I have had a long relationship with luthier Mike Kinal. I fell in love with the design of his basses many years ago (probably more than 20 years ago) when I saw a review article in Bass Player Magazine. Around 2005 or so I traded a Modulus Genesis for a beautiful Kinal MK5B with a Goncalo Alves top. I played it for a few years until I finally commissioned my first custom, a DK5. I later sold the DK5 but loved it nonetheless, it was just too bulky and heavy. Around the same time I tried an SK5B of his with a Cocobolo top at a guitar show, and for me I liked it better than anything else there. I commissioned a custom SK5B with a Myrtlewood top which I still play a ton...it’s the one in my profile pic. I made some mods to the electronics and it’s now wearing a special set of Kent Armstrong pickups and an Aguilar OBP-3 preamp. A few years ago I commissioned my third custom Kinal, this time an MK5B with Nordstrand PJ pickups and an East preamp. But I’m here to tell you about the new one in the works...
The Kinal Kompact is a bass many of us are familiar with. I’ve always had an interest in one but it wasn’t until recently that I was ready to buy one. There have been a few good deals on used ones in the classifieds, but I just wasn’t sure I wanted a piezo pickup only bass. I talked to Mike about doing one with a piezo and magnetic pickup a few years ago, and he said it was possible. Then I bought a used Lakland HB30 and started to play it a lot at gigs. A hollowbody short scale, but a different design than the Kompact with magnetic pickups and a metal bridge. I really liked that bass, it had a great sound, but it wasn’t perfect...I kept thinking about how I’d want it to be different. Then I saw Carey Nordstrand’s new Acionyx bass he’d been working on, which had a lot in common with the Lakland, but different specs. I reached out to Carey and tried to get a set of those Acionyx pickups for the Lakland, but he didn’t have them in the size it needed. So, I reached out to Kent Armstrong and he said it would be best to rewind them. However when Kent received The Lakland’s pickups he decided they didn’t need rewound and instead suggested new pickups. So I ordered a new set of pickups, similar to the ones in my SK5B bass. Well, I decided not to use them in the Lakland after all. Instead, I sold my Lakland and put a deposit on a special version of the Kinal Kompact.
Mike has come out with a solid body version of the Kompact bass, but what I wanted was more like the Lakland HB30...a shortscale hollow body not that much different from a Hofner, but something uniquely Kinal since I have such a thing for his basses. So Mike and I decided to use the standard acoustic Kompact platform but to modify it to accommodate a metal bridge and use F-holes with magnetic pickups that are mounted to the top via pickup rings. So here are the final specs we are going with and some early pics...I will post more as I receive them.
Custom Kinal Kompact 4-string
Mahogany body
Quilted maple top
Roasted flamed maple neck
Quilted bubinga headstock overlay veneer
Ebony fingerboard & thumbrest
Birdseye maple dot inlays
Luminlay SuperBlue 3mm side dot inlays
30.75” scale
24 frets
12” radius
1.5” nut width
Bone nut
EVO Gold frets (.043” x .080”)
Babicz bridge with string-through-body stringing
Dunlop strap locks
David King wood knobs
Passive electronics
Custom Kent Armstrong handwound pickups (sidewinder neck, humbucker bridge)
Stacked CTS 500K Master Volume / 250K Passive Tone
Noll blend pot
Villex PRTB (Passive Rotary Tone Booster)
Two coil tap switches
Clear gloss finish body and headstock
Satin finish on back it neck
Here’s the top I chose:
and the mahogany body:
The quilted bubinga headstock veneer:
The roasted flame maple neck and his “practice” fingerboard:
More to come...let me know your thoughts. I’m looking forward to my new bass!
The cool part is I’m going to Vancouver in mid April to pick it up and meet Mike for the first time!
The Kinal Kompact is a bass many of us are familiar with. I’ve always had an interest in one but it wasn’t until recently that I was ready to buy one. There have been a few good deals on used ones in the classifieds, but I just wasn’t sure I wanted a piezo pickup only bass. I talked to Mike about doing one with a piezo and magnetic pickup a few years ago, and he said it was possible. Then I bought a used Lakland HB30 and started to play it a lot at gigs. A hollowbody short scale, but a different design than the Kompact with magnetic pickups and a metal bridge. I really liked that bass, it had a great sound, but it wasn’t perfect...I kept thinking about how I’d want it to be different. Then I saw Carey Nordstrand’s new Acionyx bass he’d been working on, which had a lot in common with the Lakland, but different specs. I reached out to Carey and tried to get a set of those Acionyx pickups for the Lakland, but he didn’t have them in the size it needed. So, I reached out to Kent Armstrong and he said it would be best to rewind them. However when Kent received The Lakland’s pickups he decided they didn’t need rewound and instead suggested new pickups. So I ordered a new set of pickups, similar to the ones in my SK5B bass. Well, I decided not to use them in the Lakland after all. Instead, I sold my Lakland and put a deposit on a special version of the Kinal Kompact.
Mike has come out with a solid body version of the Kompact bass, but what I wanted was more like the Lakland HB30...a shortscale hollow body not that much different from a Hofner, but something uniquely Kinal since I have such a thing for his basses. So Mike and I decided to use the standard acoustic Kompact platform but to modify it to accommodate a metal bridge and use F-holes with magnetic pickups that are mounted to the top via pickup rings. So here are the final specs we are going with and some early pics...I will post more as I receive them.
Custom Kinal Kompact 4-string
Mahogany body
Quilted maple top
Roasted flamed maple neck
Quilted bubinga headstock overlay veneer
Ebony fingerboard & thumbrest
Birdseye maple dot inlays
Luminlay SuperBlue 3mm side dot inlays
30.75” scale
24 frets
12” radius
1.5” nut width
Bone nut
EVO Gold frets (.043” x .080”)
Babicz bridge with string-through-body stringing
Dunlop strap locks
David King wood knobs
Passive electronics
Custom Kent Armstrong handwound pickups (sidewinder neck, humbucker bridge)
Stacked CTS 500K Master Volume / 250K Passive Tone
Noll blend pot
Villex PRTB (Passive Rotary Tone Booster)
Two coil tap switches
Clear gloss finish body and headstock
Satin finish on back it neck
Here’s the top I chose:
and the mahogany body:
The quilted bubinga headstock veneer:
The roasted flame maple neck and his “practice” fingerboard:
More to come...let me know your thoughts. I’m looking forward to my new bass!
The cool part is I’m going to Vancouver in mid April to pick it up and meet Mike for the first time!
