What do you prefer? Active or Passive Bass?

[raygo]

Hello Talkbass community,

What do you prefer, active or passive bass? I want to go back to playing bass and I need a new bass guitar; I saw this Squier Deluxe Jazz Bass (4 string, active) and I would like to hear from the community on what their comments are for active vs passive bass.

Thanks!

 

[rockscott]

do a search, tons of info here.

 

[Rib 13]

What do you prefer, active or passive bass?

Yes

 

[mongo2]

Passive.

My amp is the active part of the instrument.

 

[phangtonpower]

Passive with a preamp pedal that I can still control without going to the amp.

I do have one bass that has active pickups, but that's a different story.

 

[Modler]

I just have both in one bass... much easier that way.
But as a synth-guy, I like to have tons of knobs and parameters at hand to shape the sound exactly as I want it, so I guess I prefer active.

 

[dxb]

I like both.

 

[delta7fred]

I prefer basses, I tried guitars but they are grossly overrated so basses every time for me now.
Active, passive, short scale, long scale (even EUB) they are all good.

 

[alack]

I prefer passive and believe the usefulness of the passive tone control is underrated.

 

[Dp1363]

I prefer passive now but had active in the past. A good amp with a good preamp is all I need. I find that most active basses add a harshness to the tone. Great IMO if your playing metal. But I'm playing classic rock now. So nice not having to worry about batteries and having to keep my bass unplugged in between sets.

 

[brianrost]

I own and use both. All I care about is what the bass sounds like. There's nothing inherent better or worse between passive and active.

People will mention on an active bass the battery can fail on a gig. So what? I had a passive bass die on a gig once (pickup windings opened up after 50+ years).

 

[40Hz]

I own both. But I like to mix and match technologies, so I prefer nothing electronic be built-in or "combined with" unless it's absolutely necessary.

Guess that means I prefer passive basses. And single funtion effects.

My old modular synth roots are showing.

 

[bucephylus]

Really depends on the bass and style of music. A really great middle ground for the Jazz Bass is to get a traditional passive Fender and a Sadowsky Outboard Preamp.

The passive instruments just have an open tonal quality that is tough to improve on. The Alembic Series Preamp is the only active onboard circuit I am aware of that manages to retain the uncompressed quality of the passive pickups. Of course, you can only get it in an Alembic Series bass.

The rest of the onboard circuits add at least a degree of compression, which can still be extremely musical and useful, depending on voicing. I'm a huge fan of the Sadowsky onboard, because it's voicing fits perfectly into a lot of band mixes, and is extremely versatile.

The Nordstrand, Pope, East and Audere preamps also have their fans. I have an East in my fretless. It's ok. I have a Pope install underway in my 6 string. High hopes, we'll see.

Ultimately, any of them can work. For me, it just depends on how much knob twiddling I end up doing. Mainly, the Jazz Bass does benefit from some kind of boost going into the front end of almost any amp. The P seems to be more take it or leave it, sounding perfectly adequate as is.

 

[Aberdumbie]

I got away from playing in 1991 and came back a few years ago at the behest of my church. Electronics these days are mind boggling. Personally I like things simplified in my advanced years. I do have an active bass now and it is used very infrequently when I need to accentuate a line or two. I think a simple active on board set up is nice. But with today's electronics not particularly necessary.

 

[LowActionHero]

My bass is active but I almost always run it passive. I honestly only switch to active for a volume boost or for noise. For some reason if it's noisy passive, its quiet active. Flouresents

 

[Thumb n Fingers]

Both. Different options for different situations. I like the active for more aggressive genres or styles of play, the passive for other things.

 

[franklindayala]

Passive. I do have a Xotic RC bass booster that I also use

 

[Gearhead17]

Google is your friend:
passive bass preference talkbass - Google Search

Active bass preference talkbass - Google Search

Don't bother with the search bar on Talkbass, Google is much more helpful.

 

[Watchootognbout]

I have three basses.Two are active.
Truthfully,I couldn't tell you which is better or worse.
They are just different.
Even if I had two active basses identical in every way,they would be different in tone.

 

[bassgrackle]

Ernie Ball Music Man knows how to do an active onboard preamp.