Kinman Bright Nasty 90 - Zero-Hum Guitar Pickups

Bright Nasty 90 Gen-3 v3 ..... Stellar '52 P-90 performance

Big improvement for Les Pauls.

Fantastic improvement for Epiphones.

There is a BIG difference between a single coil and Twin coil sidewinders and humbuckers.
The purist Zero-Hum Kinman P-90 Hx is the only true noiseless single coil.

The upgraded v3 is here to create a love affair with your guitar, by transforming it into one that you simply can't put down. If authentic impolite and dynamic P-90 sound is what you like, Kinman is the one you want.

Bright Nasty 90 Gen-3 with it's NEW extra lively v3 upgrade!!!

Before we said "our Nasty 90 is the closest to a regular P-90". Now we can say "it's better than our early 50's Gibson P-90 specimen", thanks to Boss Chris' efforts in developing our marvelous new v2 Hum Sensor and re-designing the top string sensing coil to the v3. more open and dynamic and has stellar highs as good as a Lollar non-noiseless single coil. The re-designed Nasty 90 v3 has come of age and will wow customers with it's stellar brilliant sizzling highs, it's wonderful bite and gutsy, explosive dynamics from the low wound strings -and- it's extremely fast attack response. And then there is the great both-on-together scooped c-luck sound. There is nothing second-class about this very nasty model. Sounds far far better than the original Gen-2 Nasty 90.

Nasty 90b has focused P-90 growl n grind from the wounds, bite and harmonic richness from all strings and stellar highs from the plains. It is recommended for the bridge position and not recommended for the neck position because the low wound strings tend to be unruly. In the bridge it works well with the Bright Sweet Neck model in the neck position.

NEWS Flash 18-August-2022: We now supply our new 'Universal' soapbar covers in genuine Gibson Cream, Warm White, Aged White, pure white and Black, click the option when ordering. A must for Gibson guitars!

NEWS May-2021: Gen-3 upgrade with our new amazing v2 Hum Sensor which unleashes the liveliness of the pickup. and, no more routing cavity floors, the new shorter Gen-3 version fits most P-90 guitars, the exceptions are those with cavities shown in these pictures. Improved sound and performance over the original Gen-2.

Plastic covers sound the best (no impact) but Epiphone metal covers sound hand-over-mouth (muffled). We now sell Nickel-Silver replacement Dog-Ear covers for Epiphones that don't significantly impact on the sound.

For replacing humbuckers with a similar sound look at our P90-Bucker in the Humbucker section.

You will have a lot of fun, enjoyment and satisfaction exploring the extended sonic dimensions of these remarkably advanced pickups.

v2 upgrade introduced 18-May-2021 Low profile Hum Sensor
v3 upgrade introduced 18-Dec-2022 New string sensing coils

The Bright Nasty 90 is a Zero Hum pickup. Some people will call these noiseless P-90 pickups but Kinman prefers to describe them correctly as Zero-Hum P-90 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

Upgrades: Grounded pole screws are now standard on all models as from July-2017

Pickup adjustment

As with all Kinman Gen-2 pickups these are very sensitive to height adjustment. A good starting point, so the neck and bridge pickups balance, is with the two E strings fretted at the 15th fret, adjusted as follows ...

bridge pickup so the string-to-magnet gap is 1.25mm for both E strings
neck pickup so the string-to-magnet gap is 1.5mm for both E strings

Installation

When replacing an original Gibson 480 two new screw holes must be drilled in the floor of the cavity because our 580 has the mounting screws of a P-90. Cavity for original Gibson 480 is suitable, no modification required. We use Alnico-K** rod magnets, not Alnico-5 blocks as the 480 has.

Consider including our optional non-magnetic mounting plate kit, it makes install fast n easy because you don't have to drill holes in the precise position for the pickups mounting screws in cavity floors. Do NOT use original Gibson mounting plates, being magnetic will dramatically compromise the hum cancelling ability of the P-90 Hx.

Epiphones

Kinman’s will bring your Epiphone to life because they achieve the maximum sonic potential of the guitar, and are easier to install than practically all other brands too because of our Easy Install Kit for f-hole guitars. Comprehensive, easy to do step-by-step instructions provided. Refer to the Overview Tab >Epiphone f-hole talk. More in Pole Spreads, next item ....

Connections

Bare wires for soldering.
Kinman connectors for plugging into a Kinman Strat, Tele or KHP-90 No-Soldering harness.
Gibson 2 wire & 5 wire Quick Connect circuit board connectors shown below.

Output Polarity:

in-phase with Gibson and Copy humbuckers
in-phase with all other Kinman pickups
opposite phase to Fender Strat
Fender pickups have opposite output polarity so consider Kinman's Strat models which have same output polarity.

Pot & Capacitor values

Best with 500k Ohm for Volume. Many Gibson's have 300k which makes a darker, less dynamic sound.
Normal Tone pot is 500k however to maximize clarity use a No-Load or alternatively a 1 Meg Ohm tone pot.
Normal tone cap value of 0.022µF in 63 ~ 100 volt Polyester. Smaller value lessen the severity of Treble cut, higher values increase it.

Cavity depth

No need to deepen the pickup cavity in ANY guitar that has flat bottom cavities for P-90's. Click Install Requirements to discover requirements for pickup cavity.
Click this for the Install requirements for the original version, now discontinued.

Pole spreads

53mm pole spread for bridge position of Stratocasters or with any bridge having saddle spread of 54+mm.
50mm for Gibsons or bridges having saddle spread of 50mm ~ 54mm.
47.5mm for neck position of Epiphones (NOTE: not all Epiphones have 47.5mm neck pole spread, please measure it).

Hook-up cable

The P-90 Hx has 2 conductor cable. 3 conductor optional.
Length is 380mm / 15".

Mounting hardware

2 Long mounting screws.
2 Silicon Rubber tube springs.
handy drill guide template for positioning the screw holes in the virgin floor of the pickup cavity of a project guitar or guitars with freshly deepened cavities.
OPTIONAL extra: Soap-bar cavity mounting plate, including all screws and springs. It's non-magnetic and won't interfere with hum cancellation.
OPTIONAL extra: Bracket for mounting under Dog-Ear covers in Arch-top f-hole guitars. It's non-magnetic and won't interfere with hum cancellation.

Covers

Dog-Ear covers (Nickel-Silver) with hole spread of 50mm & 47.5mm
Kinman's Universal Soapbar covers with 53mm, 50mm and 47.5mm hole spread available in Gibson Cream, Warm White, Aged White and Black.
Generic Soapbar covers with 50mm pole spread available in White, Black, Cream, White and Chrome.
Generic Soapbar cover available for 47.5mm pole spreads available in Black & Cream only.

Bright C&B Neck (middle and neck) and a Bright Nasty 90 bridge

Justin Stanley

I always seem to wind up with the most exquisite pickups imaginable when I buy from you guys. The Nasty 90 Heavy is the best pickup I've ever heard, let alone played. Kinman really is King! Thanks! My first studio session since installing the Nasty 90s has produced a few more Kinman fans. I'm very happy with my "new" Les Paul, thanks Chris. Er... as if that's not enough. The pickups are stellar. My Studio Les Paul is now an object of desire despite the fact that it's Arctic White!

Judd Manley-Breen

Greetings, Just wanted to shoot you a quick msg regarding your P90's. I bought a Sweet Neck & Nasty 90 bridge from you guys a couple of months ago and waited until now to msg you as I wanted the honeymoon period to pass before finalising my thoughts. The difference these pickups make to my Reverend Jetstream 390 is unbelievable! The stock pickups weren't bad (they weren't awesome but they did the job) but I couldn't use the guitar because the P90's in it were so noisy that they overpowered my playing and you could always here the hum, they were also abit woofy and overly focused in the mids and lower mids so the guitar had a nasal, strangled kind of sound. I loved the feel of it but not the sound. These Kinman pickups are amazing. They have absolutely brought this guitar to life so that now it sounds as good as it feels. The neck pickup is warm, smooth and sweet without being overly dark or muddy, it's the most beautiful neck pickup I've ever heard. The bridge is fantastic by itself, it's got the perfect balance of depth and bite that where I used to primarily play with the bridge combined with another position, I'm finding myself playing a lot more on just the bridge pickup, it sits perfectly in the mix with just enough edge that I can drive break up with pick attack while still coaxing sweet cleaner sounds with lighter picking that just wash perfectly and fill out space with delay and reverb. Both together is absolute bliss. The perfect balance I've always wanted and for how I play, an amazing combination. So much warmer than a Tele in the middle position but still incredibly articulate and responsive to my picking. I've been able to use this guitar now without issue (and have played it continuously for weeks now without picking up another guitar) plus I've gotten more comments on how killer it sounds than any of my other guitars. Chris, thank you so much, I love P90's but never could use them because of the noise and interference, these are absolutely glorious!!!!! Thank you!!!

Patrick Drummond

8-Dec-2019 From a customer who thought his pickup was microphonic:

I was wrong, I misdiagnosed, in fact I now embrace this characteristic of this amazing pickup {a sustaining feedback, not microphonic}, love the gorgeous tone too. I've been using P90's for a long time recorded gold albums with them ,but these are incredible. I also appreciate the wide 53mm pole version, suites my vintage Strat bridge. Sorry for my false alarm and tardiness in coming back. Cheers Patrick Drummond

Bill Nowak

I couldn't be more happier with these Nasty 90 pickups!!!!! I've seen a few YouTube videos of people who have installed these on their guitars and they said that although they were quieter there was still some noise ... I call bullshit!!!! Mine are dead silent. I just installed them in a walnut strat with a maple neck that I built and they sound beautiful and are 100% Noiseless. I thought the price was too high at first but, I now think different. Thanks

ED: sometimes players confuse electrical buzz with hum. Our Gen-3 models are dead silent but when the guitar doesn't have effective shielding there will be buzz when the player is not in contact with stuff that's grounded like strings and bridge.

Bob Spencer (ex Skyhooks, Rose Tatoo and numerous other bands)

From Wikipedia Bob Spencer

The new Nasty 90 & C&B Neck Gen-3 v2 Soapbar pups .....

.... are fabulous. They are in fact disconcertedly and extraordinarily responsive to touch and velocity. Honestly, I've not played another pickup like them (and I've been playing professionally for 49 years) and I have not been able to put that guitar down for a week now. Compared with the other pups I have (various single coil and humbucking types) it's as though they have an expander built in. Their dynamic range is simply incredible. The string separation is fantastic, and there is no mush when playing chords, which remain more clearly articulated than should be legal.

Playing softly produces the most beautiful clean tones, and digging in, without changing my amp's settings, produces the classic P90 "snap" and growl, AND something else that I can't quite put my finger on. A "bigness", without mud, which remains focussed. The tone of the single strings is juicy and thick and they have strength and authority without any harshness that I can detect. Enough to make other P90's bloody embarrassed!

Something else I've noticed is that my tone control (of the Stellartone "Tone Styler" type) seems to be more interesting and useful. Is it my imagination? Maybe. Dunno! Don't care, really, as the tone is so good that I just want to keep playing and listening to them

The balance of front and rear pups is as close to perfect as I have ever encountered. Volumes are evenly matched, and, and this is the exciting part, there is no excess bottom end on the front pup!! It remains full, articulate and clear, without flub, giving no reason to leap towards the amp's "bass" knob.

And the middle position! (expletive) I almost forgot about that. I have never EVER wanted to use the middle position as much!! The middle position is (honestly) like nothing I've ever heard before. It's fabulous even with the guitar's volume on full! I've previously shied away from that combination. It sounds like you've spent a serious amount of time balancing two different mic's at two distances from a speaker.

Really, Chris, these pickups are on their own level. I have no (expletive) idea what you did, but, bloody hell, these things are terrific.

Thanks a million, Bob S.

Reply from Chris Kinman ....thanks for your detailed report Bob, it's really great to have my efforts confirmed and appreciated in such a detailed descriptive way by a player of your caliber. All the great aspects you experienced ,,,, they are no accident. I have devoted many years to developing my P-90 Hx to the point of the Gen-3 v2 incarnation. The technology in these pickups is unique, highly advanced and like nothing the pickup world has ever seen. It started way way back in 2001 with a promise to my fans that I would deliver a great P-90 with Zero-Hum. That promise took 9 years to fulfil because of the many technical challenges I encountered. Despite those second generation P-90 Hx models being 3mm deeper than most pickup cavities catered for, we sold a ton of them over the years.

Last year in 2020, after running the original version unchanged for 11 years, I decided to shave 3mm off the height so the P-90 Hx would install into the great majority of existing pickup cavities. Well, that was easier said than done, and I soon found I had again bitten off more than I could chew. But, I seem to come alive when faced with impossible challenges and pretty soon I was getting into solving the considerable Electrical Engineering problems I encountered. It turns out I had to design a hum sensor with 1/4 the coil space of the original but must produce the same 1,000** millivolts of hum. On top of that excessive capacitance had to be minimized to negligible proportions so as not to rob high frequencies and dynamics from the pickup. This quest lasted some 9 months until I eventually met success. And then I had to figure out how to manufacture and tool up to make this complicated and highly advanced sensor that has a mere 40 component parts (the original H-Core sensor has 153 parts). Having made this huge effort your appreciation really pleases me, so thank you for your Report Card. CK

** as measured in our high precision Hum Measuring Apparatus.

UPDATE: We checked back with Bob after a few months to see if he felt the same way. He replied he still feels as strong as the first day he experienced our P-90 Hx.

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Bright Nasty 90