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EMG HZ 35 being stated as active

Isn't a bass with active pickups and preamp referred to as a fully active circuit, different from one with passive pickups?

No.

Is it right if a customer asks for an active pickup bass and the salesman said here is an active bass not telling the customer it has passive pickups because he thinks an active preamp makes it an active bass regardless of the pickups?

I can't imagine any situation in which it would be worthwhile for a customer to care.
 
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No.



I can't imagine any situation in which it would be worthwhile for a customer to care.
C'mon read this forum, some people are really into this stuff, all the little nooks and crannies of an instrument...who wants to boast "I just got a brand new bass with ACTIVE pickups" and have someone post back "those aren't active pickups you dummy", that would be rather deflating, no?
 
EMG is going to freak out when they'll find out that active pickups don't exist which means they have been making non-existant products for years and made money like George Castanza from Seinfeld by just selling NOTHING.

Active pickups were invented because less winding means more defined sound BUT low output. The preamp located INSIDE the pickup makes up for this low output.

Typically an active bass has an onboard preamp located in the cavity control

Yes this thread is weird because some people seem to forcefully assert their total lack of knowledge. They should be in politic.
 
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C'mon read this forum, some people are really into this stuff, all the little nooks and crannies of an instrument...who wants to boast "I just got a brand new bass with ACTIVE pickups" and have someone post back "those aren't active pickups you dummy", that would be rather deflating, no?

There wouldn't be any sense in boasting about having active pickups. People do indeed fuss over every little thing, but more than half the time, they fuss for the wrong reasons. In any case, anyone that is serious about this sort of thing would do more research than to merely read the description on a retailer's website. With any luck, they would actually look for information on the pickups that come stock in the bass.
 
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C'mon read this forum, some people are really into this stuff, all the little nooks and crannies of an instrument...who wants to boast "I just got a brand new bass with ACTIVE pickups" and have someone post back "those aren't active pickups you dummy", that would be rather deflating, no?

You just described what we regulars to this forum have to do for more than half the folks who are new here come to ask a question about active bass electronics. 'An active bass necessarily has active pickups' is probably the most commonly held misconception of new TBers to this forum. Thankfully, most of us are nicer than to disparage the person, because not knowing the definitions isn't a sign of the person being dumb. :cool:
 
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EMG is going to freak out when they'll find out that active pickups don't exist which means they have been making non-existant products for years and made money like George Castanza from Seinfeld by just selling NOTHING.

Active pickups were invented because less winding means more defined sound BUT low output. The preamp located INSIDE the pickup makes up for this low output.

Typically an active bass has an onboard preamp located in the cavity control

Yes this thread is weird because some people seem to forcefully assert their total lack of knowledge. They should be in politic.

From an electronics perspective all magnetic pickups are passive transducers. Which is what people were going for probably. All pickups are passive, "active" pickups just incorporate a pre-amp inside the pickup itself and are designed to specifically work with it, whereas passive pickups are designed to work on their own. But the truth is, you could "rip out" the pre-amp of an active pickup and it would still do the same thing. All magnetic pickups are passive, that's just a fact.
I would encourage you to learn about these things yourself before you call someone out on their lack of knowledge.
 
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Wow, you guys got all caught up in the minutiae and didn't really take a look at that bass. 35hz's say EMG-HZ on them. The ones in the Ellefson bass only say EMG. They look to me like 35DC's, which are honest-and-for-true active pickups, and I think it's a misprint in Jackson's ad copy.

Interesting, the narrative could be correct and tech specs wrong.
 
emg-35hz-bass-pickup.jpg
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I looked at the link and what makes it even more confusing is the bass in the picture does not have EMG-HZ pickups. All EMG-HZ have it stamped on the front the bass in the picture has EMG active pickups in them. Interesting.
 
From an electronics perspective all magnetic pickups are passive transducers. Which is what people were going for probably. All pickups are passive, "active" pickups just incorporate a pre-amp inside the pickup itself and are designed to specifically work with it, whereas passive pickups are designed to work on their own. But the truth is, you could "rip out" the pre-amp of an active pickup and it would still do the same thing. All magnetic pickups are passive, that's just a fact.
I would encourage you to learn about these things yourself before you call someone out on their lack of knowledge.

This is technically true, but you are minimizing the importance of having a way to differentiate between buffered and nonbuffered pickups. The term "active pickup" may technically be a misnomer, if you want to make the argument that you are making, but the industry has collectively come to an agreement on what it means when you use the term. Whether we like it or not, the term "active pickup" has forever cemented a place in common usage.
 
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And all active EQs are passive if you rip the active components out.
Active pups "incorporate" an active preamp making them "active".
Basses are a stick of wood before becoming a bass, but not after.

That's not the point, there are clear definitions what a passive and active transducer are, and magnetic pickups are strictly passive. And that's kinda where that argument ends. Amplifying the signal of a passive transducers doesn't turn it into an active one.

This is technically true, but you are minimizing the importance of having a way to differentiate between buffered and nonbuffered pickups. The term "active pickup" may technically be a misnomer, if you want to make the argument that you are making, but the industry has collectively come to an agreement on what it means when you use the term. Whether we like it or not, the term "active pickup" has forever cemented a place in common usage.

Call me biased on this, but I study electrical engineering and I think there is a clear difference between technical descriptions/definitions and marketing terms. And the usual statement is "all (magnetic) pickups are technically passive", which is simply correct. What is sold as active pickups are passive pickups with a preamp, just like an active bass has passive pickups with a preamp. The only difference here is that one is designed to work effectively without the preamp and the other one isn't.
And, as we see in this thread, the difference isn't as clear and obvious to everyone. I bet salesmen, marketing teams and of course individual people get this wrong all the time, I even had someone tell me before that active pickups work fundamentally differently than passive ones exactly because of that misnomer. It's just a misconception that could be avoided if we just use the proper terms IMO.