaven here ;
https://www.seymourduncan.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=93500&d=1540652023

 

[diagrammatiks]

This guitar was an eight strings , now 7 , all wood and bone nut and bridge , I can tell you it sounds gorgeous acoustically , and the x-bars are just heaven here ;
https://www.seymourduncan.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=93500&d=1540652023

Ok Chapman

 

[larsmul]

yes with no varnish so I could restyle the horns for better access too

 

[larsmul]

yes with no varnish so I could restyle the horns for better access too

 

[cip 123]

This guitar was an eight strings , now 7 , all wood and bone nut and bridge , I can tell you it sounds gorgeous acoustically , and the x-bars are just heaven here ;
https://www.seymourduncan.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=93500&d=1540652023

That doesn't answer the mystery of "Full tone wood Luthery"?

 

[diagrammatiks]

How does cutting off the top of the horns give you better access to anything.

 

[Avedas]

the xbar in my Strandberg are the worst pickups I’ve ever owned in my entire life.

Any time I go play a J Boden they're loaded with those xbars and they sound like absolute ass.

Maybe it's because they don't have enough tone wood.

 

[diagrammatiks]

Any time I go play a J Boden they're loaded with those xbars and they sound like absolute ass.

Maybe it's because they don't have enough tone wood.

Too much horns

 

[HeHasTheJazzHands]

Hey remember when we were trying to find pickups that sound similar to Fishman Fluences?

But uh

Yeah

As I said before; good luck. Nothing passive will sound like V1 of the Fluences. It's got a built-in compression and active sound you can't emulate except with an boost of sorts. V2, still hard to say. It has a growl to it, but still has a very scooped, tight, and nearly twangy sound. Like I said, I'm curious to see how the Lundgren M series compares.

 

[LeviathanKiller]

Hey remember when we were trying to find pickups that sound similar to Fishman Fluences?

But uh

Yeah

As I said before; good luck. Nothing passive will sound like V1 of the Fluences. It's got a built-in compression and active sound you can't emulate except with an boost of sorts. V2, still hard to say. It has a growl to it, but still has a very scooped, tight, and nearly twangy sound. Like I said, I'm curious to see how the Lundgren M series compares.

The MojoTone Black Magic set, BKP Impulse set, and Guitarmory Polaris set come pretty close in my experiences and side-by-side comparisons.

 

[KnightBrolaire]

Hey remember when we were trying to find pickups that sound similar to Fishman Fluences?

But uh

Yeah

As I said before; good luck. Nothing passive will sound like V1 of the Fluences. It's got a built-in compression and active sound you can't emulate except with an boost of sorts. V2, still hard to say. It has a growl to it, but still has a very scooped, tight, and nearly twangy sound. Like I said, I'm curious to see how the Lundgren M series compares.

m series is far from scooped, but as far as growl, twang and tight, yeah it delivers on those aspects. elysian trident ii or goliaths would nail the tight and twang aspects, but they're more mid/upper mid heavy than the m series, so they have more of a snarl than a growl imo. they'd be actually be a good stand in for v1.
the mcp afwayu gives me a similar vibe to v2 but it's not as thick sounding.

 

[MASS DEFECT]

The Fluence Modern V2 is nuts without a boost whenever I use it on an Axe Fx Atomica amp model. Just huge sounding but still cuts through the mix just right. Chugs for daaaays! It has a lot of bass and low mids vs V1 but still remains tight and not spongy. (Unlike, say a Blackout.)

 

[larsmul]

That doesn't answer the mystery of "Full tone wood Luthery"?

The wood and bone bridge brings a lot to the acoustic fulness of the tone ,
and I carved the body for a better access to last frets , the horn cutting was just an esthetic improvement .

 

[cip 123]

The wood and bone bridge brings a lot to the acoustic fulness of the tone ,
and I carved the body for a better access to last frets , the horn cutting was just an esthetic improvement .

So....the X-bars only sound good with a wooden bridge?

 

[LeviathanKiller]

So....the X-bars only sound good with a wooden bridge?

Got it!
https://reverb.com/item/15447912-vi...tric-guitar-bridge-original-hard-to-find-part

 

[diagrammatiks]

Well now that I look at that guitar it’s interesting because it’s basically got two nuts. A nut at the nut and a nut at the bridge.

Although I feel like if it was worth doing someone else would have thought of it already.

And, there’s no way doing that can magically turn the xbars good. They are super bad.

 

[larsmul]

So....the X-bars only sound good with a wooden bridge?

Wood and bone bring more warmth and vibrations , it is much more musical to my ears ,
furthermore with neck trough and strong trough : eternal sustain , monstrous vibrations really !
Anyway I didn't have other choice than to build such a bridge because of the increased string spacing ,
then also didn't have much choice of pickups .
A bet that worked so well for my huge hands and my ears !
So to come back to your concern CLP , those Lace x-bar do a wonderful job in my guitar ,
but probably in all good sounding lutherie .

 

[cip 123]

Wood and bone bring more warmth and vibrations , it is much more musical to my ears ,
furthermore with neck trough and strong trough : eternal sustain , monstrous vibrations really !
Anyway I didn't have other choice than to build such a bridge because of the increased string spacing ,
then also didn't have much choice of pickups .
A bet that worked so well for my huge hands and my ears !
So to come back to your concern CLP , those Lace x-bar do a wonderful job in my guitar ,
but probably in all good sounding lutherie .

So, they sound good in all guitars...yet you bring up tone wood when I say I have alumitones in my guitar...which is made of wood.

I'm perplexed really.