Updated 10-Nov-2021
There's Quack and there's Cluck ... and there's other C words .... Clack and Clunk. Let's go adventuring into the new C word sonic territory made possible by Kinman and welcome to Funk City.
There’s quack and there’s cluck, different intensities, different scoops, different types. Some have a clunky sound and others are very soft and delicate. The usual type when people think of Strats is Mark Knopfler’s trademark sound on the album “Sultans of Swing” … we refer to it as Knopfler-esque sound but that’s just one kind of quack, we say it has a sharp little ‘plink’ at the moment of attack.
Knopfler-esque sound calls for 2 identical vintage speck Strat pickups switched on together. However, when one pickup is stronger that the other that little plink morphs into a stronger cluck and so it goes on. Some produce quack and others produce Cluck and Clack and at the extremes produce Chunk y-Funky (all C words). Our P-90 Hx produces the most powerful and dynamic Chunky-Funky know to man. The depth and intensity grows as you pick harder and closer to the 12th fret, it’s really amazing and exciting to hear these new sounds.
When one pickup is a bit more powerful than the other it will dominate the one with less output and the Quack turn to Cluck. Two completely different but compatible pickups such as a clean humbucker (think our P90-Bucker) and a powerful Strat pickup like our Big-Nine-O and the C word morphs into Clunk. And with a set of Tubular Belle Strat pickups …. it’s Cluck city. Also just added to the cluck stakes is our 59+ LPS humbucker with ESSC. In split single coil mode a pair of 59+ LPS produces cluck galore, makes you wanna play.
Our Gilmour Strat set has a Texas Jalapeno Extra bridge pickup that sets the scene for intense chunk when in a Kinman K7 or K9 Goodbye-Soldering harness using the lower Mix control. It blends the bridge and neck pickups and it's Telecaster sound x 2. Our humbuckers also are good at this, some more than others. Good examples are the Twang-Bucker suite and the P90-Bucker suite (with the Extra bridge model), the P.A.F suite and any combination where the bridge is more powerful than the neck.
Believe it or not, the most ear catching both-on-together sounds comes from a set our Jazz Bass Chameleon pickups. To our way of hearing it’s the perfect bass sound, a pleasant gritty growl that has a high presence factor that cuts through the clatter of snare, cymbals and bass drum without having to be loud. It’s also dynamic and touch sensitive and imparts a high level of inspiration to the player. He’ll find new ways to express bass parts with or without hogging the limelight.
There is a veritable library of these Quack, Cluck and Clunk types of sounds according to the kind of pickups involved and the differences between them. It’s only a matter of time until some imaginative player comes up with pieces of music that highlight and take advantage of these novel sounds that have largely been ignored, or perhaps it’s just that players have not yet discovered and enjoyed a C-word experience.