them

“Hey Stephen here here stuff and things today on the channel we are going to be comparing some fishmen fluence pickups more specifically four Bridge position humbuckers all on the first voicing all four guitars are going to be tuned to drop a flat and it's going to be the same riff compared uh through the clean section and then one riff compared through the dirty section um for the tone examples we're using the goira plugin so all the guitars are using the same clean patch with the levels matched all of the guitars are going to use the same dirty patch from the goir plugin with the levels match in between the cleans and The Dirties I'm going to give you uh my perspective on these pickups uh how I think they differ from one another my thoughts on them overall and then I'll do the same thing at the end after the dirty section and then I'll tell you a little bit about my experience with fishmen as a whole so let's head on over there wherever there is uh because for some reason in YouTube videos we have to say we're heading over somewhere when we cut to another thing I'm not sure why that is cuz I'm not really going anywhere my camera is going to move about a foot uh but it won't matter to you because it's just going to be still images of pickups because I'm [ __ ] lazy so let's go [Music] [Music] h [Music] [Music] [Music] l [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] hey you want to talk about what you just heard I want to talk about it maybe I'll tell you what I think cuz I came from wherever that other place was so now that I'm back we should talk about it anyway so that was the cleans and uh to my ears the will Adler set has a bit more of an upper mid-range Spike happening there there's a little bit more attack um it does seem to have a bit of a mid drop I don't know if that's accurate or not I'm not going to put up an EQ analyzer or anything like that cuz I don't think any of that [ __ ] ultimately matters I see a lot of people do that in comparison videos it's kind of a waste of time it's just about how you hear it because that's the part that you're going to give a [ __ ] about not what you know me pulling up Pro Q3 and analyzing all of the Peaks and valleys of things that's that's irrelevant it's what sounds best to you so to me this particular pickup the will Adler has a bit of a more defined upper mid-range the stepen carpenter has a bit more of a defined lower mid-range as well as a nice little lift in the highs so there's some sparkle there as well as a little bit bit of uh lower mid-range oomph in there um it is my favorite sounding one out of all of them which is interesting because the first time I ever played one of these pickups uh what the first time I ever played a Fishman pickup in general was a Stephen Carpenter and I didn't care for it at the time but it's kind of growing on me and I wish they would just make the six string version of it again so I could put it in all of my guitars that's neither here nor there moving on the Alo similar to the Stephen Carpenter uh to some degree but but it also has some um characteristics that are fairly similar to the Adler now these are all kind of based around the fluen originally from what I understand and then they do some EQ shifting and stuff to change the voicings and since we're only using voice one on all of these they're not that different uh however there's some EQ variables there um but with the ALCO I would say it's a nice mix between what you would find the um the signature characteristic of those previous two pickups to be if they were like kind of combined and then moving on to the ceramic the ceramic just sounds great it's very balanced there's a little bit of that sparkle that was present in the uh Stephen Carpenter pickup and some of that low mid stuff that was kind of unpleasant uh or not want to say unpleasant but just a little weird uh on the Alo is not as present in the ceramic the clean example is going to be a lot better to listen to and reference to actually get a feeling for how different these are because once we go into High Gain territory it gets a little harder to distinguish which is which don't worry I'm along for the ride I'll come back probably doing something weird and creepy and then I'll tell you how I feel about the dirty sounds and then we'll wrap the video up h [Music] [Music] you just heard the dirty samples dirty samples um and you're not going to failure drug test it was a bad joke anyway let's talk about distorted guitars and comparing them so um kind of the same Vibe really um the will Adler has a bit more of that upper mid-range bite it definitely adds some attack and uh I would say if you're someone who's playing more um busy or aggressive metal stuff uh or something that's fairly intricate with a lot of uh technical picking stuff the will Adler might be ideal for you Stephan Carpenter uh that added low end that's in there and especially in that lower mid stuff that's happening adds a nice growl in my opinion at least what I hear as a nice growl to the pickup and to the notes and stuff that the Adler did not have the Alo same kind of thing it's got some interesting characteristics and an upper mid-range growl thing but not as defined and uh let's say Bassy as the Stephen Carpenter moving into the ceramic it's just a nice even uh example of each of these prior pickups so my take is if you're looking for something to get into the dirty World any of these is going to work unfortunately the Stephen Carpenter only comes in seven and eight string sets so if you're wanning it on a six good [ __ ] luck it would be really cool if they brought it back cuz I would legit buy all of them and put them in all of my guitars all right so now that we've heard some examples and I've talked a little bit about what I he as far as differences between each of the pickups um I wanted to tell you kind of the story behind what led me to the fluence modern stuff or the fluence line of pickups and um it kind of starts with me not having any sort of interest in active pickups at all I grew up playing mostly passive stuff I've owned a few guitars that had emgs in them and I didn't really jell with them and I'd immediately take those out and put a AB in them or put uh a d180 from GFS in them just those are my favorite pickups in the passive World in general I just find them to be the most natural sounding the most balanced but the reality of it is thousands of people use emgs there are so many records that have been recorded using them um so many great players have signature lines with EMG and it's just clearly there's nothing wrong with them it's just not something that appealed to me and that um assumption that they were only for like super high gain metal stuff created a preconception that led me not to have any interest in them or really even try them to be clear I'm sure if I try them today I probably feel different about them I still know that there's certain things about them characteristically that doesn't jive with me the fluent stuff was you know touted as an active pickup so in my mind and I'm sure there are many other people that did this I assumed that it was going to be just another version of an EMG or that EMG sound eventually after I got over myself enough to actually just give them a try um I discovered that they don't have that sound at all now you can get an active sound out of them but it's still not the EMG sound I played the fluence modern ceramic um and it had a lot of tonal characteristics that were quite similar to the JB and the d180 that I use but kind of just Amplified and much more balanced across the string sets so if I'd play a chord everything would be really even and I could hear everything and definition even on slightly more High Gain or fuzzed out stuff I can still hear every note very clearly sometimes with the passive pickups even if I'm like doing a chord you're going to get some um I don't know mud but just a little bit of inconsistencies maybe something's not going to pop out quite the way you want it to and that really shows itself when you're recording especially when you have to like go back and overdub because there's slight inconsistencies now I did didn't find that with the um ceramic fluence modern it was just all there right at the surface and that was enough for me to be like okay these are legit and yeah they have the Dual voicing thing and that's all cool and whatnot but I found just the first voicing does it for me the other selling point for me was that I have a lot of guitars and in my band modern witchcraft we have started using two different tunings and I found that I was going from a guitar that had a passive pickup to the guitar that had the fishmen in it and I have to make big adjustments in my modeler which I'm using the quad cortex at the time I was using the Helix but I'd have to make adjustments to the EQ curve as well as like put some boosts on it different gain staging uh and a different gate setting with the passive pickup than the modern and I found that when I put another modern in the other guitar I didn't have to do that anymore even if I have two guitars with the same passive pickup there can be output variables and tonal variables that are much more defined uh than if I'm using the fluence they're just going to sound the same every time and I think that may be the true advantage of the modern star the fluence product is that you're not getting variables because two pickups that are wound are still even if they're wound the same they still are going to be slightly different you know if you've played two guitars that have two of the same passive pick up in and sometimes they're going to sound a little different the fluent stuff is the same every one of them I've used always the same like out of the box the moments and installed does exactly what I want it to I'm not having to make changes to my patches so that was it for me that's what sold me on it and um in full disclosure this is not a sponsored video um no one at fishmen is asking me to do anything I will say that I have a nice working relationship with them they don't give me anything so nothing was free or anything of the sort but if I have questions the fine folks over there have been really nice about asking questions shout out to Kevin White for just being amazing and of course kin Susi for kind of introducing me to the pickups I'm sold and if you're someone out there who isn't a fan of emgs and you're coming from passive world and you're at all curious i' I'd say just give them a shot and if you don't dig them you don't dig them but it's it's worth giving something new a chance and that's what I'm doing today uh filming without a microphone using a terrible LED light that's in the distance kind of makes this look like a shitty horror movie and uh yeah I'm doing it just down and dirty as Nick Hill would say and I said and um a handful of times so this is going to be fun for him to make another video either way it's been me it's always you it's gear stuff and things fisherman pickup comparison until next time byebye I don't know why I said it like that”