Whats the difference between a hot pickup and a not so hot one?

[BrandonBass]

other than the fact that its louder

[Shoewreck]

Hot pickups usually have more lows and mids.

[JustOpenYourMind]

In nutshell,

The term ''hot'' does not refer to anything in particular other than it being louder.

You'll often see people say that the pickups on their active bass is very hot and that it has monstruous output.

there bassicaly are two things that will make a pickup louder.

An active preamp with some gain structure that is meant to boost the output.

No change in tone there (depending on the preamp of course)

Or an overwound passive pickup.

These will have more lows and more low mid punch at the expense of highs that will be more subdued.

That is bassicly it.

Sorry, I can't really go into details, I have to go to work.

[pbagley]

Passive Overwound pickup - in my very limited experience these pickups will have a bit of a wild and woolly tone to them. Almost but not quite a bit of fuzz around the edges. Less of a clear and glassy tone, more murky and sometimes edging toward muddy. Definitely less highs.

A passive overwound pickup can be louder than an active bass. Stronger signal I guess.

I've also found that one of my overwound pickups is tough for some bass amps to handle. The passive input sounds gritty in a bad way and the active input sounds wimpy. This bass loves older tube amps, especially my Bassman 50.

I hope this helps.

- Paul

[darkstorm]

I agree that higher output pups tend to have more low freq content to them. Treble char will be affected by wether its a crunchy voiced pups or a smooth one. The latter do tend to be woolier & muddier sounding in my experience. Some high output pups Ive had have allmost too much treble content to them, though most have varied from just right to a bit subdued treble content. I do prefer dark tone so my just right may be a little bit subdued to others.