Passive vs. Active in passive mode

[maturanesa]

a few days ago i was trying some 5 string basses and realize they are almost all active or active with passive mode. i prefer passive basses because they have a more organic/realistic tone for me and i really dont use the tone knobs for EQing. So, i percieved all active basses in passive mode are weaker, duller, than a passive. Is there any fact about that?

 

[line6man]

You were probably playing basses with pickups voiced to work with the preamp, so when you remove the preamp, the tone suffers.

 

[PSPookie]

One of the exceptions to this rule is G&L. I prefer the tone of an L2000/L2500 in passive mode. Plus the bass and treble knobs still work sicne they are passive, cut-only designs.

 

[PikeoftheLake]

When I had a Lakland 55-01 I always played it in passive mode and I liked the sound better. It just bugged me that the volume knob was always sticking out from pulling it for passive.

 

[acebase62]

Does anyone know if the Fender (Jazz Bass) Vintage Noiseless, SCN, or N3 pickups were primarily designed for use with a pre-amp, OR how they sound in a passive only bass?

 

[bassbenj]

a few days ago i was trying some 5 string basses and realize they are almost all active or active with passive mode. i prefer passive basses because they have a more organic/realistic tone for me and i really dont use the tone knobs for EQing. So, i percieved all active basses in passive mode are weaker, duller, than a passive. Is there any fact about that?

No.

Usually most active/passive basses have the usual passive setup and then feed what would usually be going to the amp into the active preamp/EQ. That they do it that way is why you can switch between active and passive. So normally with EQ flat you should hear little change (except perhaps in volume level) between active and passive.

There are some exceptions (such as G&L). And one exception is that the active mode adds a bit of shaping (independent of the EQ knobs) or gain (if you have two identical basses the louder one will tend to be perceived as the better sounding!) and in those cases the active selection will sound "different" (perhaps better or perhaps worse to your taste) than the passive mode.

But since passive adds no noise, many people perceive a certain "mojo" in a passive bass that they like. But adding an active preamp with unity gain and no EQ shouldn't change the sound at all (hey there's a circuit like that right in the front end of your amp!) But active circuits can add hiss and noise and the low power ones used in active basses tend to add more noise than the ones in your amp.