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Double Bass Shadow sh 965 nfx soundclip

C

cigi

Aug 22, 2006
538
16
#1
Hello,

I recently bought a shadow sh 965 nfx db pickup and I'm very pleased with it. It has two pickups for under each foot of the bridge and some kind of little pre amp where you can control the volume and tone by using only the pickup under the treble foot of the bridge or the bass foot of the bridge or in between. I personally think this is a very good pickup and that's why I recorded a soundclip with it to spread the love!

http://www.shadow-electronics.com/viewpro.html?id=&loc=US

I had it installed on my fully carved hungarian bass of an unkown maker, but it's a pretty good student carved bass. And it sounds pretty good on its own. I plugged my pickup direct into my little mark and I set the amps eq flat. That went direct into my behringer mixingboard an into my creamware luna II soundcard. I recorded with cubase sx and i added no effects or eq'ing.

My playing and drum programming is not the best in the world but I think you'll get an idea of what the nfx can do.

Hope you enjoy it!

Link Removed

:hyper:

ps: The volume knob is fully open and the tone knob is in the middle but turned a little bit more to the treble side.
 
#4
I never had the intention to make publicity for shadow, and I have no affiliation with the brand what so ever.

I also didn't really mean to review the pickup. I just thought people who were intereseted in the pickup might want to hear it recorded. That's all.

Greetings,

Cigi
 
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#6
It's not a bad sound for a direct from a pickup. In fact, it sounds a lot like the direct out of the full circle on Invalid Link Removed clip. From what I know of the full circle, I can guess that it would sound better through an speaker than direct into the board. I couldn't get the shadow product page to open on Safari, though, so I can't actually see what the pickup looks like. Is this the "double realist" model with the preamp that clips onto the tailpiece?
 
#8
Jep,

That one works better, thanks François.

It is idd the "double realist" with some kind of pre amp.

I'm glad you like it. I posted this files because I really like the pu and I allmost never saw it in the discussions about DB pickups so I thought I'd let you hear that it's a very usable piezo.

It doesn't exactly do what Shadow sais, producing an absolute natural sound, but no piezo does that. What it does, is giving a very usable natural like sound. As natural as i've heard from piezos.

And Chris, it does idd sound beter through an amp and speaker. At big band practice i've had a lot of compliments of bandmembers and the band leader that it sounds allmost like the acoustic sound, but then amplified.

Greetz
 
#9
I bet it would sound good mixed with a mic. Is that preamp small enough to mount behind the tailpiece instead of on top? Even without the preamp, I personally find the double realist thing more invasive than the full circle, but for those who would have to have a new bridge cut in order to use the FC, it might be a good option.
 
#10
I Do'nt think it's possible to mount the pre amp on the back of the strings because it is slightly curbed, like the strings, and it only fits on the front. The pickup isn't usable without the pre amp. Actually its not really even a preamp. It just let you choose the volume and the balance between the two pickups.

Link Removed
 
#13
gajatko said:
This topic is old like hell but hopefully somebody will receive a notification.

Is there any problem with transport? I see that the preamp unit protrudes a bit. Is it likely to be damaged?
Click to expand...

I recently heard a concert with a blues singer Jill De Voe and the Muncie Symphony. Her bassist used the Shadow and at least though the house system it sounded quite good. Double MIDI uses this pickup, so perhaps you should P.M. him with your question. I haven't heard that the Pre Amp mounting is a problem.

Ric
 
#14
Sorry, I was busy the last few days...

I never had problems with the string mounted pickup with transport and my bass sleeve doesn't have a thick padding (actual one have at least twice as much).

If the unit rattles, you can open it and put in some (rubber) foam to avoid this. These are the usual complains about it. But the head of Shadow told me that they are working on a more solid version of it (which will also be much more expensive, I guess).

It is not a real preamp, but only part of it. The JFETs are inside the black plastic part beneath the sensor foil, so the string mounted unit is a power/decoupling/sound/volume-adapter.
I felt the sound ontrol is rather useless, since the sound is still a bit dark (but played over a Hartke amp a few days ago and got more mids and highs than expected). Having a volume control is not bad, but often a volume pedal is more useful.
The battery is a standard CR-2032. Power is switched on when a jack is inserted into the adapter output.

Personally I mount the adapter close to the tailpiece on the highest two strings to give the stiffer lower strings more room for vibration.

Francois is right, it has an impedance buffer built in, but no highpass filter like the FDeck HPFpre. So always have a spare battery with you or you might play a gig unamplified.
It is not possible to connect this pickup passive (with an adaptor), since there is the JFET in the sensor foil part, that blocks the passive piezo foil signal. But it wouldn't make any sense anyway, since the output impedance of the foil is really high (more than 20 MegOhms, I think).
 
#15
Hi, thanks for responding.

I find it really depressing that I would have to rely on some kind of electricity, having a truly acoustic instrument. This is the reason why I think about this one (SHADOW SB2, which is 3 times cheaper, by the way):
Invalid Link Removed.
I have heard various opinions...

Just to be sure: are we talking about the same product?
SH965NFX
Invalid Link Removed

Cheers!
 
#16
Yes, we are talking about the NFX pickup for bass: Shadow SH965-NFX(B).

And better stay away from the piezo disk SH SB2, it is similar to the Fishman BP100 which is only useful to very few basses, but useless to most of them.

Even the bridge wing pickups like SHadow SH 950 are not good for bowing but better than the piezo disk types.

A lot of german players with limited budget are happy with the SH 965NFX for pizz and bowing. But if you use dark strings like Evahs, don't expect a bright sound out of your speaker. It is hard to impossible to amplify what is missing in the electrical signal.
 
#17
I Just bought a Shen bass and the guy who sold it to me talked me out of a realist and into the shadow as well as a botique cable.

(side Note:I have been dissatisfied with the upper register of the realist for sometime now, but it only was really noticeable on bigger gigs where i was trying for a balanced but jazzy tone on a larger amp rig like my LH100 + 410 and high volumes)

That evening I played and recorded on my friends big band album release show. the engineer didn't say anything but removed his mic and took a DI line from my pickup, presumably for clarity and simplicity. The next day i was in the studio and preparing to start tracking with a small group. I showed up early to make sure i could work out any un-forseen kinks (having a new bass less than two days old) and tuning etc. I asked the engineer to throw a di on the pickup so i could hear it through his monitors while we were setting up mics.

THE PROBLEM:

any time i plucked with any force i would get harsh clipping-like static in my signal.



I immediately suspected the botique cable that i was already wary of. we swapped the cable, the problem seemed to go away. and we dropped it moved on with our lives.

the next day at a gig i was getting all kinds of static through a different cable into my amp.

I noticed when warming up un-plugged that the "preamp" pack was making a horrible rattling sound when i would pull any volume out of the bass. plugging a chord in to anchor the unit solved the problem.

Note II: I play with medium action (8-10mm on the G string @ end of the fingerboard) and pluck fairly hard to get the tone/volume i like. if i can get along without an amp i am a happy cat


Today I Ran Some Tests:

1. pro tools line in: test with new cable and pickup volume and tone controls up all the way. play pizz. and arco and slap wit has wide of a dynamic range as possible.
(R: still crunchy)

2.adjust controls to make sure it's not a gain issue
(R: still crunchy)

3. try a different cable (known to be clean) at all gain levels
(R: still crunchy)

I noticed the two most consistently distorted notes were low Eb on the D string and Low C on the A string during hard loud Pizz.

The C and A String are the two strings that the "preamp" box clamps to behind the bridge.

3. Remove preamp from strings and prop in bow quiver, retry sequence
(R: SQUEAKY MC-CLEAN'SVILLE!!!!!!)
happy freakin' easter right?


MY HYPOTHESIS: the vibrations shake the electronics or the battery and cause the distortion.

the only variable that i didn't get to test was a new battery. I don't know how long the battery was in before my purchase last saturday and most stores were closed today.


Has anyone else had any experience similar to this?

Did I make any obvious/glaring mistakes?

Let me know what you think please, it's my first post on the site.


Thanks all and GrooveHard
 
#18
I use a NFX for quite some time. The battery adaptor is a known problem. I opened it and put in some dense foam at the edges of the PCB to avoid rattling of the PCB inside the box. I also mount it close to the tailpiece but not in contact with it on the two highest strings (of my high C 5-string) and a bit diagonal so the plugged in cable runs away from the tailpiece. Probably only because I have two other pickups on this bass (to check them out before I decide which ones to keep) and to be able to connect them all at the same time for a parallel test recording I did once. But it might help avoiding rattling of the cable against the tailpiece too.

Since my G is about 6 to 7 mm high, you might input some more energy than me. In this case a low voltage battery may generate some distortion at very loud signals.

The battery is connected when there is a connector plugged into the battery adaptor. (It is not a full preamp, part of the preamp is in the plastic case at the foil.) Just to be sure that the battery doesn't drain out (I don't think this is needed), I put a thin sheet of plastic between the top of the battery and the contact on top of it when I don't use it.

You might find out, that your bass through the NFX sounds like going through an reverb/echo, so not very direct like a bridge wing pickup or a FullCircle. But arco sounds very good that way. You can also connect only one foil to the battery adapter. Maybe this reduces the reverb/echo effect a bit (I haven't tried this myself yet).
 
#19
any time i plucked with any force i would get harsh clipping-like static in my signal.

I had this exact problem, it was the wire connection inside the mini jack plugs that were shorting together when the bass was vibrating a lot, i.e. high volume or hard pluck. I re-soldered the connections inside the plugs, insulated the separate wires from each other with a tiny strip of paper and the problem was solved. They could have used normal mini jacks not the 2.5, it would have been better.

My battery mounting has never been a problem.
 

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