Single Cut Guitars with TCI pickups and Trem?

[scott clydesdale]

Hi folks, Greetings from Canada! I've been looking for a single cut PRS with TCI pickups and a trem (vibrato) bridge. Found the single cut Santana, and then found there are none to be found- discontinued, I guess. Paul's Guitar has the TCI's, but is not a single cut, and there is the Floyd Rose model, a double cut with no TCI's. I just wanted to ask if I have missed a model. Thank you.

 

[bodia]

Nope. No singlecut trem in the current offerings. You could always pick up a used Singlecut Trem and then grab a set of TCI pickups from PRS.

 

[SinSir]

Tremonti is my singlecut guitar with trem. Has Tremonti pickups though. Huge fan of them and guitar.

 

[Bogner]

Go Used And Make It As You Want It Pickup Wise As Was Stated Above Or Grab A Tremonti. Either Way you Go, You Can't Make A Bad Decision.

 

[scott clydesdale]

Nope. No singlecut trem in the current offerings. You could always pick up a used Singlecut Trem and then grab a set of TCI pickups from PRS.

Thanks, Bodia. Off the top of your head, do you recall a singlecut with a trem other than the Santana ?

 

[scott clydesdale]

Tremonti is my singlecut guitar with trem. Has Tremonti pickups though. Huge fan of them and guitar.

I'll check out the Tremonti, SinSir. Thanks.

 

[scott clydesdale]

Go Used And Make It As You Want It Pickup Wise As Was Stated Above Or Grab A Tremonti. Either Way you Go, You Can't Make A Bad Decision.

Looks like those are my plan B and plan C, Bogner.

 

[ViperDoc]

TCI technology has been applied to multiple PRS pickups designs. I'm assuming you're referring to standard humbucker shapes. 58/18LT TCI pickups are the only available models that come to mind.

The Tremonti is fantastic. I swapped my stock pickups for BKP Riff Raff/Mule and they rock.

 

[Bogner]

PRS Did Make A Singlecut Trem And They Are Great Guitars. 1V, 1T And A 3 Way Toggle. They Are Around And Not A Ton Of Money And Could Be A Great Way To Go On The Used Market. The Body Isn't As Thick As "Other" Singlecuts But Again, Great Guitars.

 

[scott clydesdale]

PRS Did Make A Singlecut Trem And They Are Great Guitars. 1V, 1T And A 3 Way Toggle. They Are Around And Not A Ton Of Money And Could Be A Great Way To Go On The Used Market. The Body Isn't As Thick As "Other" Singlecuts But Again, Great Guitars.

Thanks, I'll check Reverb.

 

[RC Mike]

Hi folks, Greetings from Canada! I've been looking for a single cut PRS with TCI pickups and a trem (vibrato) bridge. Found the single cut Santana, and then found there are none to be found- discontinued, I guess. Paul's Guitar has the TCI's, but is not a single cut, and there is the Floyd Rose model, a double cut with no TCI's. I just wanted to ask if I have missed a model. Thank you.

When you reference a Paul’s Guitar’s TCI pickups, you confuse things a bit. TCI pickups are the non-standard shaped pickups on a Paul’s. Other recent PRS pickups have “TCI” versions, which you’ll find doesn’t actually get defined very well. As I understand it, it’s attempting to reduce the variability between individual pickups of the same model.

There haven’t been any SC guitars made with the Paul’s Guitar pickups. A Tremonti can have a trem and pickups that have the TCI process. That’s the only stock SC model that meets your criteria.

I wouldn’t suggest going out of your way to worry about TCI. Not a big deal, in my opinion.

 

[scott clydesdale]

When you reference a Paul’s Guitar’s TCI pickups, you confuse things a bit. TCI pickups are the non-standard shaped pickups on a Paul’s. Other recent PRS pickups have “TCI” versions, which you’ll find doesn’t actually get defined very well. As I understand it, it’s attempting to reduce the variability between individual pickups of the same model.

There haven’t been any SC guitars made with the Paul’s Guitar pickups. A Tremonti can have a trem and pickups that have the TCI process. That’s the only stock SC model that meets your criteria.

I wouldn’t suggest going out of your way to worry about TCI. Not a big deal, in my opinion.

I've used this site's poster gpdb's excellent May 15th and Nov. 18th/22 articles concerning TCI pickup design as a source of info, as well as the video "Paul Reed Smith Explains PRS Pickup Design". Sorry I confused things, but I was just querying model availability, not attempting to present concise information. If I may quote from gpdb's post of May 15th/22, "...So
overall TCI is a pickup model name (TCI and TCI "S"), an updated version of many pickup models since 2020 (you could almost think of it as a v2), and for guitars with mini-toggles like the Paul's Guitar or 24-08, it's also an electronics system."
What I find interesting, not worrying, about the PRS approach is IMHO I think in part they are analyzing the frequency responses of the sound of certain players, and then replicating that in signature models. So the pickups in a Santana may be somewhat biased more to Santana's characteristic sound via the TCI process and replication, and the same for a Tremonti..

 

[SinSir]

I wouldn’t suggest going out of your way to worry about TCI. Not a big deal, in my opinion.

Agree 100%. TCI as a process to the core pickups is more marketing speak to me than anything.

 

[RC Mike]

"...So overall TCI is a pickup model name (TCI and TCI "S"), an updated version of many pickup models since 2020 (you could almost think of it as a v2), and for guitars with mini-toggles like the Paul's Guitar or 24-08, it's also an electronics system."

I’d suggest being a bit skeptical of that. Mini-toggles are nothing more than switches. They simply turn part of the pickup off or on. There’s no magic to a mini-switch. It’s an alternative design choice to the push-pull tone pot switch that is used on many other guitars. There’s nothing more to a mini-switch than that.

What I find interesting, not worrying, about the PRS approach is IMHO I think in part they are analyzing the frequency responses of the sound of certain players, and then replicating that in signature models. So the pickups in a Santana may be somewhat biased more to Santana's characteristic sound via the TCI process and replication, and the same for a Tremonti..

I would suggest that any artist signature pickups were already biased towards that artist’s desired sound. TCI, near as I or anyone can tell, is just about creating more consistency from pickups. In other words, each 58/15 LT TCI is intended have less variance as opposed to another 58/15 LT TCI. It’s like making sure every Grade AA large egg is exactly the same size.

Were the pickups inconsistent before the TCI process was introduced? That probably depends on how you analyze them. Is TCI a marketing tool? Most assuredly. Has it made previous pickups obsolete and set the world on fire? Definitely not.

In the end, PRS was able to apply some of Paul’s work on frequency analysis to pickup design. They thought it was significant enough to make a marketing campaign out of it. Keep in mind that they also did that with tuner buttons this year. Come to your own conclusions about the significance of PRS making some videos.

 

[scott clydesdale]

I’d suggest being a bit skeptical of that. Mini-toggles are nothing more than switches. They simply turn part of the pickup off or on. There’s no magic to a mini-switch. It’s an alternative design choice to the push-pull tone pot switch that is used on many other guitars. There’s nothing more to a mini-switch than that.


I would suggest that any artist signature pickups were already biased towards that artist’s desired sound. TCI, near as I or anyone can tell, is just about creating more consistency from pickups. In other words, each 58/15 LT TCI is intended have less variance as opposed to another 58/15 LT TCI. It’s like making sure every Grade AA large egg is exactly the same size.

Were the pickups inconsistent before the TCI process was introduced? That probably depends on how you analyze them. Is TCI a marketing tool? Most assuredly. Has it made previous pickups obsolete and set the world on fire? Definitely not.

In the end, PRS was able to apply some of Paul’s work on frequency analysis to pickup design. They thought it was significant enough to make a marketing campaign out of it. Keep in mind that they also did that with tuner buttons this year. Come to your own conclusions about the significance of PRS making some videos.

Thank you RC Mike, for your opinion.

 

[SinSir]

One thing I'll add.. I do like that my 5708TCI are 5 wire so I can tweak north and south. That's the bigger welcomed addition to me than anything.

 

[Headset]

If you go Tremonti you get the up route tremolo. It’s a pretty distinct feature to that model in the PRS lineup.

 

[gush]

Nope. No singlecut trem in the current offerings. You could always pick up a used Singlecut Trem and then grab a set of TCI pickups from PRS.

Tremonti???

 

[SinSir]

If you go Tremonti you get the up route tremolo. It’s a pretty distinct feature to that model in the PRS lineup.

I wish all my PRS had it

 

[bodia]

Tremonti???

Yeah, my bad