The official Kinman pickups thread

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wooderson
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Re: The official Kinman pickups thread

Post by wooderson » Sat Feb 04, 2023 7:15 pm

Potentially dumb question - the installation instructions for Kinmans are rather long and involved, any reason I'd need to push my guitar guy to read them or are they really just drop-in replacements like any other pickup?

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Re: The official Kinman pickups thread

Post by Telliot » Sat Feb 04, 2023 7:32 pm

wooderson wrote:
Sat Feb 04, 2023 7:15 pm
Potentially dumb question - the installation instructions for Kinmans are rather long and involved, any reason I'd need to push my guitar guy to read them or are they really just drop-in replacements like any other pickup?
I asked the same question when I bought mine and was told to install them like any other pickup.
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Re: The official Kinman pickups thread

Post by Embenny » Sun Feb 05, 2023 2:19 pm

JVG wrote:
Sat Feb 04, 2023 6:08 pm
Punk-tang???

I know the Kinman pickup naming scheme has been derided before, but this one is extra tragic. I wish someone would get in Mr Kinman’s ear about this, to at least come up with slightly less cringeworthy names.

Yeah, i know it’s about the sound etc….but still, punk-tang???
Oh yeah, one of the first steps to becoming a Kinman player is the acceptance that the product names and web site are an embarrassment.

Like the incomparable Bill Lawrence, Chris Kinman seems to be an engineering genius but a terrible businessman. I don't know why he can't learn to delegate the naming of products, writing of ad copy, etc to someone with that skill set.

When a model isn't horribly named (Grunge-Tang, Punk-Tang, Thickmaster), it sometimes changes names altogether. The reasonably-named "Fat 50's" pickup became the Texas Jalapeño and the Impersonator 54 became the Impersonator MV (for Modern Vintage).

It's taken me a lot of time to learn the different names. Sometimes it's hard to even find demos or reviews online because the pickup you're looking for only recently switched names.

But all that nonsense is meaningless once you finally play one. They're just such effing good pickups, he could have gotten out of his own way by naming them reasonably and just letting them speak for themselves.

Other than talking about them here, nobody would ever know I'm using "Blues Jag" pickups, the guitar just sounds like a lovely Jaguar that happens not to hum.
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Re: The official Kinman pickups thread

Post by JVG » Mon Feb 06, 2023 1:33 am

It must be hard choosing between the Grunge-tang and the Punk-tang! At least, as you pointed out, he’s making a damn good product.

On a tangent…
I remember as a kid seeing Kinman’s guitars in a couple of the local Sydney shops, before he moved exclusively to pickup-making. I’m talking late 80s here. The guitars were very well regarded, and had more sensible names too; there was the Blueprint series, and the Icon series - maybe others that i don’t recall. Basically Strat and Tele copies, but done very well. I remember lusting after the Blueprint guitars, having seen the guitarist in the Little River Band using one (forgive me, i was young, and got free tickets to the show).

Seems those old guitars are like the proverbial hen’s teeth these days - google and you’ll see what i mean.

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Re: The official Kinman pickups thread

Post by Larry Mal » Mon Feb 06, 2023 7:12 am

Yeah, the names are terrible, "Punk-tang" is basically the worst of them. At least "Thickmaster" was acccurate as to what it is.

He also periodically gushes about some product or other as being "his best" or his most crowning achievement, I put that down to the guy just being excited about his own products, though.

However, when I was looking at this website to find some examples of that I came across his claim that his magnets exert "40% less magnetic string pull" compared to Alnico 5 magnets and whatnot.

I can't evaluate that claim, however, if I accept that as accurate it does help me reconcile myself with what my ears are hearing. Kinman pickups never sound compressed or undynamic, even the Thickmasters.
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Re: The official Kinman pickups thread

Post by Embenny » Mon Feb 06, 2023 11:52 am

That bit is actually true, he uses a custom alnico blend he calls AlNiCo-K. A2 and A3 are around 30% lower strength than A5, so it sounds like he probably just modified it from there.

But one thing I've learned from my casual study of the science behind pickups is that the strength (gauss) of an alnico magnet is not linearly related to inductance. The metallic properties of the alloy come into play, so it's entirely possible that he found a blend that achieves the lower gauss of A2 with higher inductance in order to maximize the output of a shorter coil (since the air coil and shield take up space inside the pickup).

That's one of the many reasons his pickups are more expensive, beyond their more complicated design. He uses a bunch of bespoke components and even custom materials like the magnets. I'm sure that costs a lot more than grabbing off-the-shelf A2 or A5 rods.

The results speak for themselves, though. They're high output, they can get closer to the strings before you induce "strat-itis," and they're noiseless. All tough things to do while sounding like an proper single coil.
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Re: The official Kinman pickups thread

Post by Larry Mal » Mon Feb 06, 2023 1:58 pm

Embenny wrote:
Mon Feb 06, 2023 11:52 am


The results speak for themselves, though. They're high output, they can get closer to the strings before you induce "strat-itis," and they're noiseless. All tough things to do while sounding like an proper single coil.
Yeah, no doubt. Like I say, I couldn't speak to the "40%" number, then again, all the times I have been skeptical about Kinman's claims he's been right and my skepticism has been for nothing.

Could not recommend them enough, folks, in case you haven't noticed. And the more guitars I put them in the more I like them.

Sadly, though, my technician who has been installing them for me (and Ilitch stuff before that) has moved on to work full time for K-Line guitars, if anyone knows them. So I'll have to have the new guy do my next install, which is a three pickup Telecaster. Maybe this will be a good chance to get a seven way harness in there.

I don't do my own wiring any more, I don't feel I'm all that good at it.
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Re: The official Kinman pickups thread

Post by Embenny » Tue Feb 07, 2023 11:00 am

Larry Mal wrote:
Mon Feb 06, 2023 1:58 pm
Sadly, though, my technician who has been installing them for me (and Ilitch stuff before that) has moved on to work full time for K-Line guitars, if anyone knows them. So I'll have to have the new guy do my next install, which is a three pickup Telecaster. Maybe this will be a good chance to get a seven way harness in there.

I don't do my own wiring any more, I don't feel I'm all that good at it.
If you're buying them new, he has solderless harnesses available, though none of the Tele ones appear to be 7-way, which is a shame. He has ones that do weird things, but not that for some reason.
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Re: The official Kinman pickups thread

Post by Embenny » Wed Feb 15, 2023 7:06 pm

Well, today I learned something about Kinman Mustang pickups. I had a big delay waiting for a StewMac order from early December to make its way to Canada, but I've finally been working on the installs this week.

The covers were ever so slightly too long to fit the vintage pickguard, like maybe 0.5mm or something. Width was fine. Took a little finessing but I got it in there. Fine, no biggie. I also took out the entire wiring harness and installed all new (or NOS in the case of the switches) components, and shielded everything properly.

When I went to screw it all back together, the pickguard didn't want to lie flat. I could force it if I screwed it down, but it would be bowing a bit in the middle and I don't want to do that, least of all to a vintage guard. Took me a while, but I eventually figured out the issue.

It was the pickup mounting screws. See, the Kinmans are a little taller/deeper than vintage pickups, but that wasn't an issue since I don't want the pickups to be flush with the guard. Once I raised them to a reasonable height, there was no issue of clearance in the pickup rout....except for the goddamn screws! They're the same length as the pickup's depth - which makes sense if you're thinking, "I want these screws to be long enough to lower the pickup to be flush with the pickguard." The problem is that I don't need to do that. What I need, much more importantly, is to fit the fucking Mustang pickups into a fucking Mustang!

It's not the end of the world, but it's the end of tonight's install effort. I'll have to contact them and ask what screws they use, because I don't want to just grab random ones from the parts drawer and cross-thread or otherwise mess up the bobbins on these brand new pickups. I just need the same screw, but 1/8" or 3/16" shorter.

I really, really hate when mods or pickup installs get derailed by something as trivial as needing a specific screw and not having it, and this is the third fucking time that's happened in the last month (the other two weren't directly Kinman-related).

I'll probably write Kinman to tell them about this, it's very silly to sell Mustang pickups that fit into Mustangs but have screws too long to fit a vintage rout. I can maybe understand why they might not want to provide short screws (in case someone with a modern Mustang complains that they can't get their pickup flush with the pickguard, not that I've ever seen anyone set up a guitar that way), but it would cost nothing to include a spare set of vintage-length screws. They already included some spare hookup wires in the box, which I didn't need, so it would have been handy to include those screws as well.

So let the record show that I'm not blindly pro-Kinman. This really pissed me off, but it's totally minor in the grand scheme of things. I'm just really frustrated in this moment, because I waited months for the pots etc to arrive from StewMac, and dared to imagine that I might actually get these installed tonight.

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Re: The official Kinman pickups thread

Post by JSett » Wed Feb 15, 2023 9:12 pm

Embenny wrote:
Wed Feb 15, 2023 7:06 pm
This is the sort of ultimately infuriating situation that would make me want to flip the table over. So easily avoidable.

I am angered for you. I've been in the exact same position before and it's horrible.
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Re: The official Kinman pickups thread

Post by Embenny » Thu Feb 16, 2023 9:43 am

johnnysomersett wrote:
Wed Feb 15, 2023 9:12 pm
This is the sort of ultimately infuriating situation that would make me want to flip the table over. So easily avoidable.

I am angered for you. I've been in the exact same position before and it's horrible.
Hah, I was 100% in a table-flipping kind of mood by the time I figured out the issue. It wouldn't have been as bad if I hadn't had similar experience two other times this month, one with my Marauder and the other with my V. Both times, everything ground to a halt because of a specific size screw that I turned out not to have (despite having a drawer full of screws that correspond to common uses on guitars!).

It's such a simple hurdle to overcome once you procure the right screw, but it's such a crappy feeling to finish 90% of the work and then get stuck with a disassembled guitar for days or weeks. So now I've got three of those, but my screws for the other two just arrived, so maybe I'll change gears and get those done now.
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Re: The official Kinman pickups thread

Post by gishuk » Thu Feb 16, 2023 6:03 pm

Do their jazzmaster pickups fit under standard Fender covers without any issues?

I've never been one to really care about hum until recently when I've been doing a lot more recording and my jazzmaster does NOT like to be near a computer without humming away annoyingly. But I really love the tone of that guitar and want to use it, so with all the hype around these sounding like regular single coils I'm starting to think they may be worth a try, if theyll fit under my covers as I dont want to have to try separate the existing covers from shrunken old tort ;D

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Re: The official Kinman pickups thread

Post by Embenny » Thu Feb 16, 2023 6:11 pm

gishuk wrote:
Thu Feb 16, 2023 6:03 pm
Do their jazzmaster pickups fit under standard Fender covers without any issues?

I've never been one to really care about hum until recently when I've been doing a lot more recording and my jazzmaster does NOT like to be near a computer without humming away annoyingly. But I really love the tone of that guitar and want to use it, so with all the hype around these sounding like regular single coils I'm starting to think they may be worth a try, if theyll fit under my covers as I dont want to have to try separate the existing covers from shrunken old tort ;D
A couple of issues there. Firstly, humming near a computer is less likely to be mains hum and more likely to be from a lack of shielding. Kinmans are shielded, but the guitar needs to be as well if you want to use it in that environment.

Secondly, I doubt you could fit them into vintage covers. Kinman spaces the polepieces differently for the neck and bridge pickup, and I'm fairly certain his covers are specific to his pickups, even if the polepieces lined up.
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Re: The official Kinman pickups thread

Post by gishuk » Thu Feb 16, 2023 6:17 pm

It doesn't hum on middle position, just bridge or neck individual, so the shielding is all good.

But not fitting under regular covers is a deal-breaker. Bugger.

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Re: The official Kinman pickups thread

Post by Ozone7 » Fri Feb 17, 2023 9:17 am

A question for anyone with Kinman Jaguar pickups.

What pot value are you using?

Thanks.

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