What is a TCI pickup and how does it sound hum bucking or single coil

[JohnHurley]

TCI is a PRS name for what it calls "Tuned Capacitance Inductance". After listening to a number of various people Paul seems to be saying "they are able to tune" the pickup and control how much lower bass sound comes out ( capacity ) and how much higher frequency treble comes out ( inductance ). Yeah yeah it still sounds pretty mumbo jumbo ie but he seems to be saying they can tune them so that of course the "real note" being played comes out but they can shape the harmonics to ( I guess ) so that maybe less higher octaves above resonate versus sometimes more lower sounds. Dang I still am not explaining this well.

Here is a really good sound demo of the pickups in action on the SE Pauls Guitar. The best demo I have seen on them in action. By Desi Serna I am not familiar with name but he can play dang!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzqKqrPGffA

 

[Fro68]

It’s all marketing. He said it started when they did the Silver Sky pickups. As far as I know, they check each pot and add a matching resister to make it exactly 300 ohms. This way they’re all consistent. I’m guessing they’re doing the same thing now and calling it TCI.
It’s great marketing. All PRS will need to replace their collection to have the best pickups.

 

[Rancid Rumpboogie]

TCI is a PRS name for what it calls "Tuned Capacitance Inductance". After listening to a number of various people Paul seems to be saying "they are able to tune" the pickup and control how much lower bass sound comes out ( capacity ) and how much higher frequency treble comes out ( inductance ). Yeah yeah it still sounds pretty mumbo jumbo ie but he seems to be saying they can tune them so that of course the "real note" being played comes out but they can shape the harmonics to ( I guess ) so that maybe less higher octaves above resonate versus sometimes more lower sounds. Dang I still am not explaining this well.

Here is a really good sound demo of the pickups in action on the SE Pauls Guitar. The best demo I have seen on them in action. By Desi Serna I am not familiar with name but he can play dang!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzqKqrPGffA

Those are pretty darned nice sounding pickups, regardless of the "mumbo jumbo", and they do sound more authentically single-coil than any split humbucker that I have ever heard. And this is coming from Pickup-anal Rancid. They are the first and only full humbuckers I have ever heard that actually pull off this feat ... with one exception and that is the Zexcoil Convertible.

 

[JestMe]

Great demo and great playing.

One thing that caught my eye... or my ear, was it seems like the switch from humbucker to single coil did not have a drop off in volume...

Is that correct?

 

[JohnHurley]

It’s all marketing. He said it started when they did the Silver Sky pickups. As far as I know, they check each pot and add a matching resister to make it exactly 300 ohms. This way they’re all consistent. I’m guessing they’re doing the same thing now and calling it TCI.
It’s great marketing.

Well I have been playing them a bunch and it's more than marketing at least how they sound. Yeah the TCI thing not exactly explained clearly Paul states in one video they tune them completely by varying things like wire widths/lengths bobbin circumference number of winds and wind patterns that they can completely tune them now. Its really a bit strange hearing some of that ...

But they figured out something there is a complexity and fullness

 

[JohnHurley]

One thing that caught my eye... or my ear, was it seems like the switch from humbucker to single coil did not have a drop off in volume...

Yeah they do go down in volume but not much at all ... another mystery yikes!

 

[JPsuff]

Yeah they do go down in volume but not much at all ... another mystery yikes!

Really?

Mine don't lose any volume at all.

Or put another way, if they do, I'd need some kind of meter to detect it because I sure as hell can't hear any.

 

[Fro68]

They don’t lose any volume because when they split they either tap into some partial winds of the coil that was dropped out, or the coil that is still active was already tapped and the additional coils were added. Fender has a Double Tap humbucker that works the same way.
The pickups on the PRS I had would add in a resister to ground on the coil that was dropped, keeping a bit of that coil in the signal. It also sounded very good.