Kinman Woodstocks Arrived The Other Day - Wow!

[ubermetaldood]

I wasn't sure what to expect from these, and I'm not big on single-coil pickups either. What I knew mostly before this was that Fender single-coils were just OK, Texas Specials were pretty awesome, but my favorites have been Lollar Specials, Bareknuckle Irish Tour & Mother's Milk, and Lindy Fralin Blues Special. Enter the Kinman Woodstocks. I installed them in my Fender American Deluxe Mahogany HSS strat. Boy am I blown away.

It's so nice to have noiseless, strong output with a real single-coil sound. In fact, they don't sound *like* single coils. You can't tell them apart except for the noise in my opinion. I have a few single coils here and there like G&L's, Tex Spec, and Tex Mex and these sound like overwound single-coils. The neck position is one of the best neck pickup single-coil tones I have ever heard. The bridge pickup is awesome though I wish I would have opted for the higher output bridge. It's not that the standard Woodstock bridge isn't hot enough, but it's too balanced with the neck in terms of loudness. I'm used to HSS kind of setups so I like the bridge slightly hotter.

In any case, I have no complaints except that he sure doesn't leave you with much wire to work with. The packaging kind of threw me off. They came in this plastic box attached to a velvet-coated plastic insert. By appearance they looked kind of outdated and gave the impression as if they were great for that time, but not at all. They have a real classic and timeless tone that pleases me completely. Indeed it is a shame that I didn't try Kinmans a long time ago.

 

[jkkkjkhk]

Very cool, I love the late 60s strat sounds. I have the voodoo set from D Allen, which is also based off 69s, and absolutely love them. I checked out many different pickups before landing on these and very glad I did. Those were an option at the time as were Fender CS69s, eventually I'll try a set, I hear great things about them as well. I'm also interested in the Mothers Milk set, always been a big fan of Frusciantes tone.
Congrats on the new set.

 

[ubermetaldood]

Very cool, I love the late 60s strat sounds. I have the voodoo set from D Allen, which is also based off 69s, and absolutely love them. I checked out many different pickups before landing on these and very glad I did. Those were an option at the time as were Fender CS69s, eventually I'll try a set, I hear great things about them as well. I'm also interested in the Mothers Milk set, always been a big fan of Frusciantes tone.
Congrats on the new set.

Thanks. If you haven't tried Bareknuckles yet then I'd recommend trying the Irish Tour first. To me Mother's Milk sounded more like a 50's pickup while the Irish Tour was more like a 60's pickup. I think the Mother's Milk has a little sweeter overtones and low output for great clean/cleanish tone, but the Iris Tour has a little more midrange and great cleanish/crunch tone. I've tried a few of the DAllen single-coils and really like them too but the noise kills me. I DAllen humbuckers in both of my Les Pauls though. David is pretty cool to work with as well. His prices are kind of on the high end but still like $40-50 cheaper than similar boutique brands, but his stuff is on the same level.

 

[firegate]

I've got woodstocks in my Custom Shop Strat - agree that they sound absolutely killer. My only complaint is that they take a while to dial in in terms of pickup height - very finicky in that regard vs your standard single coils. Magic though once you find the sweet spot.

 

[jkkkjkhk]

Very cool, I love the late 60s strat sounds. I have the voodoo set from D Allen, which is also based off 69s, and absolutely love them. I checked out many different pickups before landing on these and very glad I did. Those were an option at the time as were Fender CS69s, eventually I'll try a set, I hear great things about them as well. I'm also interested in the Mothers Milk set, always been a big fan of Frusciantes tone.
Congrats on the new set.

Thanks. If you haven't tried Bareknuckles yet then I'd recommend trying the Irish Tour first. To me Mother's Milk sounded more like a 50's pickup while the Irish Tour was more like a 60's pickup. I think the Mother's Milk has a little sweeter overtones and low output for great clean/cleanish tone, but the Iris Tour has a little more midrange and great cleanish/crunch tone. I've tried a few of the DAllen single-coils and really like them too but the noise kills me. I DAllen humbuckers in both of my Les Pauls though. David is pretty cool to work with as well. His prices are kind of on the high end but still like $40-50 cheaper than similar boutique brands, but his stuff is on the same level.

Thanks I'll check those out too.

 

[Myx]

Hi! Sorry for digging, but I couldn't find any way to send PM - anyway - @ubermetaldood, how would You compare BKPs Mother Milk neck pickup to the Kinman AVN69n (neck pu from woodstock set)? I am currently looking for a strat neck pickup and I narrowed the choice to this two pickups. Both sound good on samples, but there is no straight comparison anywhere, and I wonder if it's worth to pay more for Kinman, as BKP is like 2/3 price of a AVN69 on local market...

 

[mdc1mdc11]

what did you think of the David Allen pickups, just curious. I have a set of true 62's in one of my strat's and pretty blown away by them. Now I might need to try the Kinman's.

 

[IHateRap]

Yep Kinmans are fantastic.