The Fishman Fluence Thread

[Chri]

The Deep knob on Diezels can be really tricky. I've not been able to crank it past noon with most pickups before I lose clarity; actives or passives. I think the faults that the Moderns are usually accused of (anemic, thin, too middy) are actually aiding me with the Diezels. Still don't like them with my Oranges, Marshall, or 5150 amps.

The only time I've been able to use Voice 1 on the Abasi set I have (which isn't too dissimilar to the moderns IME) is by removing any overdrives or boosts I have before the amp, and intentionally dialing the amp in way darker than I would normally. With a 5150 you can get some pretty cool death metal tones pretty easily. It also knocks the Clayman sound out of the park with ease.

On an unrelated note:

Back to my usual flip-flopping with Fishman

I still can't help but feel like I would be happier with a 707 or 81-7 in the bridge. I am 100% a passive guy, so any time I go from playing a guitar with passives back to my Fishman equipped guitar there's a bit of shell-shock. There's just something cold and sterile to them, even in the passive voice. It's just too clean and "perfect" I think. It translates to a somewhat unnatural sound that our ears aren't accustomed to. Once I'm used to it again I really don't mind, but going back and forth with guitars always fucks me up. I just need to scoop a few B-stock EMGs from their Reverb store already so I can hot swap them when I'm the mood.

 

[Halowords]

I don't know about Javier's, but I have Tosin's and they are killing in high gain territory. And the clean is very interesting as well. That's my favorite set by now (I also have Classic, Killswitch Engage and strat SC set)

To piggyback off of this... I'm going through some midlife Death Metal renaissance or something, and have an 8-string Valravn coming in a few months. I liked the demos of Tosin's set when he A/B'd them against his other pickups. I was planning on the Tosin Fishman Fluence because I liked the sound and the versatility. However I'm wondering if there's a better set of Fishman Fluences that would handle really high-gain stuff but be able to clean up nicely, as well as if one's more responsive to the pick attack and use of volume to roll back for cleans and turn up for more overdrive/gain.

Essentially, I would like to be able to play with something like Morbid Angel or Deicide as well as playing with more clean tones, and would like the option of being able to cut through for leads (thinking more of recording or just lead guitar work) but also being full sounding. I'm inclined to get a set with an Alnico neck pickup and a ceramic bridge pickup for more range of sounds as well. Would the Tosin set be my best bet or is there another set that would make more sense? Any thoughts or suggestions?

 

[TheSomberlain]

The only time I've been able to use Voice 1 on the Abasi set I have (which isn't too dissimilar to the moderns IME) is by removing any overdrives or boosts I have before the amp, and intentionally dialing the amp in way darker than I would normally. With a 5150 you can get some pretty cool death metal tones pretty easily. It also knocks the Clayman sound out of the park with ease.

On an unrelated note:

Back to my usual flip-flopping with Fishman

I still can't help but feel like I would be happier with a 707 or 81-7 in the bridge. I am 100% a passive guy, so any time I go from playing a guitar with passives back to my Fishman equipped guitar there's a bit of shell-shock. There's just something cold and sterile to them, even in the passive voice. It's just too clean and "perfect" I think. It translates to a somewhat unnatural sound that our ears aren't accustomed to. Once I'm used to it again I really don't mind, but going back and forth with guitars always fucks me up. I just need to scoop a few B-stock EMGs from their Reverb store already so I can hot swap them when I'm the mood.

I bought two used ESP E-II guitars at completely different times. Both had the Abasi set in them. I HATED them. I think I'm the only person that doesn't like them. They sold on Reverb in no time. They seemed like having bass pickups in a guitar, for the lack of a better description. Anyway, I have it good with passive pickups. The owner of HomeWrecker Pickups and I have become good friends over the years and the dude's pickups just can't be beat. All custom wound with AlNiCo 8 magnets. One set has NOS 1952 PAF wire that he used to make me a hotrodded PAF. I'll be buried with that.

I get the dislike of actives but they really do have their place and do their "thing" for some applications that just sound so good. They're less versatile, I suppose. And they generally have subpar cleans but my Orange Dual Dark and the Dev Set just sound so damn good together. Plus, I can never take the 81/85 set out of my Hanneman LTD. That's just sacrilege.

 

[juka]

To piggyback off of this... I'm going through some midlife Death Metal renaissance or something, and have an 8-string Valravn coming in a few months. I liked the demos of Tosin's set when he A/B'd them against his other pickups. I was planning on the Tosin Fishman Fluence because I liked the sound and the versatility. However I'm wondering if there's a better set of Fishman Fluences that would handle really high-gain stuff but be able to clean up nicely, as well as if one's more responsive to the pick attack and use of volume to roll back for cleans and turn up for more overdrive/gain.

Essentially, I would like to be able to play with something like Morbid Angel or Deicide as well as playing with more clean tones, and would like the option of being able to cut through for leads (thinking more of recording or just lead guitar work) but also being full sounding. I'm inclined to get a set with an Alnico neck pickup and a ceramic bridge pickup for more range of sounds as well. Would the Tosin set be my best bet or is there another set that would make more sense? Any thoughts or suggestions?

As the Javier Reyes signatures are pretty much the only Fluenceses I haven't owned yet, I cannot offer you hands-on experiences on those, but as I read your post I kept thinking: Isn't that exactly the range Javier covers in his playing?
Really strange that you cannot find many reviews on them and they generally seem to be pretty underrated.

Talking about underrated: On the topic of this recent Moderns yeah or nay discussion I indeed can offer a lot of hands on experience and looking at all the new Fishman artists and their halfway announced new sigs, it really makes me wonder why the guitar community actually took 10 years to discover how great the Fluence Classics are!!!

And you've read right, according to a side note on their own website the Fluence line actually turns 10 this year! But strangely enough they seem to have no intention at all to celebrate this 10th anniversary in any way?!?

Still among the living Fishman???

 

[Halowords]

Plus, I can never take the 81/85 set out of my Hanneman LTD. That's just sacrilege.

On the one hand, I can understand. On the other, if anybody would welcome the irony of such a sacrilege, wouldn't it be one of the members of Slayer?

 

[Halowords]

As the Javier Reyes signatures are pretty much the only Fluenceses I haven't owned yet, I cannot offer you hands-on experiences on those, but as I read your post I kept thinking: Isn't that exactly the range Javier covers in his playing?
Really strange that you cannot find many reviews on them and they generally seem to be pretty underrated.

Talking about underrated: On the topic of this recent Moderns yeah or nay discussion I indeed can offer a lot of hands on experience and looking at all the new Fishman artists and their halfway announced new sigs, it really makes me wonder why the guitar community actually took 10 years to discover how great the Fluence Classics are!!!

And you've read right, according to a side note on their own website the Fluence line actually turns 10 this year! But strangely enough they seem to have no intention at all to celebrate this 10th anniversary in any way?!?

Still among the living Fishman???

First off, thanks for the thoughts on the Javier Reyes signatures. And yes, looking at his playing and overview of his signature series, that's really the range he covers.

Second, of the ones you HAVE tried, are there any that seem like particularly good matches for what I'm going for? The JRs might be the thing but I thought I'd ask just for comparison's sake. But yes, he really describes almost exactly what I'm going for and they sound really nice in the clips.

Also, at the risk of telling you something that you already know, I suspect it's taken a decade for these to blow up because guitarists as a whole are just so freaking traditional.

 

[Chri]

I bought two used ESP E-II guitars at completely different times. Both had the Abasi set in them. I HATED them. I think I'm the only person that doesn't like them. They sold on Reverb in no time. They seemed like having bass pickups in a guitar, for the lack of a better description. Anyway, I have it good with passive pickups. The owner of HomeWrecker Pickups and I have become good friends over the years and the dude's pickups just can't be beat. All custom wound with AlNiCo 8 magnets. One set has NOS 1952 PAF wire that he used to make me a hotrodded PAF. I'll be buried with that.

I get the dislike of actives but they really do have their place and do their "thing" for some applications that just sound so good. They're less versatile, I suppose. And they generally have subpar cleans but my Orange Dual Dark and the Dev Set just sound so damn good together. Plus, I can never take the 81/85 set out of my Hanneman LTD. That's just sacrilege.

I initially had the same problem with the Abasi bridge. V1 was just too sterile and had the whole honky mids thing the Moderns are infamous for. So I started trying to use V2 exclusively and couldn’t get around the fact that they had this weird, almost single coil sound to them. I think you hit the nail on the head saying that it sounds more like a bass pickup. I finally figured a workaround for myself though. Using a EQ before everything else in the chain, ducking everything before ~200Hz, and then boosting everything above 1.3-1-5kHz a bit really cleaned them up in the passive voice. It sounds and feels much more like an 81 now. Not 100% but way more useable than before, and 10000x better than V1.

 

[elkoki]

Anyone else have experience with the Will Adler set? I put them in a guitar a few weeks ago, and I don't know if its just me, but it they have WAY too much low end. Like, almost unusable on voice 1. My other guitar has the Townsend set in them and they are perfect, and based off what few sound demos I could find for the Adlers, they always sounded like they had just a little bit more low end, not the ridiculous amount that is actually coming out. Even through my Mark IV with a tubescreamer in front, there's just too much bass.

Anyone else have this experience?

I had them for a good while, I never found them to be overwhelmingly dark like how you describe . They definitely had some bass going , but they were still plenty bright , clear , and tight. I lived on voice 2 and it was the bassier voice of the 2. Voice 1 had less bass IME with more saturation and compression that it made chords sound a bit squashed and thin .. I replaced them for the Abasi pickups and honestly I think those sound darker at least in this guitar , I did try them in another Ibanez and they were suuuuuper bright , it’s interesting to see how different the results can be in different guitars

Maybe it’s the guitar they’re in ? Your tuning ? Or Maybe they weren’t installed right they shouldn’t be crazy crazy bassy .

 

[juka]

First off, thanks for the thoughts on the Javier Reyes signatures. And yes, looking at his playing and overview of his signature series, that's really the range he covers.

Second, of the ones you HAVE tried, are there any that seem like particularly good matches for what I'm going for? The JRs might be the thing but I thought I'd ask just for comparison's sake. But yes, he really describes almost exactly what I'm going for and they sound really nice in the clips.

Also, at the risk of telling you something that you already know, I suspect it's taken a decade for these to blow up because guitarists as a whole are just so freaking traditional.

My personal Fluence journey started out with Moderns (as most people do) and ended very unexpectedly with Open Core Classics in all my guitars (and mind you I'm not talking about traditional guitars, but mostly 7string headless!).

If I look at Fishman's latest additions to their artist rooster, it seems like I ended up in pretty good company with my choice:
McRocklin started out with Abasi sigs and ended with Classics with an ever so slightly modified V3 for his own sig. Or the Polyphia guys, where one has a stock Classic set only in custom colors and the other kept at least 2 of the 3 voices of the Classics (while I still believe -until somebody shows the differences in a h2h review- that those in reality are just rebranded JRs to finally get them a little more sales).

 

[Halowords]

My personal Fluence journey started out with Moderns (as most people do) and ended very unexpectedly with Open Core Classics in all my guitars (and mind you I'm not talking about traditional guitars, but mostly 7string headless!).

If I look at Fishman's latest additions to their artist rooster, it seems like I ended up in pretty good company with my choice:
McRocklin started out with Abasi sigs and ended with Classics with an ever so slightly modified V3 for his own sig. Or the Polyphia guys, where one has a stock Classic set only in custom colors and the other kept at least 2 of the 3 voices of the Classics (while I still believe -until somebody shows the differences in a h2h review- that those in reality are just rebranded JRs to finally get them a little more sales).

Thanks! Would it be safe to say the JRs are more organic in nature? I love the shimmering and lively qualities of the Abasi clips and want something that can handle lots of gain and push an amp hard, but what I like about passives is there is some organic quality. Things have come a long way over the years, but I remember finding actives a bit sterile and didn't like how they stripped out so much of the character of the guitars. Since the Javier Reyes series seems (from what I can gather) to maintain some of those attributes that I personally like in passives, I'm inclined to give them a shot.

Final question (my apologies if this has been addressed elsewhere), is it possible to get FF Modern-style covers for the Open Core Classics or JRs? I don't want to let aesthetics influence my decision, but I do like the clean look of the Moderns/Abasi/Carpenter series.

 

[juka]

Thanks! Would it be safe to say the JRs are more organic in nature? I love the shimmering and lively qualities of the Abasi clips and want something that can handle lots of gain and push an amp hard, but what I like about passives is there is some organic quality. Things have come a long way over the years, but I remember finding actives a bit sterile and didn't like how they stripped out so much of the character of the guitars. Since the Javier Reyes series seems (from what I can gather) to maintain some of those attributes that I personally like in passives, I'm inclined to give them a shot.

Final question (my apologies if this has been addressed elsewhere), is it possible to get FF Modern-style covers for the Open Core Classics or JRs? I don't want to let aesthetics influence my decision, but I do like the clean look of the Moderns/Abasi/Carpenter series.

According to the literature (or marketing blabla) I would say yes, they're described as being more organic/passive sounding, but as said before I have no hands on experience of the JR.
Regarding the active/passive debate I've always liked active pups, but while others hailed the 81 I much more preferred 85/89/57/66. So maybe it's no wonder I ended up with the Classics instead of the Moderns, although I think the Moderns are much closer to the 81 than the Classics to the 85. YMMV.
Talking aesthetics, yes, the Classics are available with covers (actually that's how they initially came), but only in 6string. You can blame Keith Merrow for the Open Core design, but I really like it und really wish they started offering more colors.

 

[Halowords]

According to the literature (or marketing blabla) I would say yes, they're described as being more organic/passive sounding, but as said before I have no hands on experience of the JR.
Regarding the active/passive debate I've always liked active pups, but while others hailed the 81 I much more preferred 85/89/57/66. So maybe it's no wonder I ended up with the Classics instead of the Moderns, although I think the Moderns are much closer to the 81 than the Classics to the 85. YMMV.
Talking aesthetics, yes, the Classics are available with covers (actually that's how they initially came), but only in 6string. You can blame Keith Merrow for the Open Core design, but I really like it und really wish they started offering more colors.

Thanks again. At this point I may as well just take a shot in the dark, and think the JRs sound like they're aiming the closest at what I actually want this thing to sound like. At worst I can swap them out down the road. At best, I've picked the ones that appear to have been created specifically for the sort of sounds I am describing. I also thought the clips posted in this thread seemed to hit on what I'm looking to achieve, so that's where I am leaning at the moment.

Fishman Javier Reyes Jam

Yall been wanting a Reyes demo so here we go, I was screwing around and once I noticed I hit record I figured it would be a good time for the demo. Below are Google Drive links for all positions (middle is in there somewhere) and all voices. Ignore the playing, I tried to cover as much ground as...

www.sevenstring.org

 

[Stuck_in_a_dream]

Thanks! Would it be safe to say the JRs are more organic in nature? I love the shimmering and lively qualities of the Abasi clips and want something that can handle lots of gain and push an amp hard, but what I like about passives is there is some organic quality. Things have come a long way over the years, but I remember finding actives a bit sterile and didn't like how they stripped out so much of the character of the guitars. Since the Javier Reyes series seems (from what I can gather) to maintain some of those attributes that I personally like in passives, I'm inclined to give them a shot.

Final question (my apologies if this has been addressed elsewhere), is it possible to get FF Modern-style covers for the Open Core Classics or JRs? I don't want to let aesthetics influence my decision, but I do like the clean look of the Moderns/Abasi/Carpenter series.

JR came standard in my 1st Aristides 070R, and unfortunately did not stay there for long, replaced them w/ Tosins which I LOVE, and now I have the Classics just to change things around, love them too.

Now re the JR set, well, IIRC, and u can search for earlier posts where I described them back then when I had them, they sounded too freakin' warm. I liked the neck pickup more, and w/ that Jazzbox voice 2, it sounded great both clean & overdriven. The bridge was good for rhythm playing, but sucked for leads imho, too warm, hard to describe, it's like lack of air to breathe. Tried it on different setups, but decided to let it go in favor of the Tosins, and that was like night and day, they're almost like exact opposites! JRs are subtle, warm, polite sounding, while the Tosins are anything but. And no, I don't feel they sounded like that due to Aristides' Arium, it's neutral sounding given how bright the Tosins & Classics sound in it.

 

[moshwitz]

Sup? ;-)

is anyone using a single Modern and using the push pull pot to change between voices? I'm having trouble finding a diagram for a single hum other than the Ryan Bruce Pup and the pins are different. Any help would be awesome as I've looked through about 30 pages and haven't found anything yet
MOSHON
DAVE

 

[HeHasTheJazzHands]

Sup? ;-)

is anyone using a single Modern and using the push pull pot to change between voices? I'm having trouble finding a diagram for a single hum other than the Ryan Bruce Pup and the pins are different. Any help would be awesome as I've looked through about 30 pages and haven't found anything yet
MOSHON
DAVE

It shouldn't be any different than doing a regular set. You're just doing the same exact wiring just with one pickup.

 

[moshwitz]

It shouldn't be any different than doing a regular set. You're just doing the same exact wiring just with one pickup.

I forgot to put 1hum 1 vol. no tone. no pup selector switch

 

[HeHasTheJazzHands]

I forgot to put 1hum 1 vol. no tone. no pup selector switch

Like I said, not much different. Just more condensed.

 

[moshwitz]

Like I said, not much different. Just more condensed.

Awesome,, thanks!!! I could not find that pic when looking through their diagrams... one more question,, what is the extra single grey wire for?

 

[HeHasTheJazzHands]

which one? The one that says "Bridge Ground"?
Fishman pickups need to have the bridge grounded like passive pickups.

 

[moshwitz]

which one? The one that says "Bridge Ground"?
Fishman pickups need to have the bridge grounded like passive pickups.

no,,in the package i got a grey wire with a connector on it