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Post subject: Fishman Fluence Pickups - Any user feedback?
Posted: Sat Jan 03, 2015 1:34 am
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Fishman Fluence pickups... eh whoooah!!

I just heard Greg Koch demo these singles in some videos. http://youtu.be/xFa4hLeSNG0
Fairly impressive sound, even vol between pickups, and 2 sound settings, classic and overwound...nice

So you guys with these Fluence already installed, singles or humbucker, do you like em?

Would you describe them to be similar to other pickups you have, on either Fluence Vintage and Overwound settings?

There are no reviews on Sweetwater or Musiciansfriend yet for the singles.

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Post subject: Re: Fishman Fluence Pickups - Any user feedback?
Posted: Sat Jan 03, 2015 9:50 am
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I'm still in the testing stage with mine, so don't take anything I say as chiseled in stone. I have a Warmouth parts caster that has Fat 50's in it and sounds great. I put the Fishman Fluence single coils into my Am Dlx. For the past two weeks I've been A/B'ing both guitars constantly. I'll play a song with the Fat 50's, put it down and play the same song with the Fluence. I've taken both guitars to band rehearsal and done a set with one and then a set with the other, and asked my band mates to give me feedback.
The real amazing thing to me is just how good the Fluence sound and how close they are to the Fat 50's. Considering this is completely different technology, I would expect more of a difference.
The Fluence sound like great Fender single coils. Not as ice picky on the highs as some. They have two voices, the 54 voice, or pull out the lower tone control and you get the Texas Specials voicing. They are hotter than the Fat 50's. In fact with the set list that we have now, I'm only using the hotter voice for one song. All others I'm playing with the 54 voice.
They have great sustain, as long as you finger your note clean and hold it solid, they will hold the note as long as you need it. However, they don't let you play sloppy because if you lift slightly, the note drops off pretty fast. I think this has to do with the fact that these are so quiet, that if the signal drops they act a little like a noise gate. Not a radical drop off, but you definitely have to be aware of it and finger your notes cleanly.
I have no idea where to set the pickup heights for optimal performance. I installed them myself and just picked a height that sounded okay and left them there. As I have more time I may find a different height that works better, Right now I have them pretty low.
I got the optional battery pack that takes the place of the rear trem cover. It fits great on my guitar and makes recharging easy. They say that you can get 200 playing hours from a full charge.
Bottom line at this time is, that after two weeks of A/B'ing the two guitars and using feedback from my band mates, I've decided to use the Am Dlx with the Fluence pups for two shows this weekend, over my Fat 50's parts caster. That to me says that these Fluence are going to be around for a while and a real contender for aftermarket pups.
I haven't tried the humbuckers, but I'm thinking of putting together a parts caster with an H/S/H configuration to give them a try. I'm not actually sure if you can do that or not, but I assume you can.

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Post subject: Re: Fishman Fluence Pickups - Any user feedback?
Posted: Sat Jan 03, 2015 8:13 pm
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Hey that's some awesome help, thanks Drew for the observations... the sustain improvement is interesting.
I need some singles for a Strat I was about to order Hot Noiseless.

I guess they are interacting well with your external FX pedals, or you would have noticed.
Using amp tube overdrive, retaining their clarity and attack is what I'm after.

Interesting that, researching further:

* Fluence Singles use Alnico IV rod magnets. There are no Alnico IV pickups at Fender, Duncan or Lolar, that I saw currently listed.

* Fluence Magnetic Gauss Strength at String: 260 - Fender pickups are usually 300-400G @ 50% charged, and 800-1,000 100% charged.

So Drew, given that Fluence are on the lower Gauss strength, you could raise the Fluence to a closer threshold to string before magnetic pull affects strings.

Measurement of the Electromagnetic Properties of Electric Guitar Pickups:
http://www.ece.rochester.edu/courses/ECE140/resources/Guitar-Project/Electric_Guitar_Pickup_Measurements.pdf

Yeah, interesting research doc, and going by those measurements:

Fender singles Impedance Z ranges from 40k Ohm to 80k Ohm.
Fluence Singles are 3-4k Ohm, (since it's a powered circuit, this lower impedance won't lose signal clarity)

Whatever...blah blah, I'll probably jump in.

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Post subject: Re: Fishman Fluence Pickups - Any user feedback?
Posted: Tue Jan 06, 2015 6:45 pm
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If you've read the other thread, you see that I am having a problem with the tone pots not functioning. Even with that, these pickups sound pretty good. I put together two audio clips recorded at band rehearsal. The first is my Warmouth Strat with Fat 50's, the second is my Am Dlx with the Fishman Fluence Singles. Same song, same amp settings, pickups selected etc. Recorded the same evening using a hand held Tascam recorder sitting on a music stand in the middle of the room.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U56-o5mp6sU

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Post subject: Re: Fishman Fluence Pickups - Any user feedback?
Posted: Thu Jan 08, 2015 5:23 pm
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I thought that I should update this thread, in case someone does a search in the future and is unaware of some of the info in another thread concerning the Fishman Fluence Singles.
At this time, 1/8/15, the pickups I received have non functioning tone controls. There is no effect from the tone pots in any switch position or either voiceing. Even without the tone pots functioning, the pickups sound very good. I know a lot of guys don't use their tone controls, but I do, so not having them is not an option.
At first Fishman claimed they were unaware of any problems. Now they say there may be a problem with the pcb that is built into the bridge pickup. They are looking into the problem. I will update this thread when I find out if they have a quick fix or if I send mine back and move on to something else.

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Post subject: Re: Fishman Fluence Pickups - Any user feedback?
Posted: Fri Jan 09, 2015 3:35 am
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Hey Drew I read and heard the Fluence singles tone control doesn't behave like a normal tone... it's not as muddy and more subtle, keeps the top end intact.

Perhaps this also is affected by the type of capacitor installed by Sigler where you got the preloaded guard.

Maybe Fluence pickups don't work so well with a regular Strat tone circuit capacitors, the 0.022 μF cap.
Using a 0.047 μF cap, or higher, will be noticeably darker quicker when tone knob is turned down.

I do know with my own experiments using many different capacitors, that some smaller rated and different spec caps made my tone pot changes almost unnoticeable, and some very subtle, which was what I wanted.

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Post subject: Re: Fishman Fluence Pickups - Any user feedback?
Posted: Fri Jan 09, 2015 7:37 am
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The caps on my pickguard are .022, which is what is shown on the Fishman schematic. My understanding is that all components came from Fishman. The problem isn't that the tone change is subtle, it's non existent. I'm actually hoping that they come up with a fix soon, so that I don't have to send these back and move on to something else. I'm a bit anxious to see what I can get from these with functioning tone controls.

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