Fishman Aura Imaging Pedals

It's Winter NAMM and lots of fun musical stuff will be announced. Probably.

Fishman has announced the Aura Imaging Pedals. What's Aura? There's been quite a bit of buzz about the Aura technology, particularly about the Martin's that you can get with the system built in (the DC-AURA and the DC-28E to name but two.) People who have used them rave about them.

Aura uses digital algorithms, developed in Fishman’s audio labs, to create an Image of the natural sound that microphones capture in a professional studio. This Image, when played through an amp, mixer, or PA, blends with your instrument’s pickup to produce an immediate and dramatic improvement in your amplified sound.

What's that really mean? Well, for situations where you have to use your guitar with a pickup, the Aura takes the sound from the pickup, does some magic stuff and makes it sound more like the guitar would sound if it was mic'ed rather than plugged in using a pickup.

The Martin guitars come with models customized for those specific guitars, but you can also get the Aura technology as a standalone product. The Fishman Aura Acoustic Imaging Blender comes with a bunch of models included, and you can even get Fishman to create a custom model for your guitar!



Anyway, Fishman has announced the Aura Imaging Pedals. At first I couldn't figure out how these related to the Blender product and it took a few readings to notice: Designed for use with guitars featuring undersaddle or magnetic soundhole pickups, there are Aura Pedals for each of the six major types of acoustic stringed instruments: Dreadnought, Concert, Orchestra, Jumbo, Nylon, and 12-String.

So I'm guessing that the Pedals are not customizable the way the Blender is.

The Blender costs about $400. No price was mentioned for the pedals, but if they are about $120, then it would be a lot more attractive.