adriansmith247

I have been in touch with Doug Wilkes. He confirmed that the bass is all original and suggested a few thing to help with the setup. Here it is with original Schaller pickup and TI flats fitted. Sounds and plays beautifully now

@rmorris - what strings? a basic question that I thought would not be an issue. I just did a quick search on another popular bass forum and have found that the Pyramid Gold flats are known to have a dead sounding E string. This may explain a few things, and certainly won't be helping. I'll pop on an old set of TI Flats to see what happens

Moon bass alpha - it is a passive bass with a coil tap switch and an additional piezoelectric pickup. Nice range of tones

rmorris. Thanks for the feedback. I have tried a few string types over the years. These are Pyramid flats. They are old, so a new set may improve things. The volume difference is only minor and I am getting good results by moving the string over the pole piece more. The metal bits are pretty cool looking I think. I have never, and would never slap this bass, but I assume that is their purpose. There is also a piezo pu underneath the heal of the neck to help with the percussive sound. A lovely bass all round. I don't think it is meant to be thwacked, so playing it softly seems to work really well. Lots of mwahhh! I have just refitted the original Schaller pickup and the overall output level is huge in comparison to the Shadow. This is one powerful pickup Bassbod, thanks for the pu tip. I may try one of those MM pickups at some point if one comes up. The roller bridge adjustment is useful, although I am now getting less than 19mm spacing. It works out but I may try a wider pickup in future, if I don't have to hack around too much to fit it. Moving the string over does make a difference, as does plucking downwards with my thumb.

Thanks for the responses. I am going to try fitting the original Shaller pickup at the weekend and have a really good go at experimenting with pu height. The spacing on those poles is around 20mm so that pu should be OK. It has just been in storage for years.

Thanks Lefty. I am back onto experimenting with string spacing and pu height. Good to know what is under the Shadow casing. I had assumed they were separate pole pieces.

Thanks itu. Sounds like a plan. I will give it a go. That method of detecting magnetic fields is pretty cool. I had not seen that before

Hi I have had this lovely bass for a while but one thing has always bugged me about it. The E string sounds weaker and less punchy than the others. I have experimented with pu height and even had a replacement fitted years ago. Original in loft somewhere does this pickup look right or do I need a wider pickup? You could see the poles in the old pu and the E was not running over it. String spacing is 19mm although I have tried moving them all over towards the G. This helped a bit but not enough any ideas? Or pickup suggestions?

Here is the track that turned me onto fretless bass. <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/UOrxSRMPumc" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>