Nanomag on fishman pream?

[Benoit Meulle-Stef]

Hello guys I tried a nanomag pickup from Shadow on a fishman preamp and it doesn't work... any idea why?

Cheers
Benoit

[Nick Odell]

On Tue, 30 Sep 2014 02:12:11 -0700 (PDT), Benoit Meulle-Stef
<b...@bmsguitars.com> wrote:

>Hello guys I tried a nanomag pickup from Shadow on a fishman preamp and it doesn't work... any idea why?
>

My guess is because the Fishman is designed to accept high impedance
inputs and the Nanomag is a low impedance device. I haven't checked
the specs but I expect that the Shadow endpin preamp for the Nanomag
wouldn't work too well with a Fishman pickup either.

Nick

[Benoit Meulle-Stef]

The strange thing is that a nanomag directly plugged to an amp has no response neither...

[Tony Done]

On 9/30/2014 9:09 PM, Benoit Meulle-Stef wrote:
> The strange thing is that a nanomag directly plugged to an amp has no response neither...
>

I've tried magnetics into Maton preamps, and that doesn't work either,
so I think the impedance mismatch may be the answer.

If you can't get any kind of signal direct to amp, are you sure that the
nanomag is working OK? For example, have you checked its passive resistance?

--
Tony Done

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=784456

http://www.flickr.com/photos/done_family/

[Nick Odell]

On Tue, 30 Sep 2014 04:09:17 -0700 (PDT), Benoit Meulle-Stef
<b...@bmsguitars.com> wrote:

>The strange thing is that a nanomag directly plugged to an amp has no response neither...

Leaving aside the possibility that it's a dead nanomag that's more or
less what I'd expect. Unless you have an amp that's got a very low
impedance input - something like a gramophone amplifier with an input
for moving coil pickup - you'd be unlikely to hear anything much.

It was exactly the same situation with the old Gibson Les Paul
Recording model guitar. That had low impedance pickups and circuitry
and was IIRC intended to be played through the microphone channels of
a studio mixer. I forget whether there was a separate high impedance
output or whether you had to plug it into a microphone transformer
before using it through a normal guitar amp but we certainly had to
use a microphone transformer in the workshop if we needed to test one
of the pickups out of the instrument.

This is the sort of thing:
http://www.xaudia.com/shop/Transformers.html

Though maybe buying a nanomag preamp might be the preferred solution
here.

Nick

[Tony Done]

Interesting. Couldn't you get any signal at all by plugging into a
normal guitar amp input?

[Nick Odell]

On Wed, 01 Oct 2014 09:21:55 +1000, Tony Done <tony...@bigpond.com>
wrote:

I don't remember - this was nearly half a century ago!

Nick

[Benoit Meulle-Stef]

So yes nanomags just work on shadow nanomags preamps, hard leason learned...

Cheers
Benoit

[Benoit Meulle-Stef]

By the way is there anyone out there making PUs like that but that could be use with a regular piezo preamp?

[Nick Odell]

The answer is "probably not."

To use with a regular piezo preamp, the pickup would have to be very
high impedance, like the piezo. If the pickup were very high impedance
then it wouldn't have the characteristics you are looking for in a low
impedance one.

Remember, I'm pretty out of touch with latest developments but reading
the article here...
http://www.shadow-electronics.com/web/service/nanomag_technologie.html?lang_id=1

it sounds as if this pickup is similar in concept to the very clean
sounding "active" electric guitar pickups that used to made by EMG,
Fernandes etc (and for all I know, still are). They comprised a
low-impedance pickup, sealed into the pickup case together with its
own pre-amp and supplied with its own power from the on-board battery.
The volume and tone control wiring harnesses that were supplied with
the pickups were all passive but all had non-typical values that
matched the now-medium-impedance pickup output with guitar amp inputs.

Are you handy with a soldering iron? Are you interested in
experimenting with possibilities and assembling your own circuits?

If so, the first thing I would try is connecting the new Shadow
Nanomag to an old Fernandes or equivalent active system wiring harness
and see what happens. If you don't have one available, I could find
one of mine when I'm next in my workshop (Monday) and relay the
component values to you.

The next thing I would try would be making my own preamp. Modifying a
very low impedance circuit like this one
http://www.circuit-projects.com/dimg/preamplifier-input-from-moving-coil-head.gif

or not-so-low impedance circuit for a moving magnet pickup etc.

If you are interested it trying some do-it-yourself workarounds for
the Nanomag, I could probably come up with something appropriate in a
little while but if you want something ready-made that sounds the same
as a Nanomag then it's probably Nanomag + Nanomag preamp or nothing :(

Nick

[Nick Odell]

On Fri, 14 Nov 2014 10:40:27 +0000, Nick Odell
<ni...@themusicworkshop.plus.com> wrote:

>If so, the first thing I would try is connecting the new Shadow
>Nanomag to an old Fernandes or equivalent active system wiring harness
>and see what happens. If you don't have one available, I could find
>one of mine when I'm next in my workshop (Monday) and relay the
>component values to you.

I checked out the Fernandes active pickups and the pots are all
25Kohms.

Nick

[Benoit Meulle-Stef]

Thanks for the answer!

[smir...@gmail.com]

I was having the same problem and discovered the polarity is reversed on the nanomag pickup. The signal is still weak plugged into a Tone Monster preamp