GZR pups noob question

[Wedderboom]

Hello all. Total noob question here but hey, you’ve gotta start somewhere.

I have an active squier jag bass and want to change the Pj stock pups. Will the GZR passive pups go into my active bass?

Okay thanks.

 

[XLunacy]

They will work.
Whether you will like it or not however, we can't tell

 

[Wedderboom]

Good enough for Geezer good enough for me. Thanks for replying!

 

[abarson]

Welcome to TB!
The pickups are of standard dimensions and should pretty much drop in. You may need to invest in Molex connectors to connect the pickups to the preamp. Open the control cavity and post a picture here.

 

[Wedderboom]

Thanks for the info. Im curious though…if both passive and active pick ups will work in an active bass, why the distinction?

 

[mouthmw]

Thanks for the info. Im curious though…if both passive and active pick ups will work in an active bass, why the distinction?

99% of active basses have passive pickups. It's the preamp that's active in your bass, not the pickups.
Active pickups are not common at all, outside of EMG and MEC active pups, I can't even remember another brand (I'm sure there's other brands).

 

[Wedderboom]

I see. Fair enough then. So when I see “active” pick ups for sale it doesn’t really mean anything? That makes it all a lot easier. I want to get a good growl out of whatever I get. GZRs seem like a good option. Cheers.

 

[J Wilson]

They OUGHT to fit, but:

BE SURE you measure the original pickups (length, width, depth, and the location of the screw holes on each pickup) and compare to EMG's published dimensions to really know if it's a so-called 'drop in' replacement. Sometimes . . . . one dimension may be different and you'll need to know if it's something you can live with or if it's going to require wood surgery to work. Fenders have been built in many ever-so-slightly different versions over the years.

Hopefully someone here has already done this on this bass and those pickups and can call in.

 

[J Wilson]

Thanks for the info. Im curious though…if both passive and active pick ups will work in an active bass, why the distinction?

It's the difference in the pickups.

As MouthMW pointed out, the majority are high-impedance pickups (for this explanation, these are all pickups that work with no battery). This gives you the option on most basses to run active (using the cut/boost tone controls powered by a 9v battery) or passive (the bypass switch you see on a lot of them) where it plays with a regular tone control and no battery.

Original EMG's or Alembic pickups are low impedance; this means without battery power they will NOT make enough signal to drive an amplifier. These pickups have their own individual preamp to get to that output level, and then connected to the tone network, and everything runs on 1 or 2 9v batteries, and if you lose power to a dead battery, you have no output.

As to which is 'better', that's for another day. Each has its advantages and disadvantages.

 

[Isaac_James]

99% of active basses have passive pickups. It's the preamp that's active in your bass, not the pickups.
Active pickups are not common at all, outside of EMG and MEC active pups, I can't even remember another brand (I'm sure there's other brands).

Ibanez had some back in the 90s; I had a set in a '99 SR800. They were called Active Full Range or AFR pickups. I didn't care for them though so now they're in a bag in my garage and I have a nice passive setup.

Left: stock setup with AFR-P and AFR-J pickups; Right, modded version with Wilde P46 and J45 set.

 

[J-Bass RMR]

Hold on.
The Geezers are different. I ran into this recently with an Audere preamp.

I can't remember the exact symptom, but they (PJ) weren't working properly after the 1st installation attempt, and I ended up calling Audere. They were familiar with this issue on the Geezers.

IIRC - the Ground and Shielding are internally connected on the Geezers, so I had to use the "active pickup" modification, which is essentially adding a certain value cap in-line on the hot pickup leads for them to work properly.

I don't have enough expertise to know if is just an audere thing, or if the result would be the same with all pre-amps.
The mod worked, but in the end, I just went back to passive controls in that bass.

I also just found an older post of someone having an issue with Geezers in a shielded bass.
I don't know if they ever resolved it, but I have a feeling this might have had something to do with it.

 

[mouthmw]

I see. Fair enough then. So when I see “active” pick ups for sale it doesn’t really mean anything? That makes it all a lot easier. I want to get a good growl out of whatever I get. GZRs seem like a good option. Cheers.

If someone is selling active pickups then those should be active. But what I meant was thah active basses only need an active preamp to be considered “active basses”. And most of the time, they have passive pups.

 

[Isaac_James]

If someone is selling active pickups then those should be active. But what I meant was thah active basses only need an active preamp to be considered “active basses”. And most of the time, they have passive pups.

They should be, yes, but it's very common to mistake passive pickups from a bass with an active preamp as "active pickups". So it's wise to double check.

 

[TTPbass1]

Geezers are amazing, you shouldn't have any problem with your stock active preamp if they're wired properly

 

[Bar Band Bassman]

Put GZR's (actually the short J pup version, not called GZR but the same specs) in my Fender MIM Cowpoke bass (P/J) with an Audere V/V, T/B preamp. Hunky dory!

The Bar Band Bassman

 

[wintremute]

When I swapped Geezers into my SR Gio, I removed the preamp.

 

[JeezyMcNuggles]

Hello all. Total noob question here but hey, you’ve gotta start somewhere.

I have an active squier jag bass and want to change the Pj stock pups. Will the GZR passive pups go into my active bass?

Okay thanks.

Yes

They could end up being bigger than the stock routes though. Some squires have slightly smaller than standard pickups. If they are, just squeeze and cram.

 

[Wedderboom]

Thanks all. Solid advice across the board.

I’ve never performed any guitar mods myself but do love a project so I might just give it a go. YouTube will show me the way no doubt.

cheers

 

[Smooth_bass88]

I cannot say this with 100% certainty, but I'm pretty sure the GZRs weren't designed with active preamps in mind. They sound really really good on their own. You might want to contact EMG directly and ask them about this. Just some food for thought.

 

[micguy]

I cannot say this with 100% certainty, but I'm pretty sure the GZRs weren't designed with active preamps in mind. They sound really really good on their own. You might want to contact EMG directly and ask them about this. Just some food for thought.

GZR's were designed as a clone of an old Fender pickup from Bobby Vega's Precision (as long as the magnets and wire are the same, the other stuff holding those in place doesn't affect the sound), so they're obviously at home in a passive circuit, but that does not mean they won't work fine with a preamp on board.

If a preamp is designed to work with passive pickups it'll work OK with any passive pickup - they are all ground referenced. If you have a passive pickup and the preamp needs capacitors in line with the pickups to pass signal, it means the preamp was designed to provide current to an active pickup, and the cap is there in part to keep from running DC through your passive pickup (which is a bad idea).