Many active preamps/pickups can last hundreds of hours between battery changes. Just check the batteries when you do any maintenance and before important gigs.
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Active Basses: Yay or Nay?
- Thread starter Chico16
- Start date
Many active preamps/pickups can last hundreds of hours between battery changes. Just check the batteries when you do any maintenance and before important gigs.
Bought my first active bass in 1991, no issues to this day.
Just check the battery on a regular basis.
All of my 5 axes are now active, more output and tone IMHO.
Just check the battery on a regular basis.
All of my 5 axes are now active, more output and tone IMHO.
Sometimes Yay, sometimes Nay, so... I guess it's NYAY?
My basses are split about 50/50 passive and active. A couple of them are downright passive-aggressive.
My basses are split about 50/50 passive and active. A couple of them are downright passive-aggressive.
To me it comes down to where you want to make your EQ changes - on the bass or on the amp/effects or both. I have both active and passive basses, and I like both.
Reliability shouldn't be an issue. I do make sure to keep an extra battery around for my active Spector. I also (probably just paranoia) use my tuner to mute my signal and unplug my Spector when I'm not playing, just to save a little extra battery life. Anyway, it's never run out on me mid-gig.
Reliability shouldn't be an issue. I do make sure to keep an extra battery around for my active Spector. I also (probably just paranoia) use my tuner to mute my signal and unplug my Spector when I'm not playing, just to save a little extra battery life. Anyway, it's never run out on me mid-gig.
Had a Lakland with active/passive and currently have a MIM Jazz Deluxe. I liked the a/p push pull of the Lakland but the eq didn't work in passive. The Jazz does not have the switch. I have a G&L L2000 and mostly use passive although sometimes the room requires active.
Also have 2 Precision's that are passive. Really love that sound.
Also have 2 Precision's that are passive. Really love that sound.
Yay!
I have both active and passive basses. They all get regular use and they all sound great. Just different tools for the same job.
I have both active and passive basses. They all get regular use and they all sound great. Just different tools for the same job.
I'm not trying to start an argument but I have played several passive basses that have been hotter than any of the active ones I've played.....
I've owned both at one time or another and both do the job. I'd rather use the EQ in the amp myself so I am now and plan to stay passive. One less thing to stop up the drain.
Total yay for the past ten of forty years playing. Ran my basses through a Sadowsky floor preamp before I bought my Sadowsky bass. I just love the extra oomph it give me.
Active electronics come in a very wide variety of flavors and the gain and output vary widely as well. Some active basses have a very modest output.
HAHA, Bingo!
For me, after years of using modern active pick ups and preamps and trying to copy the really agressive tone of a lot of my favorite recordings I recently facepalmed myself and stripped it down to passive pickups. Bingo. Almost instantly.
Also, for me, the last thing I needed on a bass was more knobs. Some guys are artists with their on bass pre-amps. Me? Not so much. So I would always run them flat.
But in the end, as most things are, its personal preference and what your tonal needs are.
I prefer passive due to simplicity and the fact that I had a battery die in the middle of a set once. However, I'd consider one that runs in active or passive mode. If the battery dies just switch to passive and keep playing. Bada bing! This has kept me from buying a Music Man Stingray for years.
Ric5
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- Jan 29, 2008
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Active pickups simply means the preamp is actually in the pickup itself. Most active basses have passive pickups with a preamp that is seperate from the pickup itself.
I like active and passive basses. They are both good but 2 different flavors. Some cheaper 2 band preamps are not good. I am really liking the 4 band Audere preamps these days. Having 4 tone controls gives me a lot of control. The j-retro preamps are also good as is the Seymour Duncan 3 band Stingray replacement preamp.
I am not a fan of the EMG and Bartolini pickups in active basses. I prefer a more aggressive pickup.
Also with a passive bass the tone changes as you turn down the volume. With an active bass the tone is more stable with volume changes. And blend/balance knobs work better with active basses than passive basses.
I like active and passive basses. They are both good but 2 different flavors. Some cheaper 2 band preamps are not good. I am really liking the 4 band Audere preamps these days. Having 4 tone controls gives me a lot of control. The j-retro preamps are also good as is the Seymour Duncan 3 band Stingray replacement preamp.
I am not a fan of the EMG and Bartolini pickups in active basses. I prefer a more aggressive pickup.
Also with a passive bass the tone changes as you turn down the volume. With an active bass the tone is more stable with volume changes. And blend/balance knobs work better with active basses than passive basses.
Active basses come in three flavors, those with active pickups, those with passive pickups and an in-bass preamp/EQ (like the SR605), and I assume there are some that have both active pickups and in-bass preamps. There probably are some exotic pickup designs that need an internal preamp to function well at all but this is not a sign of "weakness", it merely indicates the use of a different technology that may well be very "strong" in most respects. The pickups in an active bass that has passive pickups with an in-bass preamp are typically identical to those you might find in a passive bass. There is nothing weak or strange about them.
The biggest sonic difference between active and passive basses is in how the pickups are loaded. In a passive bass they are loaded with a passive tone control, pot resistances, and a cable to the stage amp that may be quite long and highly capacitive. In a lot of active basses the pickups go right into a high impedance buffer amplifier and they see none of these loading effects (except maybe the resistance of a pan/balance pot) so they will sound different. This is the only real reason to prefer passive over active as far as I can see and you can build (or modify) active basses with passive tone controls before the preamp if you want to recapture that passive sound better.
Sure, an active bass is a bit less reliable than a passive. Adding complexity to a system never increases reliability. But they are so reliable that it makes no difference. As long as you can remember to manage your battery you will be fine and as brain dead simple as that is, it still trips up some owners. Don't be offended if you are one, it is not a matter of intelligence but rather personality and a lot of highly creative people have trouble dealing with mundane details. Albert Einstein was rumored to have trouble doing his income tax returns after all....
Ken
The biggest sonic difference between active and passive basses is in how the pickups are loaded. In a passive bass they are loaded with a passive tone control, pot resistances, and a cable to the stage amp that may be quite long and highly capacitive. In a lot of active basses the pickups go right into a high impedance buffer amplifier and they see none of these loading effects (except maybe the resistance of a pan/balance pot) so they will sound different. This is the only real reason to prefer passive over active as far as I can see and you can build (or modify) active basses with passive tone controls before the preamp if you want to recapture that passive sound better.
Sure, an active bass is a bit less reliable than a passive. Adding complexity to a system never increases reliability. But they are so reliable that it makes no difference. As long as you can remember to manage your battery you will be fine and as brain dead simple as that is, it still trips up some owners. Don't be offended if you are one, it is not a matter of intelligence but rather personality and a lot of highly creative people have trouble dealing with mundane details. Albert Einstein was rumored to have trouble doing his income tax returns after all....
Ken
The quality and flexibility can vary widely. I think actives get a very bad rap because the inexpensive and older active pre-amps aren't very flexible and tend to be a lot more metallic. A few no-name active basses I've tried a long time ago had two modes: tin can and even bigger tin can. Good pre-amps can really expand the vocabulary of the bass to allow for vintage and modern tones with ease.
