I’m not handy with a soldering iron and this definitely made the process easier. I’m not an experienced tinkerer so I can’t say if it has a greater range of sounds, but it’s certainly not less!
Realllllly helped bring out my neck pickup from muddy to an insane amount of tonal options. It’s like having a pedal on your guitar. Definitely recommend getting this before you change your pickups. You Can get crazy amounts of different tones on one guitar! Gone from barely playing my les Paul to the first guitar I grab. Was going to change my pickups soo glad I changed to this wiring instead.
One thing that I didn’t find in any reviews and I was a little worried about that I can’t believe hasn’t been addressed in any of the videos /reviews currently out there at the time of writing is how great the range of the tone pots are!! All the reviews have been about the volume. If you like to ride your tone nob for lots of different flavours like a LP JR. you’ll love this. The tone pots on this give you a great range and sweep the tone spectrum beautifully. Really is a super upgrade.
Lastly the other thing that’s not mentioned and will save you a lot of time on install is when you push down on the solder-less wiring button to insert the pickup or any wiring into it.
‘You’re not clamping down on the wire!’ When you push the button. You’re opening up the hole to insert wiring and it will clamp down on it when you release the button. So push down on the button before inserting the wire and then release the button to hold the wire in place. It will be a lot quicker and easier and save you the headache if you know this ahead of time.
I installed this hum bucker in the neck of my Tele. Great sound in neck position and an amazing sound blended with my bridge Tele single coil!
I'm really happy with this upgrade. After I watched some videos, I was able to install with minimal difficulty. Great product!
I’ve been having trouble with my installment ground from the bridge works but I’m using Aguilar AP hot pickups and they are not fitting dont know the reason it’s says fits most gauges. I’ve sent emails concerning the issue but nothing
First, I want to start by saying I was very impressed with how fast my order made it all the way from NZ! When the package arrived I was very impressed an pleased with how everything was packaged. I love the look and sound of the the loaded pickguard/pickups I went with and overall I am very happy with my purchase. I would definitely purchase from Obsidian Wire again in the future! My only note would be to include item specific instructions for products. I had some trouble with my install when I ended up following the wrong diagram because I'm not technically minded at all, Once I had someone smarter than me point out I was following the wrong diagram, I was able to get everything working perfectly. Product specific instructions would have been helpful in my case.
I love the custom Nashville 7 way for my Nashville tele. Was easy to install and the instructions great. Love it so far. Especially being able to now get that middle position between the bridge and neck pickup
Great I love my product from you had to modify but works great thank you
Obsidian Wire's Vintage Plus for Strat Gen2 wiring harness is fantastic. It was easy to install and sounds great.
Obsidian made it easy to pair the neck humbucker with the single coil on my telecaster. And can also pull on the tone knob for single coil neck tones. The assembly is compact and easy to install.
I chose Obsidian so I could fix a Strat from my youth that’s been out of commission for 20+yrs. No one could figure out the issue, probably a fried board, so I replaced all the electronics with Obsidian just to save the trial and error headaches. It took some fitting due to my particular model, but Obsidian brought the Strat from my teen years back to life and it sounds much better than it ever did before. ...I should have done this years ago. You will not be disappointed with this upgrade. If I have any other needs like this in the future, I’m going straight to Obsidian first.
I am extremely impressed with the product. Plug and play. I will buying again soon. Jason Hoey
I installed in MIM Fender Tele. Super easy installation. Great product!
The product itself deserves 5 stars. The build quality, the sound—everything about the physical product is excellent. However, as a company producing solderless hardware, the audience you’re naturally appealing to may have less technical knowledge, and this is where the experience starts to falter.
The documentation, while praised as “very clear” by experienced YouTubers, isn’t as helpful for those new to guitar electronics. If you’re replacing electronics for the first or second time, you might find the instructions lacking in detail or clarity.
Additionally, my experience with customer support was disappointing. I reached out for assistance and, after over a week, never received a response. This contrasts starkly with my experience with other similar-sized companies, like Fralin Pickups, where I got a reply within a day and even had someone walk me through the process over the phone.
In short, while the product quality is fantastic, if you’re buying a solderless kit because you’re unfamiliar with installing electronics, this kit might not offer the support you’re looking for. After hours of research, I was eventually able to figure things out, and I’m sure I’ll enjoy the results for years to come. Still, the lackluster service experience left a bad impression that could have been easily avoided.
Hi Deron,
I was sorry to read that you didn't have a great customer service experience, especially as this is really important to us as a team.
Having scoured our inbox I note that we received one email from you, regarding coil split wires, on August 13th and Mathew replied to that email on the same day. I can only assume that our reply was missed.
I'd be really interested to hear what your thoughts on what could be improved with the instructions so that we can improve these for the future. Please feel free to get in touch with us with any further suggestions.
Kind regards,
Caitlin at Obsidian
Easy install into my old Squier Strat. I will have to get another one for my American Strat now I've heard how good this sounds.
Obsidian makes , without question, THE best aftermarket products you can buy. ALWAYS satisfied!
Installed in strat to replace old electronics that had a short in them these are top notch sounds better than before very pleased with product used the clear switch works perfectly even on drive pedals that lose lot of treble when volume roll off now retains treble better took my time installing also no need to rush makes it look good underneath plus installed new strings and polished up
I installed this Obsidian Wire MK II system into my Les Paul Traditional this week and the difference was stunning. For the first time in 5 years of owning it, I could actually play it at a gig and did so both nights this weekend. Before, it was dark, muddy and sounded like the speaker was covered with a towel. I lowered the pups, screwed the pole pieces in and out trying to get more highs out of it and even eq'd the hell out of it which only managed to suck up some tone. Now, you can hear more brightness in tone and it has vintage 50s and 60s wiring, changeable with the flick of a switch. Rolling off the volume in the 60s setting help retain some of the highs and the 50s setting allows for some roll off. This is a full weighted LP and it's a totally different beast than my strat so I wanted to get a good feel for it. It will take some time as the radius, neck width and overall feel is like driving a Cadillac compared to roadster that is my Nash strat but boy, humbuckers sure get some grease out of them! It was like having new guitar day after 5 years of waiting. The guitar is named after my late mother in law, Jopie, and like her she radiates.
made wiring up my les paul so easy and fast, thank you! will def order from obsidian again
Very pleased with this toggle switch, thanks heaps
I received the harness from ObsidianWire within 2-3 days after ordering.
Install on my 2004 MIM Strat took about 30 minutes, and it was easy. The quality of the harness is fantastic. The parts are really well made and organized well on the board. The box also has an output jack that can be used in place of what you currently have, and this is also of a very high quality (has 2 opposing prongs that holds the jack in place). The 5-way switch is also of a higher quality than the original Fender one and has a chunkier/firm feel while shifting.
The primary reason for using this was that the originals had become scratchy and very stiff to rotate. These are a lot smoother to use.
Tones -
This gives 2 additional tones apart from the 5 that a Strat currently provides: viz, 1) all 3 pickups at once, and 2) neck and bridge together. I am yet to get to grips with the tones, but there is definitely a difference I can perceive. However, I am not sure if the change in volume and tone while rotating is linear - I could be mistaken because of what I have been used to. More time will tell.
All said and done, this is a fantastic upgrade. No soldering required and if you want to swap pickups, you just need a screwdriver. Well worth the simplified upgrade.
The quality of the pickups, pots, wiring and pickguard/knobs are all wonderful.
I ran into two things which caused me a bit of a headache.
First, this is designed and marketed as a swap in replacement, not to be put into a new guitar build. As that is what I was doing, the ground wire was not present so I still had to go buy wire to use for a ground and a soldering iron. After buying this specifically so I wouldn’t need to do that, feels like a bit of false advertising that wasn’t clear when I was buying.
Second, much less annoying but still something that caused my install to take days instead of minutes, was that the kit does not come with pickguard screws. Not an issue when you’re replacing an existing setup, but does not help for a new build.
Hi Jason - thanks for the feedback on this! Really appreciate it. We have made some changes to the product page to make it clearer for future.
Cheers,
Caitlin
I had heard about Obsidianwire kits for a while before I fell out of love with guitar; coming back playing bass, I was curious if there were harnesses made for basses, and Obsidianwire delivered. I ended up modding out a Squier CV P Bass, and the electronics were the easiest bit, thanks to the help of Obsidianwire. Everything on the board is of incredible quality, the install took about 2 minutes (minus fitting it through a stock Squier pickguard), and if for some reason I ever wanted to throw the old Squier pickups back in, it would only take a few minutes. If you see yourself modding a cheaper bass, or constantly swap pickups to find the one(s) that suit you best, one of these Obsidianwire kits will be the most invaluable accessory you can buy. Highly reccomended!
I purchased this earlier in the year around January as I thought it would be a cool alternative to traditional wiring. Unfortunately it's been nothing but problem since getting it. I've switch out all the pickups in an attempt to get the middle to work. I've checked wiring, shorts, cavity foil; you name it. Nothing seems to get the middle to function as intended. After trying to contact customer support I kept getting runaround tech questions that had already been troubleshoot before contacting. Seems like rare occurance for these but it's unfortunate and tedious for those that experience it. Just go find your local guitar tech for this kind of money