$195 USD

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Tubular Belle - no ordinary humbucker

Tubular Belle humbucker - bouncy dynamic sound with bite from a humbucker that does not have a bar magnet.

Whoever heard a Tubular Bell humbucker?  Whoever heard of bouncy sound from a humbucker?  No-one, because it doesn't exist, but it does now!  This is one unusual humbucker .... another Masterpiece from Kinman.

It's scooped, bouncy and stringy sound is remarkably well behaved on the low wound strings, even when a full chord is pounded hard the sound doesn't turn to mush and become a sloppy mess as ordinary humbuckers do, it retains clarity, definition and bass that has tone without mud .... just amazing.  The plain strings have a sweet, bell-like character all the way to the upper register and they are never harsh but have a nice bite.  Overall this pickup produces an exciting sound with a soft feminine character that is more remarkable since it comes from a humbucker .... but this is no ordinary humbucker.

Our Tubular Belle humbucker is good solution for hollow body guitars that are prone to body feedback (howling).  Your arch-top will be transformed from a howling monster to a well behaved and great sounding masterpiece.

Tubular Belle Standard standard coil gap

•  Usually for the neck position.  Pretty much a bit of Fender, a bit of P90-Bucker and a bit of regular humbucker with more than a hint of soft, scooped overall sound.  Produces a tidy growl in the bridge position, not dirty and raucous.

Tubular Belle Plus  wider coil gap and different magnet wire over core strips

•  Louder than the Standard, usually for the bridge position but works well in the neck too.  Has even better jangly sound with added piano mid-tones in the low wound strings delivered with a soft whack attack, just beautiful.  Well behaved low wound string sound in the neck position when played clean and hard ... even as a chord with a stiff pick above the 'G' 3rd fret position.

Both-on-together sound is even more scooped and mildly gravelly at the same time with a sharp little plink cutting though, it's quite a unique sound and very agreeable.  Both models are surprisingly loud and both have Zero-Hum.

Our Tubular Belle can be made inside a regular Humbucker cover, a Wide Range cover as well as our Humbucker-Tron cover.

Our TB humbucker appears similar to Fenders Wide Range humbucker from the 70's, but there are a lotta differences.  Firstly we don't use threaded Cunife magnets and we certainly don't use threaded FeCrCo magnets like all the other boutique makers either because those things make the plain strings sound abrasive and unpleasant and they do not produce a scooped sound.  Also we don't use shitty butyrate bobbins, we make our own precision high strength bobbins with our own coil geometry and pole screw spread (53mm, 50m  and 47.5mm).  Our special Alnico rod magnets are individually adjustable and the only source of magnetic energy for the pickup, there is no bar magnet lying under the bobbins so the sound is alive with the genuine rod magnet vibe .... and then some. 

We did what everyone else says is impossible, we found a way to form a thread on our very special Alnico-K (5) rod magnets.  And boy oh boy were we surprised when we heard the terrific sound they make.  We weren't expecting scooped low mids, that came as a delightful surprise.  Having heard this unique sound for the first time we were lost for words and the name Tubular Belle came to us later in a moment of clarity.  It's a fitting description, tubular because of the big scoop in the low mids and Belle which conveys a soft feminine quality as well as bell-like sound. 

We make our Tubular Belle in 3 different magnet spreads (53mm, 50m  and 47.5mm) so no matter what type of bridge you have the strings will align perfectly over the magnets in all positions and all strings will ring out loud and clear with no drop offs.  And the big surprise is there are no losses of performance with the narrow versions thanks to our unique 'Coil Spread Compensation Technology".

Our covers are made of highly polished Nickel-Silver and are not electroplated so the sound is not degraded and microphonic tendencies are totally eliminated.  The cover can be ordered with one of our unique "6o's Yank Tank" car grill patterns etched permanently into the surface.  See the Cover Decoration Tab for details.

Yes sir, this is one remarkable piece of electrical and mechanical engineering wizardry and is surprisingly agreeable.