Les Paul, Wiring issue, Pup issue, has no balls!

Billbill

Billbill

Power User
Hi all,
Here’s my Gibson LP, she’s nice looking and almost sounds dead. My CS’64 relic strat sounds way beefier and no LP on this earth should sound weaker than ….anything really lol. But we all know this already so here’s my issue:
I’ve owned many LPs over years and done many setups so this isn’t a case of operator error lol. So this LP has had the wiring harness swapped and it’s pickups too; pretty much all the electronics. The current pickups are these Sheptone BK PAF style pickups.
The issue is they sound dead. Completely weak-no balls. Sustain is absolutely horrific almost laughable no matter where the height is set. Currently the only way to play any lead that has near-acceptable sustain for it is by jacking the bridge pup almost touching strings when fretting at last fret literally almost .020!
Everything is in tact inside but the soldering could be cleaner. Pickups measured ok at 6.9k neck and 7.6k bridge. I’m suspecting either something wrong with the crappy harness that was installed or the pickups really are just that horrible . Anyone have experience with Sheptone BK PAFs? Thoughts and/or ideas appreciated. I think I might just buy a vintage style harness on eBay before changing pickups, who knows:
 

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The pickup wiring looks wrong to me and should be redone. Can't really follow exactly what's going on but it looks like one pickup is going to both volume pots. I would bypass the 'ground lug' in the middle of the pickups and rewire it following a typical Les Paul diagram.

Sheptone has a different wiring scheme; the green and white wires should be together (they're for coil-splitting), black to ground and red to volume pot for typical humbucker installation.

https://www.sheptone.com/pages/wiring-instructions

For comparison, here's Seymour Duncan's 4 conductor wiring:

https://www.seymourduncan.com/blog/latest-updates/guitar-wiring-explored-humbucker-internals
 
JoKeR III said:
The pickup wiring looks wrong to me and should be redone. Can't really follow exactly what's going on but it looks like one pickup is going to both volume pots. I would bypass the 'ground lug' in the middle of the pickups and rewire it following a typical Les Paul diagram.

Sheptone has a different wiring scheme; the green and white wires should be together (they're for coil-splitting), black to ground and red to volume pot for typical humbucker installation.

https://www.sheptone.com/pages/wiring-instructions

For comparison, here's Seymour Duncan's 4 conductor wiring:

https://www.seymourduncan.com/blog/latest-updates/guitar-wiring-explored-humbucker-internals
Click to expand...
Great thanks for that info I appreciate it! I think I might drop in one of them “vintage 50’s” aftermarket wiring harnesses made by Carparelli with them “bumblebee” caps, and then wire the Sheptone pups to that and see if that solves it. It’s hard to believe how ridiculously weak these pickups are
 
Capacitor bodies touching anything?

It's hard to tell from the pics, but that could dull the output quite a bit or completely mute it, depending on where it's touching....
 
Joe Bfstplk said:
Capacitor bodies touching anything?

It's hard to tell from the pics, but that could dull the output quite a bit or completely mute it, depending on where it's touching....
Click to expand...
I was not aware of that. I will check that tomorrow thanks for the info.
 
Billbill said:
Great thanks for that info I appreciate it! I think I might drop in one of them “vintage 50’s” aftermarket wiring harnesses made by Carparelli with them “bumblebee” caps, and then wire the Sheptone pups to that and see if that solves it. It’s hard to believe how ridiculously weak these pickups are
Click to expand...
If it has sheptone pickups, dont cheap out with Carparelli anything (assuming this is the Canadian one who did DoS guitars..)
 
Budda said:
If it has sheptone pickups, dont cheap out with Carparelli anything (assuming this is the Canadian one who did DoS guitars..)
Click to expand...
I thought they made good stuff based of my research. Is that not the case? Enlighten me
 
Sheptone makes high quality pups, so unless one is damaged I'd look elsewhere, like pup to vol pot, vol pot to switch, switch to output, tone caps shorting on pot(s) - (caps are really installed wrong, should have longer leads and be physically farther from the pot terminals), other shorts etc.

I trust Sheptone to work on my vintage PAF's, so unless a pup was damaged by the installer, I'd look elsewhere.
 
Billbill said:
I thought they made good stuff based of my research. Is that not the case? Enlighten me
Click to expand...
I visited a DOS dealer in Barrie and later a Carparelli dealer in London. The guitars had fretwork issues, felt cheap and the price tag was 2x what it should have been. There seems to be a handful of people that like the guitars, but my experiences say a squier classic vibe is money much better spent.

Buy a quality name brand harness for your guitar and dont worry about it again. There are many options.
 
Thanks guys for all the input! I really appreciate it. I will redo some soldering as suggested here, but definitely NOT buy a cheap harness especially if it’s sus per your observations because I trust you guys know more about tinkering on this level than I do.
 
Tremonti said:
Just order the pots and caps and solder, IMO. Not much going on here and could do for half that price. Obviously need a solder gun, but they are cheap.
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Agreed, just offering a suggestion since they were looking at harnesses. Soldering is a pretty easy skill to learn and pays dividends in the long run.
 
Here is a decent soldering iron. Yes there are cheaper. But I would not risk such a hot and electrical thing to a $9 Amazon "find". Also you want a really hot iron and this goes to almost 900 degrees. Hot, with quick in and out. A lot of soldering irons are not hot enough.

 
I would start by wiring one pickup at a time directly to the output jack just for testing. That way you can at least eliminate the possibility of a bad pickup set. I'm pretty sure Sheptone would be testing the pickups on their way out the door, but just in case. If they're okay, at least you'll get an idea of the output they're capable of, even though pots will warm the actual tone.
 
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