Passive vs Acxtive..

OK bear with me here guys... Now this may sound like a stupid question but... a bass with passive pickups will NOT have a compaprtment in the back of the bass correct?

Where as a bass with active pickup will.. ?

Or is it that active pickups are only on basses with some kind of switch either in a knob or on the body of the bass itself...... even if it does have a compartment for a battery?

I am leaning towards my first assessment.. but I am not quite sure.. so I am asking. I currently play a Ibanez SR505 ... and I have to put a battery in it... so is that considered "active" .. I was in GC this afternoon drooling over a MTD bass.. and this one had the BOOST push/pull knob.. is that active as well?

My 77 Jazz is passive... yes?

Just trying to wrap my head around this as I am shopping for a new bass... and I see some basses... like my SR505 linked above... yet nowhere in the writeup does it say "Active PU"..

Hence my inquiry to clarify things in my own head.

 

Hey.. I said bear with me....

 

Well maybe someone can just... answer the question... and then the mod here can lock the thread if it fries you nards.. I always felt the best way to get any kind of answer to something was to simply ask..

 

Thank you Xyyz... you answered my question... That's kind of what I thought.. but I wasnt sure.. so I asked.

So now I am thinking that there are various degrees of "active" from just having active pickups.. to having active pickups with a little more options.. like the boost/cut etc... I have seen basses like mine.. that have EQ but that's it... to ones that have EQ and what seems to be a lot more....

One thing that I have always wondered about is...

If I got a rechargeable battery and put it in my bass... would the voltage going through the cord be enough to recharge it? Or am I thinking beyond the scope of what active electronics do?

Does anyone make electronics that will do that?

How about basses with electronics in them that can run on the voltage from the cord... that wont even need a battery.... do they exist.... ?

I imagine they would be a bit more costly.... if they do.

Because until I got my Ibanez all I played was the Jazz... and that after a long.... break. I see writeups on some basses that say "active pickups" and some that do not...... yet they do have what appears to be active pickups... Even the writeup on my Ibanez does not say anything about "active pickups" .. and my Jazz has EQ.... Hence my question just to get clarity in my own mind. When I want answers to questions I go where I think there are people who know... and the only really stupid question IMO is the one that remains unasked.

 

Yes... I was... I always thought of tone as EQ...

Thanks for all the helpful answers