Question about Yamaha BBG pickups

[Follow1]

My second bass is Yamaha BBG5S, i thought about bypassing active preamp and all electronics straight to output jack.
I don't know are these pickups active, or preamp only?

BBG5S - BB Series - Basses - Guitars & Basses - Musical Instruments - Products - Yamaha United States

 

[Showdown]

The pickups are passive. What is it you don't like about the preamp?

I have two (a 4 and a 5) and they are really great sounding basses. They sound better than a lot of my more expensive basses. I do tend to leave the preamp flat, but it sounds good so I don't see any reason to change it.

 

[Saxn]

If I might hazard a guess at why, I would say noise... right? I did a full-on active -to-passive conversion on my RBX374 after I got annoyed with the noise introduced by the Yamaha pre.

I am sure the pickups are probably different, but let me tell you my experience with running these Yammy pups in passive. It appears that one of the major functions of that Yamaha pre was to boost highs, because since doing the conversion I have lost a lot of upper-mid to high off my signal. And when I say a lot I mean a LOT... to illustrate how much:

Part of my conversion process was adding a multi-capacitor rotary switch (varitone style) to the bass, and when I first put it in I thought I had wired something wrong, because no matter which cap I selected, I could hear no difference in the tone AT ALL when turning my tone control... just a meaty (though not unpleasent-sounding) low-end, thumpy tone. So I told myself that I would get back in there and fart around with it later to figure out what went wrong. Thanks GOD before I did that I was able to figure out that I did OK. I discovered that accidentally after I took the bass to a room that had a lot of 60Hz EMF rampaging around the place. I had a little of the old familiar 60Hz buzz in the speaker, and I just coincidentally reached down and fiddled with with my tone control. I am a compulsive fiddler - I have to turn knobs even if I know they don't work... it's a character flaw, I know... but I digress.

So lo and behold when I turned the tone control to the 'bass' (hi cut) position the 60Hz hum went away! Hmmm... ok the tone pot IS working... the Yammy pickups are just not putting out any sort of audible signal on the high side, it seems. So now I am in the market for a new set of pups but I should have seen that coming - I am sure Yamaha designed those things to mate with that preamp. So my experience, FWIW, is that yes, the pups will play passive, but be ready for some rather drastic tonal changes.

Hope that helps some.

 

[Follow1]

Tried wiring pups in series straight to jack, don't know about tone but output is very high.

 

[Showdown]

If I might hazard a guess at why, I would say noise... right? I did a full-on active -to-passive conversion on my RBX374 after I got annoyed with the noise introduced by the Yamaha pre.

I am sure the pickups are probably different, but let me tell you my experience with running these Yammy pups in passive. It appears that one of the major functions of that Yamaha pre was to boost highs, because since doing the conversion I have lost a lot of upper-mid to high off my signal. And when I say a lot I mean a LOT... to illustrate how much:

Part of my conversion process was adding a multi-capacitor rotary switch (varitone style) to the bass, and when I first put it in I thought I had wired something wrong, because no matter which cap I selected, I could hear no difference in the tone AT ALL when turning my tone control... just a meaty (though not unpleasent-sounding) low-end, thumpy tone. So I told myself that I would get back in there and fart around with it later to figure out what went wrong. Thanks GOD before I did that I was able to figure out that I did OK. I discovered that accidentally after I took the bass to a room that had a lot of 60Hz EMF rampaging around the place. I had a little of the old familiar 60Hz buzz in the speaker, and I just coincidentally reached down and fiddled with with my tone control. I am a compulsive fiddler - I have to turn knobs even if I know they don't work... it's a character flaw, I know... but I digress.

So lo and behold when I turned the tone control to the 'bass' (hi cut) position the 60Hz hum went away! Hmmm... ok the tone pot IS working... the Yammy pickups are just not putting out any sort of audible signal on the high side, it seems. So now I am in the market for a new set of pups but I should have seen that coming - I am sure Yamaha designed those things to mate with that preamp. So my experience, FWIW, is that yes, the pups will play passive, but be ready for some rather drastic tonal changes.

Hope that helps some.

Neither of mine hum at all.

 

[tuBass]

i have that bass.. I found the only thing to do with with the stock electronics was throw them in the trash can

I replaced them with active EMG 45dc's and it was a great decision

 

[Tristan]

I had the four string and thought the pickups were great... heavily leaning to the "polite" side though. Maybe Bartolinish? I have EMG PJs in another bass and they are more "cutting".

The preamp was soso... I left it flat and it added noise if I cranked the treble.

I went passive but then added an active buffer later.

The pickups are indeed passive and IMO work fine without the preamp. They made a passive version with what I think are the same pups. It will be a bit darker since the cable etc are loading the pups, but it still sounds good.

I had a series parallel switch and the sound in series was like being punch with a huge novelty inflatable boxing glove. Punch of pure bass. Parallel is much more useable though so I think you need to have that as an option.

What exactly are you trying to change about the sound?