Has anyone used one of these? I am asking for a mate who is looking to upgrade the wiring and pickups in his Les Paul.
https://obsidianwire.com/custom-sc-s...g-for-les-paul
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Has anyone used one of these? I am asking for a mate who is looking to upgrade the wiring and pickups in his Les Paul.
https://obsidianwire.com/custom-sc-s...g-for-les-paul
Of course you are. ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Hardcoretroubadour
No, but it all looks good. You're talking about pickup upgrading, so 'he' ( ;) ) will have to buy ones with 4-conductor wiring. Until fairly recently, stock Gibson pickups came with single-wire pickups (unless the model of guitar featured coil taps etc. as standard), whilst their aftermarket pickups were 4-wire.
I'd also get 'him' ( ;) ) to measure his pot hole arrangement against the supplied diagram to make sure that the harness will fit. The pot holes are slightly oversized for standard pot shafts, but not a lot. And there's no give with PCB mounted pots. If it's a proper Gibson LP, then there shouldn't be an issue, but if it's a copy, then it may well not fit.
If it's a standard-sized LP, then there won't be a height issue, but if it's a thinner version, then 'he' ( ;) ) may need to measure the depth of the control cavity as those particular CTS switched pots (whilst being the shortest switched pots they do), are still 1"/25.6mm tall, plus the PCB depth and the nut on the other side etc. You want to be able to put the control cavity cover on!
However, I would question their description of '50s and '60s wiring. Everyone else says '50s wiring keeps the treble when you wind down the volume and modern wiring looses treble. Obsidian say '50s wiring loses some treble whilst the '60s wiring keeps it. But I don't know what actual wiring they've implemented for the '50s arrangement and whether '60s wiring is akin to modern wiring or is subtly different. It should be simply whether the tone circuit is connected to the volume pot input (modern) or output ('50s).
With '50s wiring, the tone pot drops the volume a bit when operated (and the volume and tone controls are a bit interactive), whilst with modern it doesn't (and the volume and tone controls are pretty independent).
That harness does make swapping pickups a bit easier as there's no soldering involved, but if a pot goes faulty, it's going to be a lot harder to replace it. You'd ned to look for PCB mount versions, which you won't get from your standard guitar component suppliers. So swings and roundabouts. I'd always go with soldering and separate components components.
I hope this helps your 'mate' ( ;) ) make a decision.
Thanks Simon, I'm happy to own my builds 😁
'he' is not much into the internals of the guitar, so these looked a nice simple easy way to re-wire and change pots quickly without soldering.
Yes, they look easy enough to install. I wish Gibson had gone with something more like that, than with their connector PCB system which severely limits you as to replacing pickups. I did look at getting some of the Molex plug-in connectors they use, but they use several types on each PCB, and minimum order from the electronics supply outlets I looked for the metal pins that fit into the connectors was something like a box of 10,000 units! Minimum connector order size was pretty large too.
I've only got one Gibson with that connector system, but it won't be in there for much longer.
Hi have used the obsidian stuff. Got a set of Tele controls to see how they were. Found them to be good quality and the non solder pickup connections were very solid compared to what I was expecting.
Thanks Tony, for the pics, they good good, nice simple and clean. I had s bit of a look on YouTube and one of the guys doing a review made it sound pretty easy to remove a pot if it was faulty. Looks to be a popular choice for the Gibson LP to replace that harness they were using.Quote:
Originally Posted by vh2580