I will never buy another "active-only" bass

[Grinderman]

You do you.

If anything I already have more than enough preamp control over at the other end of my instrument cable. No batteries required.

 

[Benko]

Having a passive/active switch and a easy to replace battery hatch are additional point when I consider an instrument

My Zon's have none of that but I still like them the best

But I got a Skjold that will bring more ease of mind during a gig cause I know I can go on with the passive option (which is, in NO WAY, an inferior experience to the active preamp), my Big Al is great in passive mode too

 

[dave64o]

I like, own, and use both passive and active basses. Although I do like being able to have some tone shaping on the bass since I often can't easily get to my amp without pushing over our keys player and his gear to get to my amp between songs. I voted "No opinion" despite preferring basses with an active preamp.

Regarding the battery issue, I think that's a problem that's overblown to the point of being irrational. Others will disagree strongly, and I'm OK with that. You do you.

I've never had a battery fail at a gig but I always unplug my basses when not playing them (even the passive ones), I change all of the batteries in my basses once a year, I always have spare batteries in my gear bag that goes with me every where we play, and I always bring two basses to every gig.

A little preparation and some common sense make the risk of a battery dying at a gig essentially a non-issue. Sure, batteries can go bad suddenly and I'm sure it will happen to me at some point. But I'm prepared with multiple backups so I can easily handle that rare occurrence if and when it happens.

Now that I've opened my mouth, watch it finally happen to me at our gig this coming Saturday.

 

[roller]

I own basses that are 1) straight passive, 2) passive pickups with active preamps, 3) active pickups with active preamps and I truly love them all.

EMG pickups don't deserve the sterile, cold reputation many try to hang them with. EMG pickups sound killer to me and it appears the many luthiers who use them as standard equipment on their basses agree.

 

[sheesh]

I like passive exclusively when practicing with headphones. Other than that I like both.
yeah, check / carry an extra battery...

 

[jemerpi]

Though I often practice in passive mode, I have always understood the bypass to primarily be a battery fail security measure.

If given as an option, my response would simply be 100% agree. That is, I would not buy another without a bypass. But, I also still buy only actives.

 

[juancaminos]

I guess I shouldn't chime in because all of my active basses had a passive switch. In fact, beginning the second song of my Saturday gig, my battery died so I switched to passive mode and switched my TT800 amp to the Subway channel and all was well.

However, to the OP question...I do have an EUB that is active with no passive mode and have had the battery die at the start of a gig and at mid gig. I just switched to my Jazz bass quickly. But I don't have much of a choice on that one, do I?

 

[Mrtoodamnsabre]

Passive stuff is fine. A lot better tonal options via actives unique gain staging, I don’t actually know if the little eq systems and the other stuff on preamps are as big of a deal in terms of active bass’ range as much as the gain staging is. A lot of passive players fundamentally don’t understand this an I think pass up active basses because they can’t comprehend putting the volume knob at anything but 10

 

[TN WOODMAN]

12 passive
8 active

Why restrict yourself to either?

 

[HowieD72]

I love the sound from my passive basses. So i prefer passive. But i do have one active with a Lusithand preamp when I want to change it up a bit.

 

[TrevorG]

Gotta say my Spector has never let me down. Took me a while after buying a fender to work out what the big deal was with passive.

 

[Ghastly]

I agree 100% with your title. I think it would be very limiting to not be able to play active and passive. But I think active electronics are interesting. You didn't offer that choice in your poll.

 

[dkelley]

I guess ebmm and alembic are out of the question then

 

[faulknersj]

I'll play any bass I think feels good and sounds good. When I think about things that aren't all that hard, changing a battery (and always having xtra's) isn't one of those things

My Numero Uno is active and passive and I use it in both modes so I guess I got luck that my fav has that feature...

 

[Chris Laarman]

5 out of my 7 bass guitars are active, in that they have an on-board pre-amp. These include 2 of my 3 acoustic basses. (I have one passive-only bass and one acoustic-only one.)

I love being able to amplify my acoustic basses, and I like the active sound of my solid-body basses switched on.

If I find an active-pickup bass in my price range, I'm likely to buy it. Just to fill a niche.

(I didn't vote.)

 

[gtirard]

Don't care. Why should I?

 

[Lava]

Oh ok. Got it.

 

[iTzPrime]

All my actives have a passive switch, but I never use it. To me it sounds better if it is active.

 

[SharpCat]

Right now, MILLIONS of these things are in warehouses, Wally World, Target, the Circle K or 7-11 down on the corner, scheming 24/7 your ultimate embarrassment onstage as to when would be JUST the moment to die on you. Hell, these things are SO unreliable your local Firefighters will give you a free one for the smoke detectors they hand out to watch your home. Consider yourself warned !

TRIGGERED!!! You can't go putting up horrific pictures like this without a warning!

 

[Chris Laarman]

TRIGGERED!!! You can't go putting up horrific pictures like this without a warning!

May have been a mere translation error: "batterie" is French for "drum kit". ;-)