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Define Active & Passive

#10
Robert Spencer said:
My bass has a preamp (sliders with a battery). My amp has two inputs, one active & one passive. I gather I should use the active channel on the amp. Is this correct. Thanks again & take care. Bob
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The difference is usually that one is attenuated for use with exceptionally hot basses.
Always use the passive input unless your bass distorts it, then try the active input.

The only difference, electronically, between active and passive bass signals is that actives have a low impedance output while passives have a high impedance output.

Since your amp should have a very high input impedance, it does not matter whether the bass has a high or low output impedance.
 
#12
line6man said:
Again, not necessarily. You could have active pickups and passive controls.
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i disagree. active pickups, like emgs DO have a preamp in them (actually at least an opamp).

to me, and active bass means that it has either a battery powered pickup (or pickups) which have an internal amplifier, or passive pickups with a battery powered preamp (be it a buffer, eq or boost controls), or active pickups with a preamp.
 
#13
A passive circuit cannot add energy, it can only subtract it, or somewhat move it around (resonance as seen in passive filters). A passive circuit is highly interactive. There's only so much you can kind of isolate in a passive circuit. That's why it's largely pointless to say, have separate tone controls per pickup.

An active circuit requires an additional energy source, but can do a lot of things with that imported energy that a passive cannot do. It can also free passive components it's being used with from having to operate within a certain range, which means you can wind pickups differently for extended and less peaky response if you desire, etc.
 
#15
johnk_10 said:
i disagree. active pickups, like emgs DO have a preamp in them (actually at least an opamp).

to me, and active bass means that it has either a battery powered pickup (or pickups) which have an internal amplifier, or passive pickups with a battery powered preamp (be it a buffer, eq or boost controls), or active pickups with a preamp.
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Most people think of an "onboard preamp" as an actual preamp unit, usually with EQ, not the preamp you see in an active pickup. Technically any gain stage contained within the bass is an onboard preamp, however.
 
#16
yes, but regardless of 'what most people think', you previously erroneously corrected EpiRipper's comment:

Originally Posted by EpiRipper:

"An active bass has an onboard preamp, a passive bass does not."

by saying:

Line6man said:
"Again, not necessarily. You could have active pickups and passive controls."

and IMO, he was correct in saying that ALL active basses have a preamp, whether it's built into the pickup or not.
 
#17
johnk_10 said:
yes, but regardless of 'what most people think', you previously erroneously corrected EpiRipper's comment:

Originally Posted by EpiRipper:

"An active bass has an onboard preamp, a passive bass does not."

by saying:

Line6man said:
"Again, not necessarily. You could have active pickups and passive controls."

and IMO, he was correct in saying that ALL active basses have a preamp, whether it's built into the pickup or not.
Click to expand...

Why did you have to put so much effort in trying to tell me I'm wrong?

What I said was not incorrect. He said active basses have onboard preamps and passives do not, and I said not necessarily. That is not to say that his statement was incorrect, but rather, that there can be situations in which an active bass does not have to have an onboard preamp. You define "onboard preamp" in a much looser sense than I do, which is why you are disagreeing with me.

If you want to call an onboard preamp any gain stage on a bass, then there are no exceptions to EpiRipper's statement.
If you want to call an onboard preamp a preamplifier/buffer, usually with EQ that is separate from the pickups, then there is an exception to EpiRipper's statement.

However, in either case, there are exceptions to EpiRipper's statement. How about if your bass has LEDs that flash when you play notes or something wild like that? Technically the bass would be active, even if there is no gain stage from the pickups to the output jack.
 

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