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Shadow SH661- nice sounding pickups
For my current project, I have non-standard string spacing, pickups with regular pole pieces do not work.
I needed a compact blade pickup - which is where the SH661comes in.
In the prototype phase, this project was built using Artec Hot Rails, which have the advantage of being cheap, I've used them before, and they work well.
But (like many "single coil size" blade pickups) the Hot Rails are quite curved, to match the string curvature of a Strat - I'm running a very flat radius, and the string balance was poor as a result.
Further, the tonal quality of the Hot Rails is not exactly "delicate", tending more towards power than subtlety.
The SH661 has flat rails, which suits me much better and the resulting balance across the strings is much nicer.
They also have a more delicate and detailed sound, with quite a bit more treble and clearer harmonics. Good for this project (though maybe not if you just want to shred...)
The downside is that the output is down compared to the Hot Rails, maybe not higher than a single coil would do. I can feel a pre-amp coming on...
Oh!
And an important point I nearly forgot: The wiring diagram supplied with the pickups seems to be wrong. When I initially wired the pickups, following the supplied chart, there was a lot of hum and the output was *really* low (not just low!) Taking a coil tap into single coil mode, the output was better...
Some testing with my oscilloscope and a tuning fork, and checking each coil individually, indicated that the coils were phasing against each other, cancelling each other. Flipping the wiring got everything working much better (no hum, more signal.)
The wiring that worked (for me) was black & screen to ground, white to output, red & blue together. I'm not using a coil tap, but it would go on the "common" red+blue if I were.
I needed a compact blade pickup - which is where the SH661comes in.
In the prototype phase, this project was built using Artec Hot Rails, which have the advantage of being cheap, I've used them before, and they work well.
But (like many "single coil size" blade pickups) the Hot Rails are quite curved, to match the string curvature of a Strat - I'm running a very flat radius, and the string balance was poor as a result.
Further, the tonal quality of the Hot Rails is not exactly "delicate", tending more towards power than subtlety.
The SH661 has flat rails, which suits me much better and the resulting balance across the strings is much nicer.
They also have a more delicate and detailed sound, with quite a bit more treble and clearer harmonics. Good for this project (though maybe not if you just want to shred...)
The downside is that the output is down compared to the Hot Rails, maybe not higher than a single coil would do. I can feel a pre-amp coming on...
Oh!
And an important point I nearly forgot: The wiring diagram supplied with the pickups seems to be wrong. When I initially wired the pickups, following the supplied chart, there was a lot of hum and the output was *really* low (not just low!) Taking a coil tap into single coil mode, the output was better...
Some testing with my oscilloscope and a tuning fork, and checking each coil individually, indicated that the coils were phasing against each other, cancelling each other. Flipping the wiring got everything working much better (no hum, more signal.)
The wiring that worked (for me) was black & screen to ground, white to output, red & blue together. I'm not using a coil tap, but it would go on the "common" red+blue if I were.
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S
Inexpensive humbucker in simple format
Mounted on a squire affinity telecaster the results are what I expected from a pickup at this price.
Plenty of power and bite from both bridge and neck positions. The neck position gives a warm bluesy tone and the bridge position keeps that twangy clean telecaster tone if you're a chickin'picker or a powerful punchy response if you wind up the gain and / or overdrive.
Once you figure out the correct wiring combo for the humbucker ( red hot +, blue/white together for coil tap, black & ground together for ground/earth) you'll get good service from these pickups.
Plenty of power and bite from both bridge and neck positions. The neck position gives a warm bluesy tone and the bridge position keeps that twangy clean telecaster tone if you're a chickin'picker or a powerful punchy response if you wind up the gain and / or overdrive.
Once you figure out the correct wiring combo for the humbucker ( red hot +, blue/white together for coil tap, black & ground together for ground/earth) you'll get good service from these pickups.
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A
was looking for an "cheap" humbucker for my strat. The shadow sounds very well in the neck position of my guitar. It is a good humbucker sounds good and also the reaction with the volume poti is just perfect. Good product for a good price
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