Fishman Rare Earth User Manual
USER’S GUIDE
ACTIVE MAGNETIC SOUNDHOLE PICKUP
™
Thank you for purchasing the Fishman Rare Earth™!
We are pleased to offer you the finest magnetic soundhole pickup available.
If you have any questions or comments, you may reach our Customer Service
Department at 978-988-9665 or E-mail us at tech@fishman.com.
The Rare Earth™ is a compact active magnetic soundhole pickup, designed
for most steel-string, flat top guitars. Its low profile design ensures that both
your picking style and the guitar’s acoustic tone will not be affected.
The natural sound of your acoustic guitar is reproduced by the Rare Earth™
thanks to state-of-the-art magnetic field/coil structure and advanced active
electronics. A unique arrangement of neodymium magnets is responsible for
the Rare Earth™'s excellent string balance and light weight. Neodymium (a
rare earth element, hence the name) has 10 times the magnetic strength of
ceramic magnets, which makes the Rare Earth™ smaller and lighter than
many traditional soundhole pickups. Each magnet in the Rare Earth™ is
voiced for precise balance with bronze or phosphor bronze acoustic guitar
strings.
Start Up
If you are like most people, you will probably want to plug in the Rare Earth™
right out of the box. Be our guest! To temporarily install the pickup, loosen
the clamps with a #1 Phillips screwdriver. Position the pickup in the soundhole, parallel to and as close to the end of the fingerboard as possible. Gently
re-tighten the clamps. For now, run the cable out through the soundhole.
If you plan to travel with your guitar or store it in its case for long periods with
the pickup in place, we strongly recommend that you have the endpin jack
and pickup professionally fit to the guitar according to the included
Installation Guide.
There are a few good reasons to do so:
1. If you store the guitar with the pickup cable outside the instrument and the
cable comes to rest on the guitar, the rubber jacket may interact with the
finish and leave a permanent mark.
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ACTIVE MAGNETIC SOUNDHOLE PICKUP
2. A loose endpin jack stored inside the instrument may damage the guitar
when travelling.
3. A pickup that has not been securely mounted in the soundhole (as per our
Permanent Installation Guide) may become dislodged and could damage
the instrument during transit.
Amplification
You can plug the Rare Earth™ into most musical instrument amplifiers, but
for the most natural sound reproduction, we strongly recommended a full
range system, such as a high-quality acoustic instrument amp, keyboard
amp, or PA system.
Features
Mounting Clamps
The pickup mounts quickly and securely with these padded clamps. The jaws
of the clamps are lined with natural cork, which will not interact with the guitar’s finish. A #1 Phillips screwdriver works best to tighten the mounting
clamps. Be careful not to over tighten the clamps! Doing so may, in some
cases, perforate the finish under the clamps (see Installation Guide).
Endpin Jack
The Rare Earth™ runs on two little watch batteries that switch on when you
plug in the endpin jack. To conserve battery life, unplug the endpin jack when
not in use.
It is a good idea to plug the pickup in before turning on your amp to protect
your speakers (and your ears) from "turn-on-transient-thump".
You may choose to keep the endpin jack outside the instrument for temporary
use or permanently mount it in the endblock of the guitar (see Installation
Guide).
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Battery Power
The batteries for the Rare Earth™ are conveniently mounted to the underside
of the pickup. You can expect over 300 hours of battery life (150 hours for the
Rare Earth™ Blend) between battery changes. When you begin to hear distortion through the pickup, it’s time to change the batteries.
Battery Replacement
Remove the pickup from the instrument and carefully pry out the batteries
with a small flat-head jeweler’s screwdriver. When you replace the
batteries, be sure to observe the correct polarity. Note that plus (+) and
minus (-) polarity marks are molded into the shell of the battery clip.
OR
Two 1.5 Volt silver oxide EverReady #357 One 3 Volt Duracell DL1/3N
Pickup
The Rare Earth™ has been carefully voiced to reproduce a balanced string
to string response. If your guitar has very high action on the bass side or very
low action on the treble side, you may hear slight imbalance between the outside strings. To attain a balanced response in these cases, raise the bass
side of the pickup with a shim.
The Rare Earth™ is voiced specifically for bronze or phosphor bronze strings.
If nickel electric guitar strings are used with the Rare Earth™, the lower
wound strings will overpower the higher plain strings.
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