Do you mostly play passive or active basses?

[Jim C]

Curious what the percentages are

 

[KohanMike]

I use rechargeable lithium 9v batteries.

 

[JIO]

Primarily passive, but also play active basses. Both are good - no biases.

 

[CletusMarley]

Mostly passive. I have a Stingray but I dont play it much.

 

[NotColinGrigson]

Passive.
I’ve not found an active bass I like the tone of

 

[SpiderBass1965]

Both, about an even amount for each.

 

[crazycloud]

Almost all active - I don't have BTS.

 

[Heiwa]

I’ve seen people trying to use carrots for power

 

[Naigewron]

Mostly active, but probably making the switch to mostly passive going forward. I very rarely use the EQ on active basses, and find myself missing a good old tone control more often as I get older. And there's always something to be said for simplicity and reliability too I guess.

 

[Flamingo21]

I've never played an active bass that made me want to own it. I try to stay open minded about it though.

 

[Drzejzi]

For conventional sound passive sounds better to my ears, however my Warwick Thumb looses it's charm without it's preamp. So I voted carrots.

 

[Chris Chong]

Active sounds much clearer, and the bass boost give the notes more meat and punch.

 

[MrWolf14]

Mostly active: my first “good” bass was an active Ibanez, so maybe that got me biased.

Now I play almost exclusively 6 strings and they tend to be active, even if I don’t know why.
My maruszczyk has a passive switch with passive tone and it sounds sweet in this mode as well.

 

[ahbradot]

I actively prefer passive.…

 

[el murdoque]

Less than ten years ago, I had a sizable collection of basses (well, sizable for a non musician outsider - nothing the TB community would consider even a collection) and what they shared was that they all were active and neck through.
Some buying and selling later, without any intent on my side, all that remained were passive bolt on instruments.

 

[bdplaid]

For me, passive has a bark that sounds great in a mix. Active is ok, but leads me to a lot of knob twiddling that a man should not do.

 

[Gervais Cote]

Passive because nowadays, we have tons of options for strings, pickups, pedals and amps allowing us to get pretty much all the sounds we want IMO.

 

[coryr1000]

I have 1 active and 6 passive. I rarely use the active even though it's probably the nicest bass I own.

 

[lordradish]

I haven't owned a passive since 1987.

 

[dabbler]

Yes.