tonymckenziecom | 3 years ago

Fishman Fluence humbucker pickups I bought for fitting to a Tokai Les Paul. Here's an overview of fitting and short audio example. Les Paul battery pack is also shown.

You don't see that much about the humbucker Fishman pickups it seems or the Fishman Les Paul battery pack that seems to be very rare in my experience. They are expensive here in the UK if you can find them - but I had to buy from Europe to get these at reasonable cost.

I show you in this short gear chat how I fitted these pickups (not in depth) to my Japanese Tokai LP which was not really very easy to do with lot's of confined soldering and rewiring to complete. The whole kit includes the volume and tone pots, cabling and of course the pickups. but sadly those tone and volume pots are the smaller ones approximately 13 or 15mm size and two have push/pull switches that did not look of the highest quality, but they do work as you will see in this review.

Strangely, the Les Paul pickup selector did not work as fitted to the Tokai with the Fishman Fluence kit so I had to replace that with a Switchcraft one which is expensive. I also replaced the old wiring in its entirety because completing half a job on a great guitar like this is not really the way to proceed.

Fortunately this video was recorded before I came down with a virus and there is only so much video of the playing sadly; the studio is currently a building site now being extended so it is impossible for me to create a longer example of the tones right now - but I promise to make another video of the tones on an extended playing session once the studio is up and running in its new layout.

I purchased these pickups and battery pack entirely with my own money and there is no sponsorship whatsoever on this video. The opinion here is entirely my own, but I CAN recommend the Fishman Fluence humbuckers and the battery pack as long as you can solder or get the pickups installed professionally.

This is not a tutorial about fitting the pickups but rather my opinion and whether I found them to be quality products that sound good for any similar Les Paul type of guitar. Fishman fluence classic and modern pickups are likely worth the gamble! but remember in this video I'm no Ken Susi, oswaldo contramaestre or d activator x but do check them out.

Just FYI I did NOT use a Shure sm57 to record this snippet - it was actually a DI from the MX5 direct to desk, but you will get a good idea of how these modern humbuckers sound for a sort of melodic lead guitar tone. There's no Nick Jennison or Gerry Trevino here!

Please understand that this video has been created only because I currently am unable to make new video reviews... from partial footage made earlier at the start of September 2021 but they will be back as soon as I can make them again in a few weeks.

Thanks for watching and PLEASE do subscribe, ring the bell and thumbs up to help my channel a little... thank you.

(c) A B Mckenzie October 2021.
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