• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join free Log in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

Passive vs Active

#101
Michael Jewels said:
Mb94952, yes, they are called the Musician series.

Mine was made in 1979, and I bought it new in May of 1981.

I mainly bought it for its looks. Yes, I am shallow. :D

It wasn’t until after I played it in the store, that I realized it had active electronics in it.

The store I bought it from was, Alex Music, which was on the famous West 48th Street.

I believe Alex was the third music store on 48th Street if you were walking from 6th Avenue and walking towards 7th Avenue.

Can any old timers concur?

Boy, the memories. ;)

Mike
P.S. There is an Ibanez Musician thread here at Talkbass.
Click to expand...
Thanks Mike !
NOT shallow at all !!! They look awesome and ARE awesome. Thanks, I will check it out.
Also, Mike
 
  • Like
Reactions: Michael Jewels
#102
Passive for me. The only time I've felt I needed active is in Music Man-style basses that have a single bridge pickup. A Sterling Sting Ray worked for me because I could bump the bass a little, but I had trouble getting my sound from a passive Ibanez RB 820, which had a similarly placed passive pickup.
 
#103
I never made a conscious choice "I'm going to play active electronics!" I chose basses whose sound I liked, and many of them happened to have active preamps. The only time I deliberately chose active electronics was relatively recently when I added a preamp to my G&L JB, just so I didn't have to carry any gear to my headphone rehearsals with the band I was in at the time. Otherwise, it's all about what each bass sounds like.
 
  • Like
Reactions: mb94952
#105
Michael Jewels said:
For the last 10 years or so, I haven’t used the on board EQ at all, and I like the passive tone better
Click to expand...

I have the new-ish SR4600-OSL, and almost never play it with the active pre-amp. It's not that I don't like it, but I prefer to do all my tweaking in post, and Ibanez if anybody puts out a clean, 'airy' tone that allows for maximum tweakage inside the DAW. Even in a live setting, I just like using the passive tone and then doing whatever I need on the amp proper. It's not bad in active preamp, but it is a little "hot" (not sure how to describe it...).

Also, dude that bass is borderline pR0n and you should mark it with the "NSFW" tag lol
 
Last edited:
#106
LiptonJigglers said:
Sold all my active basses and play passive basses only.
TBH as good as active basses are, I find there's to many variables to either go wrong or for me to mess up with. When I should be focusing on playing bass and enjoying myself, I was worried about tone and twiddling dials on the fly and getting all bamboozled trying find "the sound"... so it was a simple solution, remove myself from temptation ....
Click to expand...

That's a great point. My mainstay has seven knobs and switches, but in passive, half of them are inert and then I'm a happy camper ha ha
 
#107
Killing Floor said:
I have both. I use both.

The narrative here is that every popular song was recorded with a P bass but the other reality is a lot of those songs were recorded with an Alembic or Ray or later, a Wal because engineers knew exactly what they’d get with less noise.
Use what you like.
Click to expand...

Bingo...

Not to mention that most "passive bass guardians" forget that these recordings go through countless stages of pre-production, filters and EQ and shaping, on and on and on...

So in the end, this talk of "purity" and "organic sound" goes down the toilet.

The differences for me between active and passive are more related to how the instrument reacts to your style and technique. Like I said before, it's like having two cars exactly the same, one naturally aspirated and other turbocharged, both with the same power output numbers.

They'll do the job, but the behavior preference is up to the driver.
 
  • Like
Reactions: _Tay_ and Killing Floor
#108
Someone correct me if I am wrong, but if you take a set of passive pickups, they should sound virtually the same run through a passive circuit with the tone wide open, as they do run through a well-designed and well-made active circuit where the "flat" settings are designed to be neutral -- yes?[/QUOTE]
Yes.
 
  • Like
Reactions: CryingBass
#109
I'm a big believer in "the fewer the filters the better." I've played active basses into several very nice amps. I always feel like the instrument active tone controls conflict with the amp tone controls creating weird dips and peaks in the EQ. I doubt I'll ever go back to active.
 
#110
Turnaround said:
Someone correct me if I am wrong, but if you take a set of passive pickups, they should sound virtually the same run through a passive circuit with the tone wide open, as they do run through a well-designed and well-made active circuit where the "flat" settings are designed to be neutral -- yes?
Click to expand...
Yes.[/QUOTE]

No Buffer with Passive? On my Bass I have Passive/Active switch; When I set Passive Tone wide open and adjust 3 tone controls in Active down some [approx. 10 O'clock each] to match Passive Volume.

Then A/B both; Active has slightly more presence, coherency [less woolly] and clarity but overall tone is very similar. [Wooly can be good]

I find I use Passive a lot in 'Bedroom' Solo playing and about 50%+ when playing 'Fossil/Dead Horse' Classic Rock Song's Live with Band or Rehearsing at Home to same with Headphones
 
#111
I have and use both passive and active. That being said, I prefer active because our stage arrangement has our keys player between me and my amp and getting back to my amp to make tone adjustments is usually difficult to impossible. So I set my amp for the room using my default tone and and then use my on board tone controls from the active preamps to make any minor adjustments I might want to make for a given song.

Plus, my favorite basses are Stingrays, active basses with very flexible controls. I have two SR5HH’s and they are so quick and easy for me to dial in the right tone for any song in our set list, whether I need to blend in and provide a warm, solid bottom or when I need to cut through. I realize they don’t work for everyone, and that’s ok. If not, then use what works for you.
 
#112
After 20-odd years playing an active bass (Ibanez SoundGear) I now only have passive basses.

I wouldn't necessarily say I don't like active basses. But I find it very easy to get a tone I'm happy with on a passive volume/tone, volume/volume/tone or volume/pan/tone bass whereas, with an active bass (OK, with the one active bass that I owned) I found there was too much fiddling about with the bass boost/cut, mid boost/cut, sweepable mid frequency, and treble boost/cut to find the tone I wanted.
 
  • Like
Reactions: CryingBass
#113
Having mid-song tone shaping is what attracted me to active basses. After playing them for a while, I finally realized I like the sound of passive basses better. I have both & play both, but lean toward passive slightly.
 
#114
I prefer 5 string bass with active preamp along with modern tone and bite.
My previous SUB ray5 B string always sound better clarity and balance string to string tone compare to similar price tag Squier CV70J V and Bacchus WJB-5 630. Pickups placement are one of the reason too.
 
#116
Michael Jewels said:
View attachment 4907454 My first active bass was also one of the first production active basses.

It was a 1979 Ibanez Musician.

I believe it’s an MC 900.

I didn’t buy it for the active electronics alone, buy mainly for the looks.

For the last 10 years or so, I haven’t used the on board EQ at all, and I like the passive tone better.

I feel the sound is cleaner.

Mike
Click to expand...
The only two pickup bass that I got intentionally is my old P that I installed a jazz bridge pickup on. I regretted it - it never gets used. I have another two double pickup basses but in each case the bridge pickup came along for the ride. Both are active and neither the preamps nor the bridge pickups ever get used. I have those basses for their other qualities and prefer their passive sound.
 
#118
My current bass - a Schecter Stiletto Session - has an 18v active system, meaning the pickups are active and have a battery and the preamp has a second battery.

I chose this because I didn't read the full specs and erroneously thought it would have passive EMG HZs instead of the active ones. Had I known that I probably would have gone with something else. It plays like a dream but I don't like active pickups dying mid-show without a way to get a bypassed passive signal.
 
#119
BioDriver said:
My current bass - a Schecter Stiletto Session - has an 18v active system, meaning the pickups are active and have a battery and the preamp has a second battery.

I chose this because I didn't read the full specs and erroneously thought it would have passive EMG HZs instead of the active ones. Had I known that I probably would have gone with something else. It plays like a dream but I don't like active pickups dying mid-show without a way to get a bypassed passive signal.
Click to expand...

It's not one battery for the pickups and another for the preamp.

It's both batteries in series, providing an 18V power source for all of the active electronics.

And they won't die "mid-show"; they'll gradually deteriorate. You'll notice in plenty of time.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Cleezmo, rumblinbass and RichterScale

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back