Having something that makes your guitar sound consistent in a variety of playing situations is hard… even more difficult to find is something that is easily tweak-able to dial in a tone you find pleasing. Well, guitar geek friends, I have found a magical DI box that comes close to that mouthwatering description.
The Fishman Spectrum Aura DI is seemingly a magic and consistent tone creator disguised in an easy to use and modify DI box. This DI is one that is on my list of must have playing items, I use this DI a ton when I don’t have the time to dial in my Mesa Boogie Rosette DI, which lately, feels like often.
This DI is simple to operate and due to the digital images that come pre-loaded into the DI it sounds great. OK so what is the deal with these “images?” While there are tons of scientific resources out there I will go the route of explaining it as a knob that makes your acoustic guitar actually sound acoustic. The images make your guitar sound as if it were being recorded in a studio, but one thing to note here is that you control the blend of the pickup and image… that being the case, be careful with how much image you mix into the blend. I have found about 60% pickup signal and 40% aura image works great for me. I have discovered that if you mix in too much image the signal can sound very weird almost as if you are playing under water.
Not only does this DI make my guitar sound way better plugged in than it should; it also comes with plenty of tonal shaping options beyond the Aura Image processing. There is a three band eq to sweeten your tone and provide some feedback cutting if necessary. In addition to the eq the aura spectrum also has a built in one knob compressor which I find very useful when used subtly.
So in terms of tone this DI is very much an incredible live music making tool. It does sound good, but there are two things on it that I steer clear of… The first being the tuner as I have found it doesn’t work very well for me, and the other thing that I don’t use is the built in anti-feedback notch. This foot switch activated feedback notch filter seems to take, along with the feedback frequencies, some of the guts out of your tone. Those are really my only critiques of this DI everything else is very well done.
The Fishman Spectrum Aura DI is very roadworthy and in my experience even has resisted some gross mistreatment by years of travel and being on the floor of nearly every place I have played.
If you like messing with tone in a simple way while being able to achieve consistent results this is a great tool for any guitar geek that likes to plug in. Again, the only thing I have discovered that doesn’t perform amazingly is the tuner and the anti-feedback switch, but that aside this is a great DI for us tone tweaking acoustic guitar geeks.
Fishman Spectrum Aura DI Links