Post by fenderplucker on Aug 30, 2018 10:31:44 GMT
First a disclaimer: I have no business connection to Kinman and got involved in the testing of the Kinman Impersonator pickups only through helping Hank to get a more vintage sound for the Reunited world tour and following CD. There have been some queries about these pickups on the chat sites and so I thought that the following might be helpful.
Prior to the tour, Chris Kinman sent over some early prototypes that were on the right track but not yet developed enough for Hank’s use. So we evaluated Fender Custom Shop 54 and 57/62 pickups and a couple of other ones that shall remain nameless and Hank finally settled on the CS54’s for the tour and CD. Later on he wanted to return a bit more to his modern sound, and he had me refit the FV-HMS Kinmans for a few tracks on the Without a Word CD. What he really needed was a pickup that could encompass the sound of both. During this time Chris had finished developing the Impersonator 54 and A56 pickups and sent some for Hank to evaluate. I put them into two of his Strats and we did a comparison with the FV-HMS, CS54 and the Seymour Duncan/DiMarzio sets fitted to some of the Fender Custom Shop Signature range. To cut a long story short, Hank decided upon the Impersonator 54’s, these being useful for both his current and vintage tunes and they are now fitted to his 3 Strats used for performance and recording.
However, I was interested in doing a more detailed comparison of the Impersonator 54 and A56’s with the CS54 pickups that I had been using for some time in my Strat. So we swapped them around and recorded a number of tunes with each pickup, featuring the neck (Peace Pipe), middle (Sleepwalk, Blue Star) and bridge (Apache, Kon Tiki) pickups in each case. We compared both the sound as-recorded and also equalised a bit where necessary to reproduce Hank’s original tone. I am slowly putting together a presentation comparing the sounds and should be able to post this soon.
What we found was the Impersonator A56’s are very close to the CS54’s, maybe just a dB down at 2.5 kHz. Here I need to add that the CS54’s can sound a bit thin and brittle if not set up quite close to the strings (nudging into “Stratitus” territory) and this was the setting used. It is also the setting that we use to get quite close to Hank’s vintage tone, as I hope is evident on the numerous tunes on the TVS Juke Box, most of which were done with my guitar. Even so, the A56’s had a slightly more solid mid-range that I think got even closer to Hank’s original tone. In comparison, the Impersonator 54’s had slightly less top (just a few dB less at 2.5kHz) but a very similar everywhere else. In fact, with a small amount of equalisation they could all be made to sound almost identical. Also, with a bit of top cut they sound very similar to the FV-HMS, giving Hank the best of both worlds!
So Hank has gone with the Impersonator 54’s while I have settled on the A56’s on the basis that it is best to use equalisation to remove frequencies rather than try to add them. Either way I think that Chris has done an exceptional job reproducing the sound of single coils in a noiseless format.
Paul.
Prior to the tour, Chris Kinman sent over some early prototypes that were on the right track but not yet developed enough for Hank’s use. So we evaluated Fender Custom Shop 54 and 57/62 pickups and a couple of other ones that shall remain nameless and Hank finally settled on the CS54’s for the tour and CD. Later on he wanted to return a bit more to his modern sound, and he had me refit the FV-HMS Kinmans for a few tracks on the Without a Word CD. What he really needed was a pickup that could encompass the sound of both. During this time Chris had finished developing the Impersonator 54 and A56 pickups and sent some for Hank to evaluate. I put them into two of his Strats and we did a comparison with the FV-HMS, CS54 and the Seymour Duncan/DiMarzio sets fitted to some of the Fender Custom Shop Signature range. To cut a long story short, Hank decided upon the Impersonator 54’s, these being useful for both his current and vintage tunes and they are now fitted to his 3 Strats used for performance and recording.
However, I was interested in doing a more detailed comparison of the Impersonator 54 and A56’s with the CS54 pickups that I had been using for some time in my Strat. So we swapped them around and recorded a number of tunes with each pickup, featuring the neck (Peace Pipe), middle (Sleepwalk, Blue Star) and bridge (Apache, Kon Tiki) pickups in each case. We compared both the sound as-recorded and also equalised a bit where necessary to reproduce Hank’s original tone. I am slowly putting together a presentation comparing the sounds and should be able to post this soon.
What we found was the Impersonator A56’s are very close to the CS54’s, maybe just a dB down at 2.5 kHz. Here I need to add that the CS54’s can sound a bit thin and brittle if not set up quite close to the strings (nudging into “Stratitus” territory) and this was the setting used. It is also the setting that we use to get quite close to Hank’s vintage tone, as I hope is evident on the numerous tunes on the TVS Juke Box, most of which were done with my guitar. Even so, the A56’s had a slightly more solid mid-range that I think got even closer to Hank’s original tone. In comparison, the Impersonator 54’s had slightly less top (just a few dB less at 2.5kHz) but a very similar everywhere else. In fact, with a small amount of equalisation they could all be made to sound almost identical. Also, with a bit of top cut they sound very similar to the FV-HMS, giving Hank the best of both worlds!
So Hank has gone with the Impersonator 54’s while I have settled on the A56’s on the basis that it is best to use equalisation to remove frequencies rather than try to add them. Either way I think that Chris has done an exceptional job reproducing the sound of single coils in a noiseless format.
Paul.
