The 'magic' of passive electronics?

[Tanner5382]

I've tried it, Mr Congenial. I didn't like it.

Happy now?

Not really, no.

 

[brianrost]

a natural compression from the impedance loading down of the pickups and capacitance + length of the guitar cable.

Natural compression? Compressed compared to what?

Oh, look, another passive vs active topic. Let me make some popcorn and have a seat......

Gotcha covered.

 

[Tim Skaggs]

There are many variables with the active side of the equation. The pickup(s) sending the signal to the active preamp can be passive or active themselves, which will make some difference, but whether that can be detected by human ears is “a topic” for discussion.

I don’t know whether all drop-in preamps are designed close to the same or if there’s a significant difference in designs, but analyzing a passive pickup’s output characteristics, and then dropping a preamp in front of it and analyzing what comes through would possibly answer some questions about why they sound different (if they do sound different).

The output of a passive pickup is getting active manipulation in the preamp of a bass amp, so an active bass is starting the process earlier and perhaps adding some additional quantity and frequencies to the boost / cut capability before the signal arrives at the preamp in the bass amp.

It’s enough to make me ignore it and practice what I can do with my fingers on the strings and not on the knobs

 

[J Wilson]

Here we go again.

I have a hard time knowing what organic tastes like, much less sounds like.

In my time I've owned and played wonderful passive basses, as well as true low impedance active axes with Alembic and EMG installations. I am no fan of many installations with passive pickups ganged to active tone, the passive/active switch being the tell that you have this setup.

As always, play whatever helps you make your best music and be sure that orthodoxy or 'they said . . .' doesn't shut you out of some choices. The only right answer is what's right for you.

 

[JazznFunk]

I've been doing a deep dive into why passive basses have so much warm "character" ... "bloom" over time in a note. Plus, more interesting details in the sound.

E.g., my Warwick Corvette passive vs. my Music Man Stingray. It's like comparing a synth (Stingray) to a piano (Corvette).

My theory: Passive basses have a lot going on that contributes to the sound. E.g., a natural compression from the impedance loading down of the pickups and capacitance + length of the guitar cable. Those introduce effects which aren't even across all frequencies and signal strengths.

In contrast, a bass like a Stingray with its high signal-to-noise output and "better" matched impedance mean that none of this organic frequency-dependent attenuation happens.

Here's a great demo of a passive Fender American Professional II, and I can hear some of these passive effects I'm talking about. It's an interesting, complex, soft & warm tone. I'm skeptical that an active P-style-bass or P/J would capture the entire effect.

Can anyone confirm or deny that active electronics w/ a split-coil P-style pickup lacks something found in the passive sounds?

Passive electronics actually have a lot LESS going on that contributes to the sound.... since there's no preamp. You are correct in stating that there's also capacitance and cable loading over a long run. But none of that is in any way 'natural compression' - it's frequency attenuation and signal degradation, which sometimes is perceived as 'warmth' due to the rolloff of high end information in the signal. The same effect can be achieved by rolling off the treble on an active bass, or introducing some sort of capacitance load somewhere in the signal chain. The Radial FireFly DI has a 'load' control to approximate this exact effect.

This post reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of what 'compression' actually is, and it's not happening without an actual compressor in the mix. MAYBE some 'natural compression' if you end up running through a tube preamp or tube compressor, but not with just the bass itself.

A StingRay is a passive pickup paired with an ACTIVE preamp. So at the pickup stage, it's still passive. A StingRay is very capable of sounding warm, with lovely 'bloom'.

 

[MCS4]

I'm in the group that disagrees with the general premise. I've played plenty of active, passive, or active/passive basses, and have not seen any reason to believe there is any inherent magic to passive (or active, for that matter). At most I could concede the possibility that active basses with the active circuit on *might* have a little more high end content on average (I'm not sure I have observed this myself, but it is a stereotype I have heard), and this could be perceived as a negative by certain people who find the corresponding slightly less high end content in a passive bass to equate to a sound that is "warmer" or otherwise preferable.

 

[2saddleslab]

I've been aggressively passive most of my career.

 

[bucephylus]

Last I checked, the pickups in both instruments described in the OP are passive pickups. Are we talking about whether or not there is an onboard preamp? What did I miss?

 

[Five or Six]

I use both active and passive through a night. It all depends on the song. I play a bunch of our slow and blues music in passive mode. Most rock is done in active. Been that way for me forever. Whatever sounds best according to FOH suggestion. Both have their place. One mode for me is not a fits all.

 

[ahbradot]

Here is my dumb-down take on active and passive;

For a couple of days I'm enjoying the Rickenbacker passive tone.
Then pick up by Fender Precision passive bass and it's wonderful.
A day later I'm immersed in the aggressive Stingray active bass splendor.
Then I bounce over to the MTD Kingston milder active tone.
The cycle continues on with a Gibson passive and an Ernie Ball Music Man Sterling active.
Ultimately, I tend to prefer passive over active as I get older and older.
Oh yeah and this cycle happens with the Flats and Rounds with me as well

 

[micguy]

While most of it boils down to design and preferences (not simple active vs. passive), I figure @micguy can provide great technical explanations for these things.

There are three things that distinguish an "active" bass from a passive one:

1) There's a buffer in the bass somewhere.

2) There is generally eq on the bass. Can also be other processing (Darkray, for example)

3) The combining network for multiple pickups can be (but it isn't always) designed better - if you have a bass where the preamp can be bypassed, this isn't happening on your bass.

#1 helps make your bass sound consistent, regardless of what cable or next piece of gear you hook it up to. Another thing that can also do that is lowering the impedance of the bass (done by wiring hum cancelling pickups in parallel, and capacitively loading the pickups to taste. If you like the sound of your bass through a certain cable, you carry a spare of that same model cable, and the next thing in line (your amp, the first pedal on your pedalboard) is always on, then an active bas has no advantage here. If you're going around with a collection of random (especially long) cables and plugging into...whatever, a buffer might help you some.

#2 is personal preference - I prefer to have eq on my pedalboard, where it can be more capable than a simple 2 or 3 band, fixed Q eq.

#3 - The worst thing about certain passive basses (I'm looking at Jazz basses here in particular, as that was the genesis of this, but any VVT circuit bass has the same issue) is their combining network. There is no sound you can dial up on a VVT bass and have a single control where you can turn that sound up and down in volume. I need that for the gigs I do - the first note on half my gigs is "swelling in", and I like to play most of the time with the volume control not dimed, leaving some volume "headroom" for that climactic moment of a set of music (if everything is loud, music gets boring fast). Try playing a VVT wired bass, with both volumes rolled back - dull dull dull. I have chosen different circuits; a different set of tradeoffs that allows me to get what I want out of a passive circuit, but an active circuit (if it has two buffers before the combining network) can do pickup combining much better than a VVT circuit.

 

[MVE]

One can overthink just about any topic and grope in the subjective darkness for an objective conclusion that doesn't exist

I’ve thought a lot about this very notion and want to express my gratitude for the way you summarized my own opinions so clearly and succinctly without any extraneous explanation involving unnecessarily complicated wording or metaphorically stretched adjectives. Thanks.

 

[Iristone]

Could be why the 2-band Stingray preamp is so much preferred among Music Man connaisseurs? There's both active accuracy and a bit of passive organicity, and I like to think of it as a Jazz Bass that stands tall and proud in the front row.
The Alembic also achieves it, but probably through a different design. The filters give a frequency response of a passive pickup (2-pole resonant low pass), but there's still the reliability of active buffers.

 

[KevInDaBassment]

Oh, look, another passive vs active topic. Let me make some popcorn and have a seat......

OP, it's not even starting off as a question or remotely objective when one option has "Magic" attributed to it in the title

 

[Wasnex]

I want to get the most pure/unchanged tone possible leaving the instrument, and tweak it further up (or down) the chain.

The tone produced by passive pickups varies with loading. So this is misguided.

 

[smtp4me]

The tone produced by passive pickups varies with loading. So this is misguided.

I'll rephrase: With passive electronics you can only cut. With active electronics you can boost and/or cut specific frequencies. I personally don't want to cut or boost anything before the signal leaves the instrument. I'd rather do that later. Since I don't play out at gigs, I rarely even use the tone knob on my basses.

 

[Wasnex]

Passive basses have a lot going on that contributes to the sound. E.g., a natural compression from the impedance loading down of the pickups and capacitance + length of the guitar cable.

AFAIK changing the loading shifts the resonant frequency and acts like a variable Low Pass Filter. I believe the loading impacts levels, but it varies the amount of attenuation rather than compression. I believe the majority perceive active basses as more compressed than passive.

I don't think comparing a passive bass to a MM active is really an appropriate generalization. AFAIK the MM preamp has a fairly strong baked in voicing. The voicing comes from the skill and intent of the designer and varies quite a bit over the range of available active basses.

I have heard some really fabulous passive basses over the years. However, IME they have been rare standout instruments. In particular I remember a vintage jazz bass I thought sounded just incredible. If it were possible to play the jazz basses that came off the assembly line immediately before and immediately after the standout bass, there is no guarantee either would have the same type of magic/mojo. The all tend to have a somewhat unique personality.

I generally prefer active basses. I find that in general they seem seem to be more consistent, while passive basses tend to vary more. To my ears, active often sounds a bit more HiFi and focused, which are qualities I like.

Every bass I have demoed that had an active/passive switch sounded awful in passive mode to my ears. My theory is the electronics were designed primarily as active. So a lot of the bass's desirable tone qualities was built into the electronics and other factors were used to select the pickups.

Regardless of what I think, you should play whatever you like. Tone is subjective, so a bass that I think sounds great may sound terrible to you.

If I remember, the Fender Roscoe Beck was passive. I demoed Roscoe Beck Vs a couple of times and thought they sounded great.

 

[Wasnex]

I'll rephrase: With passive electronics you can only cut. With active electronics you can boost and/or cut specific frequencies. I personally don't want to cut or boost anything before the signal leaves the instrument. I'd rather do that later. Since I don't play out at gigs, I rarely even use the tone knob on my basses.

I usually ran the tone control on my passive basses wide open. I found that rolling back the tone could bring out a slight resonance in the mids that I liked, but to me the highs are where the perception of speed and immediacy are encoded. When the highs are rolled back in a live setting, my perception is the sound from the bass rig feels behind, which I find very distracting.

I usually dial in my tone with my amp. With an active bass, I start with the tone controls in their center detente and the volume wide open. I may use the bass's control if the amp and cab can't get me close enough to the sound I want. However, since I generally used my own rig even when a backline was provided, this was rare. During the show, I occasionally made minor tone adjustments on the bass in order to better meet the needs of the song. If I needed a more global tone change, I used the amp's controls.

 

[roccobass]

Regarding the number passive vs active threads. Sure there’s plenty. There are other duplicate threads on other subjects as well. Some are as ancient as the pyramids. Yeah, you could pose a question there. The poor inquirer then gets snarked for reviving a zombie thread. Who knows? A new tidbit of info may come out of this new one.

Just to throw another twist in.

Strings can factor into this too. Early on in my ignorance I neglected to deal that variable.
Just an example on flats. A Labella Lo-Tension isn’t going to sound as bright or punchy as a set of Chromes or TI Jazz Flats. I’m assuming all tests (including those we have done)were done with the same kind of strings.

@Gervais Cote
Your buddy playing his MIM P with flats definitely knows that’s the best tool outside of an upright for big band. I believe the P was originally created to replace the upright due to volume.

 

[Wasnex]

There are other duplicate threads on other subjects as well.

Yep.

What's left to discuss? Probably a lot less than most people think. Mostly what is left is to have new conversations about stuff that has already been covered. Without these types of threads, we would rarely discuss anything at all...just review what has already been written. Most people would rather participate in a conversation rather than wading through the typical thread.