A friend builds guitars and I've just bought a very nice replica Strat from him. The high spec includes the earlier version of the Kinman Hank Marvin pickups. After I'd bought it I found that the sound from pickup positions 1, 2 and 3 was exactly what it should be but the sound from positions 2 and 4 was very quiet, thin and weedy and nothing like the 'out of phase' sound I was expecting.
I took the guitar back to my friend and he admitted that he wasn't an expert on Kinman pickup wiring (neither am I) and, moreover, he had little personal experience of the out of phase positions because he never uses anything other than the bridge pickup when playing. Fortunately, he had another guitar for sale fitted with an identical scratchplate and Kinmans so we did an A/B comparison. This other guitar sounded exactly as I expected from positions 2 and 4 and my friend agreed that my guitar wasn't right. He took off the scratchplate and inspected the wiring but, with his limited knowledge, he couldn't find a fault.
The problem was solved as far as I was concerned by him swapping over the two scratchplate/pickup assemblies so I now have a guitar that I'm delighted with. My friend sent an email to Kinman asking for comments and advice (although the pickups were unused he'd had them 'in stock' for quite some time so the guarantee had expired). He told me today that Kinman had replied and referred him to a section of their website which says that the out of phase sounds are not available with the Hank pickups and positions 2 and 4 give sounds of a lower volume (which is exactly what I'd experienced).
I was amazed by this because the second set of identical pickups gives the classic out of phase sounds I expected, as do the other two Strats I have with the same HM pickups. What Kinman are saying cannot be correct because, if it is, they are supplying pickups where two of the positions are effectively useless.
As I said, the problem is solved as far as I'm concerned but I don't want my friend to lose out. He's not a member of this forum so I said I'd put the situation before the knowledgeable experts on here.
Any thoughts and advice will be greatly appreciated.
Tony
« Prev1Next »
Reply
Quick Reply