TL;DR: Everything went great and the guitar sounds amazing now. 1000% improvement over the cheap Amazon loaded pickguard I replaced with this.
Used this loaded pickguard as part of my second attempt at rebuilding an inexpensive guitar. I originally used an el cheapo Amazon loaded pickguard and it sounded... I dunno.... not musical. The cheapo Amazon thing had good reviews, so possible I did something wrong or maybe just got a dud, but I couldn't make it work well. My expectations of it were about as low as my confidence in building this thing, but the switch didn't seem to work correctly and the tone controls didn't seem to work well either. It didn't seem like it was working correctly on top of not sounding good. Felt like maybe a ground problem, but I couldn't see anything obvious. Lesson learned about cheap Amazon stuff, I suppose.
Soooo I did more looking around and found these Obsidian Wire loaded pickguards. Watched a lot of videos and did a lot of reading of reviews and such and pulled the trigger.
Loaded this up and wired up the output and the ground wire. Did my set up on the guitar and just wow. It sounds amazing. I mean, obviously choice of pickups is important so if you think you'd be happy with the toneriders as I was, then you can't go too wrong with this set up. Just out of the box, it was perfect. Installation is a breeze and all the bits included are high quality and the pre-wiring is perfect. If you have specific pickups in mind, then I imagine just buying the electronics would also be helpful. Wiring so much cleaner and simpler than doing all the soldering. Not to mention easier to change stuff out if you want.
Also, the description is very specific about what guitars it will fit into. I used this in a 2008 Starcaster by Fender, which was probably purchased from Target for $150 including an amplifier. It was the big box store version of the Squier line, back in the day. The body is not quite full depth, but the routed out control cavities are full depth and this fit fine. The only adjustment I had to make was to fill and re-drill a few (like 4) of the pickguard mounting holes and trim 1mm off the guard where the bridge meets it to allow the vibrato to pivot without contacting it. However, I also replaced the vibrato with something aftermarket so it may have fit the original stamped piece. I don't know since I didn't' try. Otherwise, everything fit perfectly. So, you know... if you have something non-standard, do the measurements and with a little patience and perhaps a power tool or two, you can probably make this work.
On a side note, excellent communication from the company when I had a question prior to shipping. They were helpful and friendly and answered my question in a timely manner. Much appreciated! Great company to deal with and I wouldn't hesitate to purchase from them again. Thanks, Obsidian people!
