Many of today's acoustic guitarists take for granted the fact that they can plug in on stage and be greeted with a natural sound. It is all too easy to forget the pains associated with feedback-prone external microphones and pickups that sounded nothing at all like the guitars they were mounted in. Some manufacturers solved these problems by designing guitars for amplification, but this compromise often meant that performers couldn't play their favorite axes on stage. Today there is simply no excuse for poor live sound. The options for high-quality amplification are staggering. Many designers have contributed to these developments, but few have enjoyed the widespread success of Fishman Transducers.
Larry Fishman founded the company in 1981. At the time, he was making a living playing jazz on upright bass in the Boston area, and he was frustrated with the state of amplification. After some initial success with his bass pickup design, he developed his first guitar pickup, along with a preamp, for Guild Guitars. Guild began using the product as stock equipment, and Fishman soon developed a similar relationship with C.F. Martin and Co. "It was Chris Martin's idea to come up with a pickup that was retrofitable into a 3/32 [of an inch] saddle slot," says Fishman. "I spun a design up for them that became the 2nd Generation Thinline, and they went for it. [They] kind of put me in business at that point. I got a significant order out of them. I was working in my basement at the time, so it scared the hell out of me."
Under-saddle guitar pickups quickly became Fishman's number one product. Beginning with the original design, which utilized one individual piezo crystal for each string (this design is currently available as the AG-125 model), Fishman eventually developed the Acoustic Matrix pickup, which replaces the crystals with a special copolymer strip that runs the length of the pickup.
On-stage testing has always been a crucial part of the company's R&D. "Getting it out of the design room and into the field was really the main thing that made [our products] better than what was out there," says Fishman. "That's carried on today. We can really fool ourselves in the lab, but we try to keep the needs of the gigging musician in mind. For example, we tend to voice our pickups brighter than we would if we didn't play out. We take flack for it sometimes, because people do A/B tests in a really quiet room. But we found out early in the game that on stage you just can't handle the amount of bass in a signal that you'd prefer in a nice quiet room by yourself."
The company also works closely with its endorsing artists to develop new products. "The whole notion of blending under-saddle pickups and soundhole microphones, which started our Blender series, came from [multi-instrumentalist] Harvey Reid," says Fishman. "Harvey came to the shop because he happened to be local. He was getting a really great sound, but he had a real jury-rigged setup with one of our under-saddle pickups and an AKG microphone and about 20 sets of wires, all hand built. It was just a mess hanging out of the guitar, but it sounded great. Harvey said, 'Look, you really ought to do something like this,' and he convinced me." Although not every artist connection results in an entire new product line, little tweaks are often the result of this kind of feedback. "We got a bunch of input from Leo Kottke when we were working with some of our parametric EQs," says Fishman. "He was a real fan of those, and he also helped quite a bit in finalizing the voicing of the Rare Earth magnetic pickups."
Today, Fishman employs about 75 people in its factory in Wilmington, Massachusetts. Housing everything from initial product development to final shipping to the company's world-wide dealer network, it's a place of constant activity. Like many manufacturers, Fishman utilizes a combination of state-of-the art technology and decidedly low-tech innovations. For instance, while many of the company's circuit boards are assembled on a computerized machine and soldered on a huge flow-solder machine, every single under-saddle pickup is tested on what looks like a homemade guitar neck with strings and a bridge, designed to facilitate ultra-fast pickup changes. Additional machinery is aquired as new products are introduced; recently additions include a winding machine for Rare Earth magnetic pickups and an extensive metal shop for the production of Powerbridges, which create acoustic-electric sounds on solid-body electric guitars.
Fishman's product line has grown to include pickups for most stringed instruments, along with drum triggers, preamps, blenders, and amplifiers. Hip new products such as the recently introduced four-pin Switchjack and the Cleartone saddle keep Fishman popular, even among players who rely on other kinds of pickups or don't amplify at all.
--Teja Gerken