Shadow founded in 1971 in Erlangen, Germany by Joe Marinic. His original concept was to produce solid body guitars and pickups, but later mainly focus on pickup.

 Shadow developed the revolutionary NanoFlex transducer and NanoMAG magnetic pickup systems. Shadow also debuted their Panaflex system, which utilizes a dual NanoFlex pickup mounted under the saddle for independent tone and volume control for the low and high strings.