Active basses - help me understand!

[scrumpymike]

I got my first and only active bass last year - a short-scale Maruszczyk Elwood with Haeussels / Delano 2-band played thru a Mesa Subway D800 and one or two BF SC G3 cabs.  Although I'm chuffed with the bass, it's always felt a bit too lively to the point of being slightly out of control (mine anyway).  I've finally got round to replacing the OE round-wounds with a set of flats (La Bella 760FS 045-105) - and that's transformed things!  The annoying, intrusive noise of fingers moving on strings is gone, all the tones are usable, and the beast is much more user-friendly.  Although I've been playing for yonks, I have very little experience of active basses.  I'm happy with what I've got now but would like to understand why 🙂

[Cosmo Valdemar]

You want to know why you're happy with what you've got? 

[Woodinblack]

Just because you have an active bass doesn't mean you have to whack the bass and treble controls flat out. Personally I almost never use my controls, I leave them flat, but I wouldn't by choice have a passive bass, because I don't want the tone of my bass to depend on my volume level, the type of cable I am using, the input impedance of the amp or effect I am using etc.

Give me a nice low noise low impedance output from a bass, and I can use controls I have on the amp to change the response, rather than relying on a poor quality cable to make it less trebly!

[Delberthot]

The finger noise issue is usually due to having too much treble. I suppose I have a lot of that but when playing it isn't noticable. 

Just like Woodinblack says - because you have the option to add or remove 10dB of bass and treble doesn't mean that you need to. I set the controls on my bass when I bought it 2 years ago and have never touched them since. I'm happy with what comes out of the bass and the amp EQ is used according to the room I'm playing in

[scrumpymike]

Thanks Woodinblack and Delberthot.  The lively, over-bright response I didn't like was there even with my bass EQ and amp controls set flat.  What I wanted to know is whether what I was getting is typical of active basses with round-wound strings and also whether the Haeussels are biased in that direction.

[NickA]

There are many kinds of "active". Some are just passive basses with an electronic EQ added to the end (boost and cut treble and bass usually) eg Fedora.  These allow the pickups to interact as on a parallel wired passive bass (the output is the average of the connected coils) but then buffer the output. 

Some have actual active pickups (there is a little buffer amp inside the pickup) which allows a low winding count and hence more treble coming out of the pickups (eg some Warwicks) ; some have separate tone processing for each pickup (Wal and my "East ACG-01" equipped home build) which gives you lots of tone control but robs you of that "pickups in parallel" sound (the mixing of the two pickups is equivalent to series wiring). 

The common thing these active circuits will do is buffer the pickups so no matter what length of cable you use and no matter what amp input impedance you have (your D800 will work with anything I think) no current is drawn out of the pickups so the impedance of the pickups themselves doesn't alter the sound.  Basically you get a more consistent output.  You can get a higher output too, tho my active Warwick has the lowest output of any of my basses - go figure.

There should be no characteristic "active" sound - you can just expect to get more of what the pickups are making into the amp and usually that does mean more treble and more "twang" ... if you want to use it; and  if you don't, then use the bass or the amp EQ to remove it.  But at least you have the choice.

 

[Woodinblack]

1 hour ago, scrumpymike said:

Thanks Woodinblack and Delberthot.  The lively, over-bright response I didn't like was there even with my bass EQ and amp controls set flat.  What I wanted to know is whether what I was getting is typical of active basses with round-wound strings and also whether the Haeussels are biased in that direction.

No, what you are getting is what your bass actually sounds like (obviously depends on the strings and pickups). What you get with a passive is a reduction in treble caused by the tone circuit (which is always engaged regardless), the volume controls interaction with the tone (the tone changes with the volume) and the lead (the longer the lead, the worse quality the lead the greater the treble drop off).

So to get a sound like the passive just turn the tone down a bit.

I don't think it is the Haeussels, as I have those in my Maruszczyk and don't find them very bright, they certainly aren't like the nordstands in that regard. However, if you have a standard Maruszczyk setup, just pull your volume controls then it is passive. Any difference in tone between passive and active in that case is down to the aforementioned circuit loading.

[chris_b]

Excessive finger noise is due to you not lifting your fingers off the strings sufficiently when you're moving them.

That's not an active bass or string problem. Better technique and better use of the EQ would have sorted that "issue" out.

Anyway. Glad you've now got a good sound out of your gear.

 

Edited June 20, 2018 by chris_b