Is there any sacrifice with active/passive circuits?

[J Wilson]

I wouldn't call Mike Pope or specially Bartolini who has been doing passice pickups into preamps fro almost 35decades cheap or beneath EMG or Alembic low impedance active pickup approach. My Bartolini equipped bass has been working since early 1988, with no issues , Bartolini P bass into a filter pickup, Was for many years active only and I added the passive option recently .

The Mike Pope active passive on my other bass allows you to bypass all tone controls and is just another flavor of your sound not intended as a battery saver. Lusithand also recommends that a passie tone stock before the NFP expands the tonal palette rather than just saving you when the batteries die.

You do not have to like this pickup preamp topologies but they been a viable and valid option outside of what EMG and Alembic. for as long as Bartolini and Leo Fender (MusicMan) have done it with their systems. I am also an EMG fan and they do have solutions for passive preamps into their active preamps.

I'm not talking about Bart or the other installs of that caliber.

Just like the way ad-speak bats around RMS or peak power or any other number of catch phrases, a lot of the installs are sold to people who don't understand these things as you do.

 

[fhm555]

I prefer all my active/passive instruments in active, but that's just me. nothing's wrong with them in passive mode if that's your thing. take out the battery and enjoy if you don't need the active side.

I've however had some passive/active instruments with tricky wiring (like one pot for a passive tone in passive and active treble in active), they're still serviceable, but sometimes just not at home with a 40W iron. some of pots on those circuits might be on PCB, so if you'll get to fixing something there, you might end up ripping the active part and just wiring it as passive.

The only time I’ve ever played my J Plus in passive was early on when my first battery failed while playing out. I switched to passive and finished up, then got a battery and started tracking my swap dates and figured every 6 months was a safe battery swap cycle and acted accordingly.

 

[iiipopes]

Fair enough, it's whatever your bandmates will tolerate. I'm juggling a few bands, all at the semi-pro level, so I probably wouldn't get fired from any if I had to pause a gig to change a battery in my bass (or replace a broken string, etc). That said, my bandmates would rightfully be pissed off: "dude, this is unacceptable, you need to bring backup from now on".

In the five decades I've been playing I've only needed to go to backup a half-dozen times or so (variety of issues), but I was relieved to have backup every time. To your point, it's no big deal if your active bass dies mid-song as long as you can quickly switch to a backup bass. Just sayin' it's quicker and easier to toggle over to passive mode on the same bass, no swap necessary.

Glad to see that you have also been playing for five decades, also semi-pro, in as many as four bands at the same time at different times, currently only two and the occasional sit-in, recording, project, etc.

 

[mhelander]

My Ibanez EHB1505MS has their active preamp with parametric middle control... which I appreciate and some are big fans of, but I've ended up playing the bass passive pretty much all times. The good is that there's tone control in passive mode, and not the disturbing noise when training solo mostly using my in ears setup.

With a band, nobody will actually hear the preamp noise so it's an asset if fine tuning is needed on the fly.

OTOH my Chinese Strandberg Boden copy got Darkglass Tone Capsule which doesn't have passive tone control without additional circuitry but I'm playing it all times in active mode. There is absolutely no noise and all three pots have ample control range for the tone.

All my basses at all times I've ended up having both pickups typically full on and not really adjusting the tone unless specifically needed. With these two active ones, the Tone Capsule consumes much less battery than Ibanez, and I'm playing much more former than latter. Both have matching brand and age rechargeable 9V lithium batteries.

I might someday convert Ibanez from blend and stacked tone controls to VVT with Tone Capsule, preferably with passive tone control... and that could be the time to figure out some low loss lithium battery with built-in USB-C charging.

 

[Nedmundo]

I haven't experienced any downside to the active/passive system in my Sandberg TT-5 Superlight (J5). In passive mode, it's like any other passive J, except with a blend knob instead of two volumes. In active mode, the tone doesn't change much unless I adjust the EQ, which I find useful on occasion. I tend to use active mode for gigs.

On my G&L M-2500, I'd like to have a passive mode only as a backup. It isn't necessary at all for tone. I wish it had a quick-change battery compartment though, because it would take too long to change batteries if they died during a show. The battery compartment has a few screws, and G&L used foam rubber strips and blocks to secure the batteries, which are a PITA to remove and reinstall. To avoid this potential problem, I test the batteries before any show that's more than a short 30-40 minute set. (Or I just play my Sandberg. But the G&L sounds better IMO.)