So, I will first say that not only am I not a fan of active pickups, I was also really not a fan of the regular fishman fluence moderns at all. I tried a set and removed them after only about a week. There was literally nothing about them I liked and I would take a regular 81/85 EMG set any day over them if I had to choose an active pickup. But since I love Devin's tone and everything else about the guy, I will admit, I got sucked into a signature gear moment.
Installation for fishman fluence modern pickups isn't overly simple if you wanna use all the voicings and the coil taps. The coil tapping is a lot easier with the Devin set though. On a side note, I hate wiring push/pull pots, even more so in a tight control cavity.
I tried the pickups through a Mercuriall U530 amp sim (really great Engl E530 sim) with a V30 cabinet and I was impressed right away, blown away even. These pickups are night and day different from the regular fluence moderns and they put them to shame. First off, they are insanely clear even when having a ton of gain involved which is awesome. The frequencies are perfect, there's no sizzle on the highs, no woomp on the lows, everything pulls together nicely. I backed off the gain to a crunch and they got even better, I couldn't believe how warm the pickups are for actives. The clean tones are also perfect as I am sure you can imagine they should be with a product designed by Devin Townsend.
The voicings are versatile. There's a high gain/high output voice, a passive-ish PAF type voice and then a passive single coil type voice as well. All of them are useful and effective. The clarity across all three voicings is beyond incredible. To be able to play a bar chord or 4-6 string chord and be able to hear every single note while playing with a ton of gain is really cool. They are just so different from the regular fluence modern set. Clearer, more focused and just generally superior.
I give these pickups 10/10 or five stars and so on. I strongly suggest these pickups for pretty much any type of music but the one thing I can say is you should have a large control cavity to work with or razor sharp precision with a soldering iron.
I will post some sound clips tomorrow.
Installation for fishman fluence modern pickups isn't overly simple if you wanna use all the voicings and the coil taps. The coil tapping is a lot easier with the Devin set though. On a side note, I hate wiring push/pull pots, even more so in a tight control cavity.
I tried the pickups through a Mercuriall U530 amp sim (really great Engl E530 sim) with a V30 cabinet and I was impressed right away, blown away even. These pickups are night and day different from the regular fluence moderns and they put them to shame. First off, they are insanely clear even when having a ton of gain involved which is awesome. The frequencies are perfect, there's no sizzle on the highs, no woomp on the lows, everything pulls together nicely. I backed off the gain to a crunch and they got even better, I couldn't believe how warm the pickups are for actives. The clean tones are also perfect as I am sure you can imagine they should be with a product designed by Devin Townsend.
The voicings are versatile. There's a high gain/high output voice, a passive-ish PAF type voice and then a passive single coil type voice as well. All of them are useful and effective. The clarity across all three voicings is beyond incredible. To be able to play a bar chord or 4-6 string chord and be able to hear every single note while playing with a ton of gain is really cool. They are just so different from the regular fluence modern set. Clearer, more focused and just generally superior.
I give these pickups 10/10 or five stars and so on. I strongly suggest these pickups for pretty much any type of music but the one thing I can say is you should have a large control cavity to work with or razor sharp precision with a soldering iron.
I will post some sound clips tomorrow.
