The official Kinman pickups thread

[Embenny]

I’m putting these Fatmasters in a custom build. In your experience do you think it would still be necessary to do a proper copper shielding job in the routes? I know hum and buzz are two different issues and I do want this guitar to be dead silent for studio work.

Or do the pickups alone kill all the noise?

Kinman pickups are fully shielded, as are their leads, so shielding in the pickup cavity is not essential but may be helpful.

The switches, pots, and jacks are a different matter. You need those to be shielded if you expect silent performance, so shielding the control cavities is a minimum.

Personally, if I'm shielding the control cavity, I'm going ahead and shielding the pickup cavity anyway for completeness, but with these pickups it "shouldn't" be necessary.

For the record, my Jaguar has just the vintage shielding plates which don't cover the sides of the routs, and it's basically silent, and those split the difference between a proper Faraday cage and an unshielded guitar. You've got the control plates and under-pickguard plate on top, and the brass plates on the bottom.

I'd just go ahead and do a copper tape shielding job when you install the pickups. Might as well go all the way. I found an Elk brand of copper tape on Amazon for like $10 that has a conductive adhesive and is large enough to shield multiple guitars. After having used Stewmac copper tape and hardware store aluminum flashing tape in the past, this Elk stuff is the best stuff by far. Equally easy to use as the Stewmac stuff, but as cheap as the flashing (whose adhesive didn't make reliable connections).

[Larry Mal]

I’m putting these Fatmasters in a custom build. In your experience do you think it would still be necessary to do a proper copper shielding job in the routes? I know hum and buzz are two different issues and I do want this guitar to be dead silent for studio work.

Or do the pickups alone kill all the noise?

Kinman makes a distinction between noise and hum and they stress that their pickups do not reject all noise, and recommend shielding.

I've used the copper shielding, in my AVRI Jazzmaster I just left the brass tubs in place, though. In all cases I moved to anodized aluminum pickguards and the guitars are very quiet.

[JSett]

My 64 Jag has just the bottom plates and under-guard shielding and it's nigh on pin-drop silent with the Kinmans. Jazzmaster is tape shielded and is the same.

I want a bridge pickup from him for my Tele at some point

[daysleeperjeff]

I’m putting these Fatmasters in a custom build. In your experience do you think it would still be necessary to do a proper copper shielding job in the routes? I know hum and buzz are two different issues and I do want this guitar to be dead silent for studio work.

Or do the pickups alone kill all the noise?

Kinman makes a distinction between noise and hum and they stress that their pickups do not reject all noise, and recommend shielding.

I've used the copper shielding, in my AVRI Jazzmaster I just left the brass tubs in place, though. In all cases I moved to anodized aluminum pickguards and the guitars are very quiet.

Nice! I saw that on the site as well, just wondered if in the real world it held true. I’m doing a full copper tape job just to get this thing as silent as possible. Noise from my current guitars are a pain in the butt in my studio. I’ll have an aluminum guard on this project too.

[daysleeperjeff]

I’m putting these Fatmasters in a custom build. In your experience do you think it would still be necessary to do a proper copper shielding job in the routes? I know hum and buzz are two different issues and I do want this guitar to be dead silent for studio work.

Or do the pickups alone kill all the noise?

Kinman pickups are fully shielded, as are their leads, so shielding in the pickup cavity is not essential but may be helpful.

The switches, pots, and jacks are a different matter. You need those to be shielded if you expect silent performance, so shielding the control cavities is a minimum.

Personally, if I'm shielding the control cavity, I'm going ahead and shielding the pickup cavity anyway for completeness, but with these pickups it "shouldn't" be necessary.

For the record, my Jaguar has just the vintage shielding plates which don't cover the sides of the routs, and it's basically silent, and those split the difference between a proper Faraday cage and an unshielded guitar. You've got the control plates and under-pickguard plate on top, and the brass plates on the bottom.

I'd just go ahead and do a copper tape shielding job when you install the pickups. Might as well go all the way. I found an Elk brand of copper tape on Amazon for like $10 that has a conductive adhesive and is large enough to shield multiple guitars. After having used Stewmac copper tape and hardware store aluminum flashing tape in the past, this Elk stuff is the best stuff by far. Equally easy to use as the Stewmac stuff, but as cheap as the flashing (whose adhesive didn't make reliable connections).

Thank you! Yeah I’m going to do a full copper tape job, actually just got the brand you mentioned on Amazon yesterday.

[Veitchy]

I didn't do any fancy currency conversion, but when I compared the Kinman direct price (in USD) with the Reverb dealer's sale price (in USD), each set of pickups was something like $50 cheaper on Reverb. I was getting three sets, so $150 or so off the price made the whole shebang more palatable.

There's a lot I like about the Bardens (pin-drop quiet, perhaps the nicest Tele neck pickup I've played, decent output) but I do find myself missing that somewhat compressed, early 50s sound which they just can't do. A more vintage sounding noiseless option sounds pretty good to me.

The Kinmans wouldn't let you down on the noise front, that's for sure. Mine are as silent as my Bardens were.

The Barden Tele neck pickup is a special tone you won't get with Kinman. You will, however, get that squishy/spongey compression feeling back. I know exactly what you mean, and the Bardens absolutely do not do that particular thing.

I've noticed in online demos that the Kinman Tele neck pickups seem to target a true Tele tone, which is darker and squishier than a strat neck pickup. You probably won't get that crystalline clarity that the Barden neck pickup offers, but you'll definitely get more clarity than a vintage pickup with a brass cover.

The main thing I loved about the Barden Neck was that I could get it equal in volume to the bridge which is tricky with more vintage style Tele necks. I like neck pickups and fuzz boxes so this was great for me. There definitely isn't that cheweyness you get in a vintage pickup though, so it'd be nice to get that back. I'm in something of a minority (I think) that I generally like Tele neck pickups as they are (output notwithstanding).

[echoplex]

Hi there,

I'm considering to upgrade my Fender JM66 Jazzmaster Reissue CIJ to better pickups.
So now I stumbled upon Kinman and his Thickmaster pickups.
They're noiseless which I like but also super pricey. Like 500€ for the set!
Aside from being noiseless, are they worth the moneys?
Some people say they change the Jazzmaster tone too much, other tell the opposite.
So what's your experience with them in your JM guitars?

[sal paradise]

There was a thread not long ago. A few Kinman fans here. Not sure if anyone has the thickmasters, except J Mascis.

[Larry Mal]

Hi Frederic, I think I was able to get you the link to my crude sound examples yesterday.

You ask about preserving the sound of the Jazzmaster, and I would have to say that the ThickMasters do kind of change it. What they do is wonderful and I have no intention of changing them.

At the same time, though, knowing what I know about them now, and if I had only the one Jazzmaster, I would not buy them for my only Jazzmaster, I would get the one in between the SurfMasters (which I own) and the ThickMasters. I forget the name of them. BluesMaster?

Embenny owns them and he'll no doubt stop by.

However, if you have read the description of the ThickMaster and it seems like that might be what you want, strong but with a lot of dynamics, dark, they use "syrupy" on the Kinman site and that's not inaccurate, powerful and throbbing, yep, that's them.

[sal paradise]

Larry has thickmasters.

[Larry Mal]

I'm not the only one here, but I forget who else does.

[DeathJag]

Fatmasters are the ones inbetween?

I have to remember that the punk jag pickups are similar to the fatmaster JM pickups... right?

[JSett]

I have Fatmasters in my JM. They sound extremely accurate to AV65 JM pickups but a teeny bit hotter.

Definitely worth the money and sounds like a JM still.

I have the SurfJag ones in my '64 Jaguar and they sound spot-on.

Screw you, 50 cycle hum!

[Embenny]

Correct, the Fatmaster is the in-between model, and with 1M pots, I find it preserves the "Jazzmaster thing" but does have a little extra output and a little extra low end. It's my only JM set from Kinman though, so I can't comment on how it compares to the others.

The Surfmaster is the thinnest sounding one, and some of the demos online sound a little stratty to me, but that could be the rest of the signal chain. It takes a proper A/B to tell how much is the pickup and how much is everything else.

Kinman says that the Thickmaster aims to preserve the response of a Jazzmaster, but with a tone more like a P90. It's not even trying to be a traditional Jazzmaster pickup, whereas the others are. J Mascis famously bought six sets of Thickmasters a few years back to put in all his live guitars, which shouldn't be a surprise since he uses P90s in the studio all the time.

I'm sure they're all good pickups, everything Kinman makes sounds great. It's just a matter of taste as to which one you might enjoy the most. The Fatmaster is a great pickup and I have trouble imagining anybody who likes Jazzmasters being truly unhappy with it, but one of the other two might suit you better depending on what you want out of the guitar.

[Telliot]

I’ve merged these topics since I think this will become a more popular topic and there’s good info here.

I ordered a set of Fatmasters and decided to also order a Rothstein assembly to pair with them so I can keep all my vintage bits intact. The pickups are here but the Rothstein is 8-10 weeks out.