The Fishman Fluence Thread

[MASS DEFECT]

Kinda expensive but Mad Hatter is doing a solderless system for Fluence pickups.

https://madhatterguitarproducts.com/collections/in-fluence

If you are a noob at soldering and figuring out how to wire the other voices, this might be your ticket.

 

[Stuck_in_a_dream]

^ for a $100!!!! A bit too steep imho. Soldering is not that hard, take it from me, not too long ago I couldn't solder anything to save my life. Get a good soldering iron, and practice with some scrap wires first. Watch Youtube vids if u need, there's tons of step-by-step ones.

 

[MASS DEFECT]

^ for a $100!!!! A bit too steep imho. Soldering is not that hard, take it from me, not too long ago I couldn't solder anything to save my life. Get a good soldering iron, and practice with some scrap wires first. Watch Youtube vids if u need, there's tons of step-by-step ones.

Yeah true. I like soldering and all that stuff. But I realize people also pay almost 200 up for Fluence installations here in my city.

There is certainly a market for it and I hope Fishman takes notice that solderless systems exist for their products. They have the means to produce this.

 

[Strobe]

^ for a $100!!!! A bit too steep imho. Soldering is not that hard, take it from me, not too long ago I couldn't solder anything to save my life. Get a good soldering iron, and practice with some scrap wires first. Watch Youtube vids if u need, there's tons of step-by-step ones.

I agree, but there is a dozen+ page thread dedicated to one guy not knowing how to solder (or go to a tech) and looking for validation that his pickups he does not have to solder are better than the ones he would have to solder.

I will mention that even though I can just figure out how to hook up pickups without a diagram, the Fluence setup with its multiple voice switching is certainly more complicated than most pickups. I have to spend time thinking about it and draw it out for myself, whereas I could do non-tapped, regular pickups in my sleep.

 

[diagrammatiks]

it's just hard the first time. and made a bit harder by the fact they're their cs is a fucking nitwit.

but once you do it once and figure out what is what it's super easy.

 

[Mura]

Pleased to meet you.

I recently joined this forum and wrote for the first time. I'm not good at English, so it may be a strange sentence.

I think the mechanical design of fluence modern is cool, but I don't think it fits into the design of some guitars.

So I pasted 0.5mm Hawaiian Koa material myself and finished it with oil wax.

Does this look cool?

 

[Albake21]

Pleased to meet you.

I recently joined this forum and wrote for the first time. I'm not good at English, so it may be a strange sentence.

I think the mechanical design of fluence modern is cool, but I don't think it fits into the design of some guitars.

So I pasted 0.5mm Hawaiian Koa material myself and finished it with oil wax.

View attachment 92070 Does this look cool?

That looks really cool! I think it's much better looking than the normal plastic cover

 

[MASS DEFECT]

Pleased to meet you.

I recently joined this forum and wrote for the first time. I'm not good at English, so it may be a strange sentence.

I think the mechanical design of fluence modern is cool, but I don't think it fits into the design of some guitars.

So I pasted 0.5mm Hawaiian Koa material myself and finished it with oil wax.

View attachment 92070 Does this look cool?

Looks awesome man!

 

[The Monster With .]

Pleased to meet you.

I recently joined this forum and wrote for the first time. I'm not good at English, so it may be a strange sentence.

I think the mechanical design of fluence modern is cool, but I don't think it fits into the design of some guitars.

So I pasted 0.5mm Hawaiian Koa material myself and finished it with oil wax.

View attachment 92070 Does this look cool?

I love the look of those, nice job man!

 

[Apex1rg7x]

Without sifting through the 80+ pages of this thread what is the general consensus on the Will Adler set? Been really interested in trying them lately and currently have the 6 string Stef set and Moderns as well as the Devin set coming in soon in a ESP Horizon. Thanks ahead of time.

 

[lewis]

Pleased to meet you.

I recently joined this forum and wrote for the first time. I'm not good at English, so it may be a strange sentence.

I think the mechanical design of fluence modern is cool, but I don't think it fits into the design of some guitars.

So I pasted 0.5mm Hawaiian Koa material myself and finished it with oil wax.

View attachment 92070 Does this look cool?

Wow dude!
an incredible job!

is a thread documenting that process possible at all?
Would be super interested in seeing what goes into doing that.

 

[lewis]

Kinda expensive but Mad Hatter is doing a solderless system for Fluence pickups.

https://madhatterguitarproducts.com/collections/in-fluence

If you are a noob at soldering and figuring out how to wire the other voices, this might be your ticket.

The EMG solderless stuff with added push/pull solderless EMG knobs they sell can all be purchased and used

 

[elkoki]

^ for a $100!!!! A bit too steep imho. Soldering is not that hard, take it from me, not too long ago I couldn't solder anything to save my life. Get a good soldering iron, and practice with some scrap wires first. Watch Youtube vids if u need, there's tons of step-by-step ones.

Not only that, you still have to figure out which wires go where if you have a very specific wiring setup. Fluence does not have lots of wiring diagrams and emailing them will not always help either

 

[elkoki]

Yeah true. I like soldering and all that stuff. But I realize people also pay almost 200 up for Fluence installations here in my city.

There is certainly a market for it and I hope Fishman takes notice that solderless systems exist for their products. They have the means to produce this.

Honestly if you're paying $200 for a pickup installation, you're a total sucker. Good soldering irons can be bought for as little as $25 and learning how to solder is free and a whole lot easier than people think especially YouTube. It's a valuable skill to learn if you're constantly tinkering around with your guitar anyway. Most guitarist dont stick to one set of pickups or have multiple guitars, so it pays off to spend $25 and an hour watching a video / practicing. We all had / have a little extra time because of covid so anything else is just an excuse really. At the end of the day guitar tech / luthiers don't know everything there is to know about guitars and they still screw up. We've all heard the stories and it's happened to me as well where a tech ruined my guitar ..

 

[elkoki]

Without sifting through the 80+ pages of this thread what is the general consensus on the Will Adler set? Been really interested in trying them lately and currently have the 6 string Stef set and Moderns as well as the Devin set coming in soon in a ESP Horizon. Thanks ahead of time.

I have a set, not too sure how many other people on here have them. Overall i'm very happy with them, the bridge has a great modern / high gain tone (OFC). Overall the bridge is a little on the darker side tone wise ( could also be the guitar they're in). The first voice is a little thicker, but still tight, it's my main voice when I pickup that guitar. The second voice has more compression and more gain, think something like a Seymour Duncan Blackout. The neck is (if i'm not mistaken) a Fluence classic neck pickup just in Will Adler's faded gold color. I'm sure you know what that sounds like already if you have other Fluence's. I think the set sounds good overall, but it doesn't have a third voice which is a downside for me. I've been thinking of swapping them out for the Killswitch Engage set, but literally only because those do . The lack of a third voice makes them a little less versatile. Still great pickups though, they breathe life into my guitar.

 

[slavboi_delight]

Honestly if you're paying $200 for a pickup installation, you're a total sucker. Good soldering irons can be bought for as little as $25 and learning how to solder is free and a whole lot easier than people think especially YouTube. It's a valuable skill to learn if you're constantly tinkering around with your guitar anyway. Most guitarist dont stick to one set of pickups or have multiple guitars, so it pays off to spend $25 and an hour watching a video / practicing. We all had / have a little extra time because of covid so anything else is just an excuse really. At the end of the day guitar tech / luthiers don't know everything there is to know about guitars and they still screw up. We've all heard the stories and it's happened to me as well where a tech ruined my guitar ..

Totally agree. It took me about 2 to 3 hours of learning time and a few tries to wire passives with 2 split coils and a phase shift and 1 day plus to figure our how to wire the fluence pickups. Once you figure out how pickups work and how they are soldered without push/pulls, then it's not that hard. It really is an investment in yourself since changing pickups cost me about 60 euros at my tech's store. You might want to start with an easy diagram so you won't get disencouraged in the beginning.

 

[BenSolace]

+1 on learning to solder. Hell, I learned that years ago and now I'm looking into doing my own refrets and fret dressing as well as other assorted luthier work. I'll be building my own guitars before long haha.

Also had a Fishman Fluence classic open core in the bridge of my PRS SE Cu24 for a few weeks now and I'm liking it. I typically prefer humbuckers that have an asymmetric wind as it adds more top end articulation and single coilishness (at the expense of some hum cancellation) and this pickup gives that with the benefit of also being quiet. As I put it in an EMG equipped guitar I didn't know you needed to install a bridge ground wire so at first I thought they were a bit noisy

 

[Mura]

Wow dude!
an incredible job!

is a thread documenting that process possible at all?
Would be super interested in seeing what goes into doing that.

Thank you!

There were a few photos left on my mobile phone that I was making, so I will explain them by pasting some.

I bought a veneer for a guitar head for the original purpose.
The thickness is 0.5 mm.
This is not as easy as paper, but it is a thickness that is easy to cut with a utility knife.
(Ebony or rosewood may have a hard time even if the thickness is the same)

At first, I thought about covering the entire upper part with a piece of veneer without putting a line and making it look like a wooden EMG. However, since it is a fishman fluence, I thought that this cool line should be left.

I put a translucent masking tape on the top of the fishman fluence body and copied the rough size and line position.
Peel off the masking tape so that it does not lose its shape, and attach it to the veneer.
Then cut the veneer so that it is slightly larger than that line.
(I didn't take an image of this work)

Paste the cut out veneer on the PU.
I glued them together with an adhesive called Cemedine X2 from Japan.
I used to love the Dimarzio X2N, so I thought this glue must be powerful and tight.

After that, just rub it with sandpaper to match the outer circumference of the PU and the center line to match the size.
Use a utility knife to peel off the part where the adhesive has squeezed out.

After adjusting the shape of the outer circumference and center line, adjust the surface of the upper surface with fine sandpaper and apply "KEN SMITH CLASSIC WAX POLISH" to complete.

"KEN SMITH CLASSIC WAX POLISH" is something I usually use to care for my fingerboard.
In the future, I think it will be necessary to apply oil to this fishman PU once in a while to keep it clean.

Did that help clarify things?

 

[Crundles]

Fishman thread, I need some advice.

The Fishman FAQ states that the Moderns (as well as Abasi, Carpenter and KSE signature sets) are compatible with fanfret guitars.

Does this mean I can just pick up a set of normal everyday 7-string Fishmans from Thomann and directly slap them into my 25.5-27 fanfret GOC? Or are there any shenanigans I need to be aware of?

 

[diagrammatiks]

Fishman thread, I need some advice.

The Fishman FAQ states that the Moderns (as well as Abasi, Carpenter and KSE signature sets) are compatible with fanfret guitars.

Does this mean I can just pick up a set of normal everyday 7-string Fishmans from Thomann and directly slap them into my 25.5-27 fanfret GOC? Or are there any shenanigans I need to be aware of?

Depends on how the goc are routed.
Quick google search tells me they won’t work. Goc uses angled base plates pickups.