G&L Z-Coil single coils

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Does anyone have experience of the G&L Z coil pick ups ? they've been around since the 80s and are basically hum cancelling S/Cs but the treble poles are offset to towards the bridge, bit like the wide range p/up idea . Looked interesting, and you can buy them as separate units, but don't seem to have caught on though...and looking around, neither have G&L guitars...
 
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they are good sounding pups, a buddy had a g&l comanche? with em and i loved it, other than the narrow nut width. im not surprised they didnt catch on aftermarket since you need a swimming pool rout and new pickguard to use em.
 
they are good sounding pups, a buddy had a g&l comanche? with em and i loved it, other than the narrow nut width. im not surprised they didnt catch on aftermarket since you need a swimming pool rout and new pickguard to use em.

yes that's a point ..it's the non standard shape that must put people off . it's basically a humbucker. They make standard sized single coils and they have a bar magnet as opposed to magnetic poles...
 
Let's bend the G string above a side by side humbucker in neck position: the sound should fade away when the string passes from above the G pole to above the D pole.

It's due to the side by side design and explains the commercial fail of pickups like the Fender Super 55 Split Coils, for example.


There's a way to overcome this problem: Fralin Split Blades have itheir magnetic poles and coils ending further than the G and D strings, in such a way that each coil "hears" these two strings. It prevents any muting due to phase cancellation.
Evans Eliminators were also designed like that if memory serves me, at least for the mid and neck PU's - the bridge one hosted just two coils side by side, since the G string is rarely bent enough to go from a G pole to the D pole above a bridge PU...
Zexcoil pickups, with their six coils, host slanted blade poles going each under two strings for the same reason.

I frankly don't know to which extent G&L pickups have been designed to avoid this phenomenon. The temporary muting of a bent G string might also be slightly less noticeable with such Z shaped transducers, since their coils don't capture exactly the same harmonics because of their location.

But what I evoke explains largely IMHO why side by side HB's can be found mostly on bass guitars - where bending the D string above the A poles is generally not a risk... :-P

My two cents, FWIW. HTH. :-)
 
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