With over 30 years of experience, Fishman Transducers have worked their way to becoming one of the most successful and well-known pickup manufacturers in the world. And while most players are more familiar with their suite of acoustic guitar and amplification products, the company also features a number of excellent choices for electric guitars. If you're not familiar with the products from Fishman, you owe it to yourself and your tone to take a closer look. Below are just a few of their standout pieces of gear.

Aura Spectrum DI

proaurspc_3 (1)At its core, the Aura Spectrum is a high-quality acoustic guitar DI box but that description alone would severely underplay what this little box can do for your sound. For example, it offers a chromatic tuner, automatic feedback suppressor (with three different notch filters), a universal compressor, three-band EQ, an effects loop with an automatic ground lift (to fight against 60 cycle hum), as well as a mute/bypass switch. And if that weren't enough, then there's Fishman's impressive Acoustic Imaging Technology -- arguably the best feature of the entire pedal. More than just a fully featured DI box, it is an acoustic guitar tone workhorse that will give you the same great studio-miked sound anywhere. If you're serious about your acoustic guitar tone, then you definitely have to check out the Aura Spectrum DI.

Rare Earth Pickups

  Testing Testing Testing prorep103 With Fishman's Rare Earth pickup line, you don't have to perform major surgery on your acoustic guitar to amplify it. Setup is as simple as popping the pickup into the soundhole. After that, you're ready to go, no other alteration required (although you can easily mount the pre-wired output jack on the endpin for a seamless and clean setup). The Rare Earth acoustic pickup line comes in three models: single-coil (PROREP101), humbucker (PROREP102) and a dual pickup/mic combination (PROREP103) for added accuracy and clarity. But no matter what model works best for your needs, every Rare Earth pickup will deliver great tone, excellent string-to-string balance, and hum-free operation. It's active electronics also ensure a pure, clean sound so that your acoustic guitar's natural voice comes through strong and uncolored. And better still, the Rare Earth line also features fantastic battery life thanks to its low-current operation, delivering up to 300 hours of active use.

Neo D Passive Pickups

proneod01 Not every player is looking for an active pickup setup. If you like a set-and-forget type of design, one that won't deteriorate on you if you forget to change the battery, the Fishman Neo-D passive pickups are an excellent choice. A value-priced relative of the active Rare Earth line, the Neo-D features the same neodymium magnet structure, excellent string-to-string balance, and pure acoustic clarity - all without the need for a battery. It also features the same easy installation process without the necessity for any alteration to your guitar. The Fishman Neo-D comes in both single-coil and humbucker designs.

Fluence Pickups

modern_humbucker_group_shot__1While there are several different techniques that guitarists employ to get different sounds from a single set of pickups, such as coil-tapping or switching, those sounds are still bound to a general type of tone. In other words, you can’t convert your pickups' tone from vintage to hot, or from hot to line-in quality clean, at least not without a noticeable loss in output level. With the Fluence line, Fishman did just that, offering pickups that feature two truly distinct and useful sounds in one setup. These are true multi-voiced pickups, bringing together classic, familiar tone-colors along with brand new ones. Whether you're looking for humbuckers or single-coils, classic or modern voicings, even ceramic or alnico magnets, Fishman has a Fluence pickup set that's perfect for your electric. Other key features include a noise-free operation, virtually non-existent signal degradation (even with cables over 50-feet long) and over 200 hours of continuous use on a single 9v battery.

Final Thoughts ...

While these are among our favorite pieces of gear from the company, there's plenty more gear where that came from. Head on over to our Fishman Brand Page for plenty more. From pickups to EQ and even DI, you can be sure that when you go with a Fishman product, you're getting the very best your tone could hope for!