Fishman Fluence (Abasi vs. Open Core vs. ?) Jazz tone

[medfly]

Hi everyone, I own a 25.5 inch scale 7 string solid body electric guitar. It’s equipped with Bartolini humbucker pickups that are extremely clear and full range. The problem is I didn’t realize that for anything other than solo guitar that’s not a good thing. They lack that midrange “push” that typical Humbuckers do. I like the sound I can get from a les Paul style guitar for that reason, and I need guitars that can function both in jazz (clean warm setting) and fusion or rock.

My question is, between the Fishman Abasi signatures, the Fishman open core classics, and any other suggestions that could compete with the versatility or blow them out of the water soundwise, what would be some recommendations?

[allstarrme]

Re: Fishman Fluence (Abasi vs. Open Core vs. ?) Jazz tone

The open core set is the same as the classic set, but with a 3rd voice for single coil sound. The voice 1 is classic PAF like a better Seth lover or antiquity set, voice 2 is the JB for the bridge and it’s own new thing for the neck. Definitely hot rodded and ready to rock. The neck is very versatile and used in several signature sets like the Will Adler and Keith Merrow sets. The bridge is warm and clear on the paf, boosted mid push or bright and defined on the single coil sound. There is not a bad tone between them, in fact they make the real paf’s or JB’s sound kind of flat in comparison.

The Abasi set I haven’t used, but from what I have seen it’s closer to the modern set in terms of sound, At least for voice one. It claims voice 2 is a boosted paf so probably a tweaked modern passive voice which is based on the Duncan custom. I have the moderns in a guitar tuned to drop C or c standard usually. For that use it’s I like it a lot but it’s very modern sounding, it’s a little harder to dial back and get the warm jazzy sounds of lower output pickups. Some people love that sound, I’ve seen a Few on here who didn’t.

They both are good sets, worlds ahead of what emg or even Duncan are doing, the blackouts have a good sound, but these have 3 great sounds.

I would watch some demos online through headphones and pin down what you think you want. Because it’s hard to know until you’ve tried them out. I thought I would hate the classics paf voice, and wired them backwards so they are hot rodded as the default, but it is a great tone and I love it on the neck for clean parts and really use it a lot. Tone is really subjective and your amp will have a huge impact on how it sounds too, but what I like may not be what you want at all.