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Active tone vs. passive tone

#21
khutch said:
...but they do nothing to suppress ordinary thermal noise, the kind of noise a preamp makes.
Click to expand...
Everything with resistance produces thermal noise.

I tend to find the lower bass and the treble ranges of actives are a little stronger than passives. I agree that actives are versatile due to the EQ options and low impedance drive capability but I feel that there are some times when a passive bass fits better for certain styles/songs.
 
#22
Zanderwestcoast said:
I am going to rock the boat a little on this.... I am of the opinion that if you took two of the same identical instruments and they were both of exceptional quality, resonate and sound amazing without being plugged in, then the passive instrument should always sound better. When I say better, I mean a truer representation of the instruments character and tone. Introducing onboard circuits into the signal path will likely only deter from this, not to mention introduce noise.
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I'm not sure I agree with this. I have a Pedulla with Bart pickups and a Bart preamp with an active/passive toggle. Other than the difference in volume, the active mode sounds clearer and more full, whereas the passive mode sounds... I guess "weak" or "uninspiring" might be good adjectives. It just seems to lack the character that's present in the active mode, even set flat with the volume adjusted to be the same.

I don't think that truer to the instrument is an actual concept because the preamp is part of the instrument and therefore contributes to its character. Without the pre it's a different instrument.
 
#24
Zanderwestcoast said:
I am going to rock the boat a little on this....
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As someone else has said a passive bass is subject to tonal loss due to all the things that you connect to it. The only way to avoid that is to buffer it by some means. An active bass has that buffer right on board and the buffer in an active bass is no lower quality than the active components you use externally. The low current opamps generally found in active basses generate somewhat more noise than the high current opamps used in external devices where battery life is not an issue. The thermal and 1/f noise level from an active bass is rarely an issue, however, and if it is for you then you can put low noise opamps into your bass, or you can look around on the preamp marketplace. Someone may make low noise bass preamps you can retrofit. Personally I would always use 18V because the headroom available from a single 9V battery is going to limit your battery life unless you use low output pickups or compress the signal on board. Other than those two items which are secondary concerns the preamps found in the Fender and Ibanez basses I have owned have been high quality and the instruments sound great. Chinese factories turn out some of the highest quality electronic goods available today. Long ago some visionary American and Japanese industrial engineers realized that high quality was the only route to the lowest possible cost. So the expectation is that "cheap Chinese built onboard EQ circuits" will surpass anything built by hand as long as they come from respectable factories as they frequently do. I don't care whether you or anyone else uses active or passive basses. How could I when I use both myself? I just would not avoid active basses for the reasons you mention.

mrmills said:
Everything with resistance produces thermal noise.
Click to expand...

Yes, I know that quite well. I was responding to someone who seems to believe that "noiseless" pickups are used with active basses to counteract the somewhat higher noise floor of the low current opamps often found in active basses. I was just pointing out that this is not true. A "noiseless" pickup generates as much thermal noise as any other pickup with the same resistance and there is no way to counteract opamp noise other than by selecting opamps with lower noise floors which will have higher current drains and shorter battery life. Fender calls their dual coil pickups noiseless because they are hum canceling designs but they do not and can not do anything to reduce the system thermal noise level.
 
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#25
I think the real tone of active basses is found in the Musicman Stingray. When I compared the OLP passive variation to the real EB Stingray I could hear a distinct difference, not a huge difference but a distinct one.
When pickup is closer to the bridge like that, you wont get a lot of lows so the preamp expands those frequencies.
 
#26
khutch said:
As someone else has said a passive bass is subject to tonal loss due to all the things that you connect to it. The only way to avoid that is to buffer it by some means. An active bass has that buffer right on board and the buffer in an active bass is no lower quality than the active components you use externally. The low current opamps generally found in active basses generate somewhat more noise than the high current opamps used in external devices where battery life is not an issue. The thermal and 1/f noise level from an active bass is rarely an issue, however, and if it is for you then you can put low noise opamps into your bass, or you can look around on the preamp marketplace. Someone may make low noise bass preamps you can retrofit. Personally I would always use 18V because the headroom available from a single 9V battery is going to limit your battery life unless you use low output pickups or compress the signal on board. Other than those two items which are secondary concerns the preamps found in the Fender and Ibanez basses I have owned have been high quality and the instruments sound great. Chinese factories turn out some of the highest quality electronic goods available today. Long ago some visionary American and Japanese industrial engineers realized that high quality was the only route to the lowest possible cost. So the expectation is that "cheap Chinese built onboard EQ circuits" will surpass anything built by hand as long as they come from respectable factories as they frequently do. I don't care whether you or anyone else uses active or passive basses. How could I when I use both myself? I just would not avoid active basses for the reasons you mention.



Yes, I know that quite well. I was responding to someone who seems to believe that "noiseless" pickups are used with active basses to counteract the somewhat higher noise floor of the low current opamps often found in active basses. I was just pointing out that this is not true. A "noiseless" pickup generates as much thermal noise as any other pickup with the same resistance and there is no way to counteract opamp noise other than by selecting opamps with lower noise floors which will have higher current drains and shorter battery life. Fender calls their dual coil pickups noiseless because they are hum canceling designs but they do not and can not do anything to reduce the system thermal noise level.
Click to expand...

That was me, going beyond the realm of my proper understanding of the subject. Pay no mind.
 
#27
Zanderwestcoast said:
Introducing onboard circuits into the signal path will likely only deter from this, not to mention introduce noise.

Does the average cheap Chinese built onboard EQ circuit, sound as good as the EQ available in a quality hand wired amp? Not likely. To me thats a compromise.
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Well, I suppose this depends on the bass/builder and quality of electronics. I have been an active guy for a long time. I've used Bartolini maybe 98% of the time and had no issues - even in my "cheap" basses.

My current bass (Roscoe) is dead quiet, and though I run it "flat" 99% of the time, when I experiment with EQ (like full on everything) it is still VERY quiet.
 
#29
crust_cheese said:
So would I be right in assuming that an active bass could deliver me that bright, sightly "clanky" bass tone that I love? Like what you get when you crank up the tone knob - I don't know how to describe it, it sounds like an ever so slight musical fret buzz
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I don't know what your gear setup is like, but I would highly recommend checking into SansAmp Tech21 pedals if you have not already. This would allow for adding in varying degrees of that slightly bright, metallic "clank" (which I love too, btw) to your tone and still let you work with your passive bass without feeling the need to purchase an entirely new instrument - unless you simply wanted to of course. Just a thought - best of luck!
 
#30
Many times "active" is taken to mean boosted, on my EBMM Sterling Single H I mostly use cut to get my levels down to normal passive output. Only the bass level on the neck pickup has any boost at all and that is just slight. This bass has two Audere 2 band preamps in it so 3/4 of the bands are hardly on, that makes for lots of headroom and very natural tone. Active systems are very handy when playing live, and when using a provided backline, that's how I got into using them.
 
#31
Absumone said:
I had the same problem as you with the big muff sounding meh, and it was definitely due to my bass being active. The signal an Active bass sends is just too powerful for the big muff to handle and to cooperate with. It can't get the proper effect out and it makes it sound... weird. I love my active Ibanez bass, but I just ordered myself a passive Fender Nate Mendel P bass for when I need that passive tone to come through, just to have the best of both worlds :)
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I had an Ibanez SR something recently. For the sake of it, I wired a bypass switch. The preamp on the Ibanez is very transparent. As in bypassed and engaged (with all the knobs at 12), you could hardly tell the difference, in tone or volume. Some preamps aren't transparent. My EMG preamp is not all that transparent and I can definitely hear the passive tone being different, but it's still the same volume.

Contrary to popular belief, most modern preamps do not send a more powerful signal than the passive input. Maybe in the past, preamps did in fact increase gain, but most preamps these days are at unity gain with all the knobs at 12 o'clock. So the only thing it really does for your tone is buffer it, and that's something even a Boss tuner pedal would do.

Maybe the reason why your Big Muff sounds bad with the Ibanez might be because Ibanez pickups are usually deep and thick sounding, whereas Fender pickups tend to be bright and thinner sounding.
 
#32
So, anyway, there are so many difference between the average passive and active bass that it's stupid to discuss the two without considering all the variables.

For instance, the average passive bass that people have experience with is probably a Fender or Fender-copy bolt-on with single coil or P pickups. Such basses have a bright sound that is considered "thin" by many standards but sits well in a rock mix with distorted guitars.

Meanwhile, I feel like when people say active bass, they're talking about a bass that's not a Fender. And to differentiate, they usually have minimal in common with Fenders. Most such basses have dual coil humbuckers and soapbars and such, and if they have split coils, they're Bartolinis or something that sounds almost nothing like a J or P pickup. The reason why these kinds of basses sound nothing like Fender isn't just because of the active circuit. When so many changes are present, suggesting that the changes have to do with active EQ is a bit premature, because even if your average Ibanez SR500 had its preamp completely bypassed, it'd sound thicker and heavier than a stock Fender J Bass because the pickups are completely different.

Even within Fender, their active models tend to have humbucking noiseless pickups instead of true single coils like their passive counterparts. So how can you truly differentiate active vs. passive?

The only way you can truly compare active vs. passive is to wire an active/passive bypass switch, which will let you know what kind of effect the active EQ has on your tone. But even that's not a truly fair comparison in most cases. I'm saying that because a passive bass will have, say, a 500k Volume and 500k Tone knob, and a lot of people won't set the tone knob at 10. Meanwhile, an active/passive bypass switch will likely go direct from 500k Volume to jack, so there usually won't be a tone knob anymore, because the switch is considered a panic switch more than an actual tonal option, a lot of the time. So this might result in a "thin" tone that you wouldn't normally like, but if you had a passive tone control, you'd have set it at 7 and that would have done everything you needed the tone to be, because as I've said before in another post, passive controls often have a weird effect where you just roll off highs a bit and that almost seems to have a weird effect of bringing out the midrange or bass or things like that, whereas active controls are a lot more pinpoint and isolated in terms of exactly what they do.

So you can only compare active/passive on a bass that has both passive and active tone controls, and that's such a small minority of active basses out there. But if you start to eliminate the confounding variables, I'm sure you can see that your average modern-day active EQ doesn't have that much of an effect on tone.
 
#33
Anyway, the fact that people think there's "an active tone" leads me to believe that the real problem is that people think "thick" and "full" is a good thing on a bass, so basses are often built with such a sound. Sure, it makes you sound great in the bedroom, but out in the real world, it's pretty easy to make a single coil sound like a humbucker, whereas it's hard to do it the other way, so people with "thick" sounding basses often struggle to get their tone to be versatile. Meanwhile, lowly Fender single coils sound can work in every situation because they're easier to adapt to different situations.

If anything, it's a case against humbuckers rather than a case against active circuits. Which is why I often shake my head when people like Ibanez continue to abandon their JJ and PJ setups for their toneless dual coil soapbar setups, yet you look at their high end, and their entire Prestige lineup has Nordstrand single coils. Maybe they, too, realized that it's single coils that can offer a more subtle, expensive if you will, versatile, beautiful sound. I'm not saying that humbuckers can't sound great. I love the sound of a Stingray, and I think high end humbuckers can sound great, and you look at the top end models from Zon and Spector and the like, and they have humbuckers and yet plenty of clarity and cut. But the active bass world is flooded with cheap, toneless, dull humbuckers that sound great for bedroom warriors but have no presence and don't really work in a band setting. And that's really their problem.
 
#34
crust_cheese said:
Hi guys

So, I've always been under the impression that passive basses are tonally speaking similar to active basses, except that an active bass will allow for more versatility due to the fact that it is able of both cutting and boosting frequencies.

Now, though, I'm not so sure anymore. I've seen people recommend an explicitly passive this and that bass for this and that sound, and I found out some pedals for instance don't actually play all that nice with active basses (might be the reason why my Bass Big Muff sounds meh).

While I do get that some pedals will misbehave due to electronic magic stuff happening, I'm still confused about the tone. Is there a signature active bass tone? Is it impossible to truly capture the "passive tone" with an active bass? Are there some passive things where an active will simply not work and vice versa?

Now I do understand that there's probably a whole lot of "it depends'" involved, so we might as well assume we're talking of i.e. two otherwise identical jazz basses, one being active, the other passive.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

Are you talking about active pickups versus passive pickups, or having an onboard preamp?

Many preamps are designed to transparent when set flat; I have a few basses with passive pickups and OBP-2's, and with the preamp set flat there is little to no difference in tone whether the preamp is engaged or bypassed. Glockenklang is also known for their transparent preamps.

Other preamps have more of a 'baked in' sound that colors the tone even when set flat; EMG and Spector tone circuits are a great example.

Active pickups on the other hand are a different animal entirely; their built-in preamps color the tone immediately.

I've definitely noticed that active pickups don't play nearly as well with effects as passive pickups do, nor do they have the same dynamic range, which is why all of my basses have passive pickups.
 
#35
I do not avoid active basses. In fact I currently own 4 quality active basses as well as a few passive basses. Active basses respond differently in your hands, can be quick and snappy and sometimes even easier to play. My point is only in regards to the discussion of an instruments tone. If you have a dull plank that sounds like s*** it ain't going to matter either way. But I am of the strong opinion in the basic principle that assuming you have a wonderfully great acoustic, resonant, wood instrument, with high quality passive pickups, it should undoubtedly sound better and more true to its acoustic character, with passive electronics rather than if you introduce an active circuit into the signal path. Perhaps, the difference is subtle on some instruments and not noticeable to some players ears, but to others ears, it may be very noticeable.

Check out this article regarding the design of Fodera's Anthony Jackson Presentation bass. A bass recognized as the pinnacle of what a hand built wooden instrument can be, and extremely expensive. They are all passive. In fact, Vinnie himself recently said this was THE best sounding bass he has EVER built.

http://bassplayer.com/article.aspx?articleid=27351&categoryid=1164
 
#39
Zanderwestcoast said:
Yes, active circuits can change the way the instrument responds in your hands, which is sometimes a good thing depending on your playing style. Yes, having the ability to EQ your bass itself rather than walk back to your amp is CONVENIENT. But does it sound better? Does the average cheap Chinese built onboard EQ circuit, sound as good as the EQ available in a quality hand wired amp? Not likely. To me thats a compromise.
Click to expand...

In the same way, does the average cheap Chinese built amp sound as good as a quality hand-wired onboard circuit? 'Cause you know, your comparison wasn't very fair, and suggested that all onboard preamps are cheap and inferior to any EQ found in any amp, which is simply not true.
I've got a high quality onboard preamp in my main bass, used mostly as a buffer to drive the cables and pedals. With a short cable, the bass sounds identical in the active mode with flat EQ as in the passive mode. The longer the cable, the muddier the passive tone gets, while the active one remains unchanged. Here goes the myth that the passive is "truer".

Not to mention, there's a lot of super high quality stuff coming out of China, so that remark wasn't fair or true either.
 
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