My P Bass volume pot was damaged when it arrived from the store 2 years ago. I negotiated a discount and was going to get around to replacing it. But it worked in the 75% to 100% range so I lazily left it.
I stumbled across a New Zealand company called Obsidian who do prewired harnesses with solder less connections for pickups. Not stupid money, so I thought I’d give it a go.
Pretty straightforward install:
- Remove strings and remove old pots and jack from pick guard.
- Cut the wires as close as possible to the old pots to give you as much slack as possible.
- Strip wire with about 1/4" bare and twist
- Use a small flat head screwdriver to depress a small tab and insert the wire.
- Reassemble
- Play
Does it sound better? There’s probably a psychological effect (which the cleverer of you can tell me what it is) but it sounds great. I just plugged it into my Rumble. No noise and sounds clear as a bell.
If you don’t want to bother soldering, but maybe want to try swapping pickups this could be for you.
