Active v Passive

[ed morgan]

Ok,I have some questions. I've always had passive pickups,Yamaha SA70 and Peavey T40. I recently bought an ESP LTD B50FL with active pickups. I was under the impression that active had more output,louder,signal than passive but I find I have to turn my amp up more than a quarter turn on the Esp to equal the volume on the Yamaha or Peavey. Is this normal? I haven't tried a new battery yet but it was this way right from the store. Also,is it hard to put passive pickups in a bass that came with actives? I didn't really want a bass with actives because I hate batteries but in this price range it seems tough to find a bass that's not active. Even the $500+ basses seem loaded with them. Maybe I'll learn to love them over time. Also,why don't they put off switches on active basses so you don't have to unplug them to keep from draining the battery (I'm told).

 

[line6man]

I was under the impression that active had more output,louder,signal than passive

No. That is a generalization. There is no inherent difference in output between active and passive. As it happens, some active setups provide gain boosts.

Also,why don't they put off switches on active basses so you don't have to unplug them to keep from draining the battery (I'm told).

Three reasons.
1. Power switching causes pops and DC offsets. Not pleasant to listen to, or good for your amp/other gear.
2. It requires additional poles of switching, so standard DPDT switches cannot be used.
3. There is no point. The average active system draws so little current that it isn't worth trying to conserve battery life. Adopting the proper procedure of unplugging basses after playing them is a better way to go about, and will average you months to years of play time on a single battery.

 

[iiipopes]

As an experiment, I put a full bypass, (like a stomp-box bypass) on a Spector bass that has two 35HZ's and the V/V/Tr/Bs preamp. I wired a DPDT push-pull so that when I pulled for passive, the control functioned as a conventional passive tone control. Yes, it only took one DPDT push-pull pot, because the pickups themselves are passive, and can be run without the preamp. My experience was that I had very little pop, almost unnoticeable. But the tone suffered. It had about the same gain, but I lost both treble and bass clarity. It wasn't a tonal change difference from passive straight instead of having active boost, because I experimented with the controls to get as close to the same tone active or passive. But you could really tell that the increased impedance loading in passive mode dulled everything out.

Now, the good side of a full passive bypass: On this particular bass, there is no separate battery box. So changing the battery involves taking the entire back cover off - all seven screws, so it takes time. Too much time. So on this particular bass, unless it is routed for a separate battery box, the full bypass can help get a person through a set until the battery can be changed at break.

 

[JustForSport]

So changing the battery involves taking the entire back cover off - all seven screws, so it takes time. Too much time. So on this particular bass, unless it is routed for a separate battery box, the full bypass can help get a person through a set until the battery can be changed at break.

Good point, but 7 screws once a year or less...provided a good alkaline battery is used and it wasn't left plugged in somewhere along the line: just change the battery once a year and don't worry.

 

[LoveThatBass]

I have found on my two ESP LTD basses that it is not a lot of gain until you start turning the Bass control up then it can get quite loud. You can then increase the Mid and treble slightly to make it sound the way you want

 

[RobbieK]

Actually, in general, the less gain a preamp has, the more battery life you get. Altering the gain or using eq boost won't effect the current draw, but it will effect the headroom you have. Remember that a battery slowly drops in voltage through its usable life. A low or no-gain pre with just a little EQ boost wound in and typical pickups will still be sounding fine with the battery as low as 6 volts. With a little gain, and your eq knobs boosted to 9 or 10, you'll be replacing the battery far sooner.

 

[ed morgan]

Ok,thanks a lot everyone! Guess I have a lot to learn.

 

[iiipopes]

Good point, but 7 screws once a year or less...provided a good alkaline battery is used and it wasn't left plugged in somewhere along the line: just change the battery once a year and don't worry.

I gig often enough that changing the battery happens more than once a year. But I won't worry anyway - it's done.