Are on board active preamps really necessary ?

[BassikBrad]

I'm beginning to notice more & more people saying they have stopped using their on board preamps,because they prefer the sound in passive mode. I have used numerous on board pre amps for many years but always end up switching them off & going passive. To my ears, I have yet to hear any benefit whatsoever over & above what my main amp EQ can achieve. IMO, they are an interesting gimmick & toy, which colors the sound & finer subtleties of good pickups & strings. They are a waste of money, which could be better spent on other parts of the signal chain. If you are not happy with the sound you are getting it's probably your amp, speakers,pickups or strings. I'm sorry to say this, as I sincerely do not wish to offend anyone who is of a sensitive nature but that
is what I hear & I also understand , that others can disagree.
I am interested in why they might be considered necessary ? Your thoughts, please.

 

[cornfarmer]

If you want that kind of sound, and more complex controls, more gadget-ry, etc. it's your money. In my experience, the sound of the pick up(s) makes more of an impact, and really good pickups don't need any help from a pre-amp, if any.

That being said, I just got a '80 Gibson RD which is active.....but it's kind of a weird/unique Moog designed circuit that sounds pretty different/wacky to my ears, compared to conventional pre-amps I've used in the past.

 

[BassplayinBob]

It’s just another tool for creating tone. One nice thing about active electronics is that you can plug directly into a board and control your sound on an ampless stage.

 

[Stumbo]

My Ibanez is passive/active. 3 band active eq allows me to beat pretty much any rig into submission, especially backline rigs where I don't really want to try adjusting them to my liking. Now, with my always-on Bro-ton HPF in the signal chain, no rig is safe from my machinations.

 

[Passinwind]

I am interested in why they might be considered necessary ? Your thoughts, please.

For me, mainly because I play through other people's rigs for short sets pretty frequently. Much easier for me to just tweak to taste on the bass and leave the rig alone as much as possible. OTOH, when I use my own rig the amp and preamp have been optimized to run together since I built both, and passive mode always leaves me wanting a bit. I don't even have a bypass switch on any of my 4 basses. Vive la difference!

 

[chadds]

It like recent posts isn’t right or wrong. It’s personal preference. Now a bit of nuance. Good passive beats budget active. Good active is just different than good passive.

Experiments adding active to a perfectly fine passive become a rabbit hole search. YMMV

When taken as whole instruments the combination of all the components make a great bass or not. I wouldn’t take a ‘57 ri and hope to gain anything from adding an active pre. If I pick up a Sadowski that has actives and I like everything about it, it’s going home with me.

Last bit. What does your rig like? What was it configured to sound the best with?

 

[RickBlair]

The older I get the less I want to complicate my signal path. Most of my basses are passive. My Carvin fretless sounds great with the original electronics but it has no bypass mode so I have to be concerned about the battery dying unexpectedly. My Modulus is my favorite active bass. The Lane Poor pickups sound exactly the same whether the Lane Poor preamp is on or off. It's just louder with the preamp on.

Rick B.

 

[lug]

Necessary? No, but neither is the G string.

 

[Killed_by_Death]

I've never really come across a pre-amp in a bass that I actually liked & rarely use the one in my current bass (keeping the switch in the passive position).

 

[GIBrat51]

Personally? I only have one active bass - out of 24 - and it's an Alembic. I'm...ambivalent, I guess.. about the fact that Alembics are active-or-nothing. It's a base model Epic, so the active system is pretty simple (for an Alembic); I can pretty much just set everything flat and ignore it if I choose. Which is exactly what I do, most of the time. I do appreciate that being able to tweak the bass' sound without having to run back and forth to the amp is very handy, but - it's not something I really need. Other people do, I guess, so - more power to them. I seem to remember that the "modern" active pre-amp systems - from Alembic, for example - were a solution to the problem of high output pickups getting so "Hot" that they became very harsh and unusable. A good sounding, very clean, lower output pickup, run through a pre-amp to boost the signal, was the solution. Which, IMO, is a very good idea; and the system in my Alembic does very little more than that. So, I can live with "active", if that's pretty much all it does. All the other stuff that active systems do now, is - for me, anyway - just a bunch of "Since we can, why don't we?" doo-dads, that I don't need. And, call me cheap, but I really, really don't like paying for stuff I don't need - or want. Besides, I cringe at the thought of a leaky battery in a $6K bass...

 

[Modler]

I'm sorry to say this, as I sincerely do not wish to offend anyone who is of a sensitive nature

No, but judging on your post it almost sounds like you yourself is a bit of a sensitive nature, and that you are actually offended by someone using a feature on their bass, that you have failed to grasp. And so, there must be something wrong about active basses, because you don't get them
I do not wish to offend you either, but that's what it sounds like

As a keyboard player I always find it kind of amusing when bass players complains about having too many knobs on their basses... have you guys ever tried to program a synthesizer?

But to answer your question: I love the preamp on my Sire, It's extremely musical and I always just play with flat EQ on the amp and use the Sire's 3-band EQ to sculp the sound.

The 2-band EQ on my (very cheap) Harley Benton is kind of useless compared to the Sire, and I usually just leave it flat.
Now if most onboard preamps are more like the Harley than the Sire, I can very well see why people find them annoying and unnecessary.

 

[Mark 63]

An active system seems to me to reproduce the fundamental of the low notes better. This can be done by the amp in a passive bass. But the Alembic Series system is extraordinarily quiet and yields a very pure fundamental with articulate balanced overtones. Assuming one can reach the top frets, it’s quite thrilling.

 

[Mark 63]

Does a piezo pickup rely on an active system?

 

[jd56hawk]

I prefer this.
Works with any bass.
Works without an amp.

 

[Turnaround]

You can have your controls on the bass, on a pedal on the floor, or on the amp that may be behind you or out of reach. I like the convenience of having them at my fingertips.

 

[Arthur U. Poon]

IMO with good passive pickups an onboard EQ isn't necessarily, but having an onboard EQ with the option of bypassing it to fully passive mode is a handy thing to have.

 

[Geri O]

I'm beginning to notice more & more people saying they have stopped using their on board preamps,because they prefer the sound in passive mode. I have used numerous on board pre amps for many years but always end up switching them off & going passive. To my ears, I have yet to hear any benefit whatsoever over & above what my main amp EQ can achieve. IMO, they are an interesting gimmick & toy, which colors the sound & finer subtleties of good pickups & strings. They are a waste of money, which could be better spent on other parts of the signal chain. If you are not happy with the sound you are getting it's probably your amp, speakers,pickups or strings. I'm sorry to say this, as I sincerely do not wish to offend anyone who is of a sensitive nature but that
is what I hear & I also understand , that others can disagree.
I am interested in why they might be considered necessary ? Your thoughts, please.

Your post doesn’t offend me.

It causes me to pity you that you harbor an opinion so heavily that you feel the need to question those that don’t agree with you and hide your animosity with “apologies to those with thin skin” (paraphrased of course).

Is it too much to simply enjoy what you play and respect (or at least ignore) those that approach the instrument in the way they see fit just as you did?

 

[rockscott]

Been there done that with active basses. Im all passive now & likely to remain there the rest of the way!

 

[ctmullins]

I went active a while ago, when I discovered how convenient it was to dial in different tones for different songs. We’re a cover band, so that’s a thing for me. Apparently other folk are happy running back to the amp and twiddling knobs on stage. Not me.

I only use good quality preamps though (John East, EMG, Audere), with good quality pickups, so that helps. And I usually run them at 18v for headroom.

It depends on the bass though. I can get so much tonal variation on my 4004 clone build, with its three pickups and ToneStyler, that I don’t feel it needs a preamp at all. So I guess I have one foot on each side of this argument....

 

[MrLenny1]

I was hooked on active basses the day I tried one.
No more turning around and messing with the amp.