Setting The Aura Pedal's Trim Control

Although the Aura pedal's 'trim' control adjustment procedure recommended by Fishman is effective in maximizing signal-to-noise while avoiding audible clipping distortion, I've unfortunately found that setting the pedal's trim control in the prescribed manner hasn't resulted in the most desirable sound.  As further explained below, based on my personal experience with the Aura pedal I'd suggest that rather than setting the trim control to obtain maximum signal-to-noise as recommended by Fishman, it instead be adjusted with the primary goal of obtaining the most natural and pleasing sound.

When purchasing my first Fishman bridge insert pickup and Aura JD pedal, I was quite excited to get it installed in my own reso after having a very positive experience with the Aura electronics included with a Beard JD Signature Limited reso I'd tried at Elderly.  However, after installing the pickup and then using premium-grade cables to hook it and the Aura pedal up to a studio-grade mixer (with premium sealed headphones for monitoring) to my dismay I was seriously disappointed in the amplified sound I was hearing thru the headphones.  Instead of the rich, natural sound I'd heard from the JD Signature reso at Elderly (while listening thru audiophile-grade sealed earbuds) my ears were being assaulted by much of the same unnatural harshness, edginess and unpleasant 'quack' distortion I've grown to so dislike when using most piezoelectric undersaddle guitar pickups.

At first I expected the disappointing sound I was hearing was probably the raw (unprocessed) pickup signal, rather than an Aura-processed mic image; however, a careful check of the Aura pedal's switch and knob settings confirmed that what I was hearing was in fact 100% Aura processed signal, 0% raw pickup signal, and that both the unit's trim and volume controls were properly adjusted according to instructions contained in the pedal's User Guide.  Although all of the Aura unit's controls appeared to be set properly, the reso sound I was hearing thru the headphones was clearly lacking in realism compared to what I'd experienced at Elderly with the JD Signature reso.

I then began methodically experimenting with changes in the Aura pedal's controls to see if I could improve the quality of what I was hearing and discovered to my great surprise that the amount of unpleasant piezoelectric pickup character present in the processed Aura output varied quite noticeably as a function of the trim control setting -- by readjusting the trim control to a level well below what's recommended in the pedal's User Guide I could filter out virtually all of the pickup's unpleasant piezoelectric character to obtain a very natural, pleasing reso sound similar to what I'd previously heard at Elderly when testing the JD Signature reso.  Fortunately, although lowering the trim control setting sacrifices some of the Aura pedal's potential signal-to-noise, its internal noise level is quite low [around -90 dBV] so the lower trim setting required to obtain a more natural reso sound doesn't increase the unit's noise level sufficiently to be perceptible at normal PA volume level.