$140 USD

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Tubular Belle ~ new unexplored sonic territory

Tubular Belle

This is one amazing Gen-2+ Strat pickup with a huge difference .... it's got bouncy sound that you can feel in your fingers.  Now that's not a description for any Strat pickup that you've seen before.  Yep, and probably the first Strat pickup that has very little twang even though it's predominantly a clean sounding pickup, the twang has been eaten by the low end scoop. The wound strings have a huge scoop, but not at the expense of the upper midrange where there is a very nice 'plink' that defines the notes.  And not at the expense of punch either ,,,, punch with bounce that is.

The name Tubular Belle describes the scooped tubular sound and belle infers a soft feminine quality as well as chime.  It is difficult to make this pickup sound anything but sweet and interesting.  We think it's the most exciting Strat pickup to emerge in a very long time.  That is apart from all our other exciting models. 

An imaginative, creative players delight with a promise of new unexplored sonic horizons.

It is so bouncy it reminds us of our P-90 Hx Sweet Neck soapbar model which is extremely dynamic.  It is so dynamic that it stubbornly refuses to be driven into natural distortion, pedals are definitely needed to crunch this little beauty.  

The plain strings are the Belle part of the sound, crisp and slightly clangy like a medium sized bell with a nice shimmering corona of upper harmonics.  Beyond-excellent note separation, even at high volume.  It's hard to make a mess of them even when played really loud in mini chords.

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.

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 these pickups.

 

Technical & Application info:

Introduced 5-March-2020

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

Covers

• Standard Kinman cover without height extender bushings included. 
• Available in White, Black, Aged White and if you're lucky there's a few Cream NOS still available.
• With and without Kinman logo.
• White covers 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

• click for dimensions page

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 (ensures magnets align with the strings in each position regardless of bridge spacing)

• 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 or neck pickup with a TK4 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 (phase reversible with 3 Conductor hook-up cable)

Mounting hardware included

• 2 x 6-32 UNC 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.

** 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.