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OLP ON STEROIDS

E

elBastados

Mar 10, 2012
1
0
#1
Just thought you guys might like to know, I have just wired in a Kent Armstrong musicman/olp replacement
The OLP uses two vol pots and one tone, this made wiring it in a bit of a head scratcher and as the wiring diagrams were at best mis-leading and in fact wrong. Never mind it was all sorted
The pickup is very high output, this transforms the bass since the seperate coils can now be used with no loss of power, in fact they seem to be slightly louder than the humbucker (both coils on). There are subtle differences between the two coils but a useful range of sounds from p bass to j bass style can be found with a bit of pateince. The slap sound is now awesome. I play rock, funk, soul and punk in two different bands and now at last I have bass that will cover all of them.
Seriously, it's now a monster for £51
I did purchase a dpdt switch but have decided not to fit it just yet as the two coils being close together probably means this isn't worth the hassle but I would love to hear back from anyone who has tried it.
Cheers
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#3
elBastados said:
Just thought you guys might like to know, I have just wired in a Kent Armstrong musicman/olp replacement
The OLP uses two vol pots and one tone, this made wiring it in a bit of a head scratcher and as the wiring diagrams were at best mis-leading and in fact wrong. Never mind it was all sorted
The pickup is very high output, this transforms the bass since the seperate coils can now be used with no loss of power, in fact they seem to be slightly louder than the humbucker (both coils on). There are subtle differences between the two coils but a useful range of sounds from p bass to j bass style can be found with a bit of pateince. The slap sound is now awesome. I play rock, funk, soul and punk in two different bands and now at last I have bass that will cover all of them.
Seriously, it's now a monster for £51
I did purchase a dpdt switch but have decided not to fit it just yet as the two coils being close together probably means this isn't worth the hassle but I would love to hear back from anyone who has tried it.
Cheers
Click to expand...

I rewired my OLP just like yours but left the original OLP pickup for now. It's good to hear the Kent Armstrong upgrade is a killer pickup. But I can say that rewiring really brings that bass alive. Mine is wired just like the usual Fender Jazz series-parallel mod with vol and blend. (You wire each coil as if it were a separate jazz pickup) Series parallel is a push-pull on the volume control. I VERY MUCH recommend doing that. As you note there isn't too much difference between the two coils so the series/parallel switch gives you a nice tonal range increase with a choice of deep or brighter.

I can say my OLP presently kicks major butt after the rewire, and a Kent Armstrong seems like it should be my next mod to it.
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#9
Yes the OLP MM copy is definitely a sleeper bass. That's probably why there's no more OLP :-) I plan to upgrade mine with a Preamp from SGD Luthiery at first and then maybe upgrade the pickup. I heard the SGD preamp nails the pre-EB SR sound.
 
#11
I've had to OLP, both 5 stringers...and thought they sounded great...but alas I couldn't get around the body seeming "chunky"...bad contours...etc. They never "fit" me comfort wise...so alas they are gone. My first one I upgraded to Tony Levin sig model electronics and had a noticable upgrade in tone. I'm sure the new pup sounds great.
 
#12
SGD Lutherie said:
With a good pickup and a preamp, the OLP cab sound just like a 'Ray.
Click to expand...

True. I've got one of those "uncleFluffy" preamp boards and wired it external to test it. It truly kicks some major butt and sounds just like a Ray. I believe these are the original Leo circuit rather than the standard two band preamps out there that don't quite have that "Ray sound. You sell these already assembled, right?

But my current delay was I decided I wanted to add a passive/active switch (since the OLP was so killer in passive, and for a backup in case of battery trouble. I won't bore everyone with the details but this is not so simple to do since Leo's circuit actually uses the pickup as part of the tone-shaping parts. And I wanted the treble to work as a "tone' control in passive mode. So I'm working on it, but for now I've just left it passive. If I can't solve the active-passive thing I may just put in the board as is and not worry about passive or just leave it passive and not worry about the preamp. Either option seems to be a good choice!
 
#13
bassbenj said:
True. I've got one of those "uncleFluffy" preamp boards and wired it external to test it. It truly kicks some major butt and sounds just like a Ray. I believe these are the original Leo circuit rather than the standard two band preamps out there that don't quite have that "Ray sound. You sell these already assembled, right?

But my current delay was I decided I wanted to add a passive/active switch (since the OLP was so killer in passive, and for a backup in case of battery trouble. I won't bore everyone with the details but this is not so simple to do since Leo's circuit actually uses the pickup as part of the tone-shaping parts. And I wanted the treble to work as a "tone' control in passive mode. So I'm working on it, but for now I've just left it passive. If I can't solve the active-passive thing I may just put in the board as is and not worry about passive or just leave it passive and not worry about the preamp. Either option seems to be a good choice!
Click to expand...

No, you can do active passive just fine with those. This is the same preamp I sell. The only obstacle is that it uses a 25k volume control.

I have wired up a number these for customers using two volumes in front of the preamp, no master volume, and a bypass push/pull. If you want to skip the master volume, just wire up a 25k resistor from the preamp output to ground, before the active passive switch. You should also wire a 1K resistor in series with the output. This was included in the real Stingrays, but wasn't on the circuit board. It prevents burning out the op amp if you short out the output. That should also be before the active/passive switch.

As far as the pickup being part of the tone circuit. I don't see that at all in the circuit. The only unconventional thing is the treble control is more like the presence control on an amp. It's part of a feedback loop, and not a regular tone stack. The bass control is in the gain setting loop.

The preamp was made knowing that there would be a fairly low impedance pickup connected, but I use one of these in my Ibanez with two of my Neo Jazzbuckers with a blend control in front of the preamp, and it works just fine. I have no need for a passive setting, so I didn't wire one in.
 

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