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Clapton's Brownie / Blackie set - Zero-Hum


 

 


Under the hood of an Impersonator E56. 
Beautiful black pickups for a Blackie.

 

This is the pickup that Dave Cohen (RIP), founder of Equilibrium Guitars was compelled to say "Not only do Kinman make the best noiseless pickups, they make the best pickups, period!  The E56 is absolutely the most outstanding Strat pickup I have ever had the pleasure of playing."

The Impersonator E56 represents a major milestone in the evolution of Fender type pickups as it has taken about 25 years of inventive and innovative thinking to get here. The Kinman P-90 Hx and this model re-affirms Kinman as the King of noiseless.

Our boxed set contains non-aged sound Impersonator E56 for all 3 pickups.  Inspiring, stimulating and exciting.  Sound with a nice glassy bite and Bell-like ring and twangy lows.  Zero-Hum.    Full description of the Impersonator E56 can be viewed on the Single Strat Pickups TAB.

Clapton's Brownie was a 1956 Strat with original 56 pickups considered by many to be the best sounding Strat pickups ever made by Fender.  The original Blackie reputedly had early 70's pickups which a lot of players report have an unexciting, somewhat bland but bright sound which we have no desire to emulate.  The Impersonator A56 has outstanding treble response and we added some nice dynamics and some nice glassy bite and Bell-like ring that genuine 56 Strat pickups are known for.  We think Blackie would have sounded even better with the Impersonator E56.

Fender's Clapton's Signature Strat has Vintage Noiseless pickups according to Fender's Website.  There is no way we would want to emulate those pickups.

It must be borne in mind that our pickups are versatile and under different amplification environments and in the hands of different artists can deliver a wide range of sounds and that's the reason you'll see the same models included in various different Artist sets.

News flash Apr-2021: Now with our new Synergy baseplate that allows switching off Hum Cancelling as well as switching to 'Synergy' mode for those that think hum is part of Fender sound.

This set is our take on the Artists sound and is not intended to infer the artist uses these pickups, although some do.

Signal chain requirements:  Any old cable won't do.  As with any pickup it's a good idea to use a low capacitance cable to get the maximum incredible performance of this pickup.

Some people will call these noiseless Stratocaster pickups but Kinman prefers to describe them correctly as Zero-Hum Stratocaster pickups.  That's because there are 2 types of noise, Hum which is cancelled in the pickup and Buzz which can only be minimized by shielding the wiring cavities (refer to >Technical >Perfect Guitar >Shielding for newer guitars

** Alnico-K is a unique proprietary Alnico rod magnet developed by Kinman in 1985.  It is Alnico-5 but has 40% less string pull than Alnico-5 so sustain is longer and there is much less clatter from string crash and no Strat-itis string warble.

* Fender and Stratocaster and Strat are registered Trade Marks of Fender Musical Instrument Corp, Inc.  Kinman is not associated with FMIC but they kindly permit us to refer to their Trade Marks to reference our products.

Technical & Application info:

 

Impersonator E56 nomenclature

 

 

Introduced Dec-2015

US Patents  5,668,520    6,103,986    8,791,351 B2

Frequently seen Forum comment “Noiseless Strat pickups sound different to genuine single coils”  Until recently that did have an element of truth in it, but not anymore.

Covers

  • Standard Kinman cover without height extender bushings included. 
  • Available in White, Black, Aged White.
  • With and without Kinman logo.
  • Can be tinted with food stains such as Coffee and Tea.
  • Generic covers will not fit Kinman Strat pickups.  We sell replacement covers in three colors.

Connection means available

  • Bare wires for soldering.
  • Kinman connectors for plugging into any Kinman Goodbye-Soldering Harness.

Dimensions

Pot & Capacitor values

  • Best with 250k Ohm (measured minimum) volume pot.  Less punch and more bright with 500k.
  • Tone pot is usually the same value as the volume but for a little more top end brightness can be 500k, 1meg or a No-Load.
  • Stock pots can actually measure as low as 175k.  Pots in our Goodbye-Soldering Harness are guaranteed to measure no less that 250k.
  • Normal tone cap value of 0.022uF, 63 ~ 100 volt Polyester.  Smaller uF value lessen the severity of Treble cut, higher values increase it.
  • The voltage rating of Caps is not important but 63 ~ 100 volt have thicker lead wires that result in a neater job.

Magnet spreads we normally ship (ensures magnets align with the strings in each position)

  • Narrow 49.5mm
  • Intermediate 51mm
  • Standard 52.5mm
  • Option to specify your magnet spreads of sets and singles in our 'After-Order Supplementary Questions' email we send you.

Magnet Staggers

  • Normal improved Stagger to suit 7 ~ 14 inch uniform radius fretboards including USA Custom Guitar Compound 7-1/4" ~ 9-1/2
  • Flat Stagger 14" ~ 20" for specific compound radius fretboards (Warmoth 10 ~ 16 inch and Post 2010 Fender Deluxe 9 ~ 14")
  • Option to choose your magnet stagger for sets and singles in our 'After-Payment Supplementary Questions' email we send you.

Hook-up cable

  • 2 conductor shielded is standard.
  • Middle pickups when supplied with a K9, TK4 or TK9 harness have 3 conductor shielded.
  • 3 conductor by request with Order.
  • Custom lengths by request with Order.

Output Polarity: 

  • in-phase with Gibson and Copy humbuckers
  • in-phase with all other Kinman pickups
  • opposite phase to Fender Strat

Mounting hardware included

  • 2 Pan head mounting screws.
  • 2 Silicon Rubber tube springs.

We highly recommend consulting the Install Guide in the Technical section even if you think you know it all.  Kinmans' require specialized knowledge and sometimes there is updated info.  There is also a handy wiring diagram available.

We also highly recommend consulting the Adjust & Set-up page in the Technical section so you get the best out of your Kinman pickups.