Active EMG's with a preamp?

[billhilly66]

My friend emailed and said his preamp was going out on his Ibabez bass. It's an Ergodyne series and he's got an EMG P 5 and P 40 in it. He says he's got the EMG's wired to the stock preamp in the bass and when he asked for help, I told him it sounded like the pre was going bad and recommended the Bartolini 3 band pre-wired preamp.

He emailed back and said the EMG pickups are active and asked if they would work with the Bart preamp. I don't know so any ideas?

 

[THand]

Dunno, but EMG makes a preamp that will work with them.

Here: EMG Preamps

 

[mmbongo]

+1 on EMG preamps.

My Spector has an active EMG with an Aguilar preamp, it's just a matter of using the right pots.

Audere Classic preamps also works with active pickups if you use the coupling caps they have for them.

 

[keiththebassist]

+2 An EMG pickup deserves and EMG preamp.

 

[levis76]

I think Bart preamps only work with passive p'ups. Most of them have a push/pull vol pot to switch between passive and active, and the vast majority of Bartolini p'ups are passive. Most EMG preamps are designed to work with passive or active p'ups.

 

[FunkMetalBass]

I've never seen a preamp that won't work with active pickups. Just use 25k volume pots for the active pickups instead of the 250k that the manufacturers usually send.

I have active EMGs and non-EMG preamps in a few of my basses.

 

[line6man]

I think Bart preamps only work with passive p'ups.

The only difference between active and passive pickups is output impedance, and since active pickups have the lower impedance, any preamp with a high enough input impedance for passive pickups will work fine with them.

The exception being preamps with input stages designed to work with the resonant circuit of the pickup coils. In such a case, you would not get the same results with an active pickup, since the coils are buffered from the output. I don't think that the Bartolini preamps are designed this way, few preamps are.

 

[liyuan0204]

The only difference between active and passive pickups is output impedance, and since active pickups have the lower impedance, any preamp with a high enough input impedance for passive pickups will work fine with them.

The exception being preamps with input stages designed to work with the resonant circuit of the pickup coils. In such a case, you would not get the same results with an active pickup, since the coils are buffered from the output. I don't think that the Bartolini preamps are designed this way, few preamps are.

The example is Audere's preamp
I remember on their site it says they have buffer at the input stage of the preamp,
so you are only able to dial a high impedance signal into the preamp.
(Hope what I thought is correct.... XD)

---

Losing Art, the art of losing.

 

[SGD Lutherie]

The example is Audere's preamp
I remember on their site it says they have buffer at the input stage of the preamp,
so you are only able to dial a high impedance signal into the preamp.
(Hope what I thought is correct.... XD)

It doesn't matter. To give an example, most amplifiers have at least 1M input impedances. And you can plug in active basses and pickups with no problems.

The input impedance has to be higher than the source's output impedance.

EMGs work fine with most preamps. I used active EMGs with their BTC preamps for years, and then replaced the active pickups with my passive pickups, and that worked fine also.

 

[line6man]

The example is Audere's preamp
I remember on their site it says they have buffer at the input stage of the preamp,
so you are only able to dial a high impedance signal into the preamp.
(Hope what I thought is correct.... XD)

---

Losing Art, the art of losing.

Auderes have a variable impedance load switch or something, that allows you to alter the way the input works with the resonant circuit.

The loading options are lost when using a low impedance buffered pickup, like an EMG. That's not to say you can't use active pickups, however, the results just won't be the same.