Passive vs Active

[JPJ]

Up until quite recently, I’ve exclusively used active basses starting with my Ibanez Roadstar RS940, all the way to my trio of John East equipped Overwaters. But then I assembled a passive five string precision and I’m quite blown away with the difference. It’s hard to explain, and maybe it’s just that I normally don’t play P basses (I know 😞), but the sound feels more ‘open’. Anybody else experienced this or is it just me? 

[ezbass]

Started passive, then went all, on board active for years, then gradually all the actives were replaced with passives. I do have a Sadowsky pre amp pedal on my pedal board just sprinkle Roger’s fairy dust when required, but I like the simplicity of a passive bass now and the way, with the right capacitor, you can use the tone control really effectively. Less knobs, less faff and no batteries to worry about. This all assumes that you like classic bass tones of course.

[Doctor J]

I genuinely don't care. I have a mix of active or passive and don't feel biased in either direction. I don't see it as one vs the other. Either the bass works for me and fills a role no other bass I have does, or it doesn't. If it doesn't, it gets eased on out the door. Regarding tone sculpting, the one rule I have is that the bass sounds good with any onboard and/or amp EQ bypassed. It needs to sound good in its raw state, essentially. I enjoy having onboard EQ but my view on it is that it's there for fine tweaking an already good tone, it's not for trying to salvage something usable out of a sow's ear.

Edited March 14, 2022 by Doctor J

[gjones]

One of the reasons I fitted initially fitted a pre to my Jazz, is that I wanted more control over my sound when I went through the desk to the PA. Most of the venues I play in, the full band go through the house PA. Then the engineer is in charge of my sound, not me. I tend to give a bug bump to the low mids before my bass goes to the desk. It tends to prevent my bass sound being turned into undefined mush by whoever the person on the desk is that night.

[TrevorG]

I agree about the “openness” but prefer to have the choice of both. 

[Newfoundfreedom]

They're basses. It all sounds like bass innit. 

[Woodinblack]

Sounds the same to me. If there is anything wrong with the active it might be a bad preamp. If there is a difference between your passive and active sound then you either have a bad preamp or you like the sound of your cable, or the RC network connected to your pickup, or prefer the input impedance of your amp.

 

When it hits your amp it becomes active anyway, so the difference is if you want your preamp before or after the cable.

[OliverBlackman]

I tend to be able to get a sound I like from either a passive P or Jazz. Used both active and passive in the past on gigs but always found with an active bass I’d mess around with the pre too much and despite being happy at soundcheck, then have a different opinion when the show started and focus too much on that.

[chris_b]

I wouldn't buy a bass because it was active or passive. That would never be on my list of preferences.

 

Currently I have one of each, a passive P and an active J. It's all about the tone of the particular instrument.

[PaulWarning]

I did have a Stingray, despite it being active I could never get the sound I wanted, I never touch the  controls on my P bass, any adjustments are made via my Zoom B1on pedal or my amp, when I play through a full PA the Zoom gives me control over my EQ before the mixing desk

[LeftyJ]

I don't really care whether a bass is active or passive, as long as the neutral tone is good. I used to be a real knob fiddler (I'm sure I will come to regret this choice of words ) but over time I've come to appreciate simple controls that I need to touch as little as possible. I don't like having to tinker with controls to get the basic sound I'm after: I want my passive basses to sound good with everything wide open, and will only use the controls for small adjustments. Same goes for my active basses: I want them to sound good with everything set to neutral / flat, and will sometimes slightly boost the lows and cut the highs to taste, but I don't want to have to fiddle with knobs to find my go-to tone. It just has to be "there" without having to search for it. A filter preamp like what Alembic or ACG makes probably wouldn't be for me.

[40hz]

10 hours ago, JPJ said:

Up until quite recently, I’ve exclusively used active basses starting with my Ibanez Roadstar RS940, all the way to my trio of John East equipped Overwaters. But then I assembled a passive five string precision and I’m quite blown away with the difference. It’s hard to explain, and maybe it’s just that I normally don’t play P basses (I know 😞), but the sound feels more ‘open’. Anybody else experienced this or is it just me? 

I have/had the exact same experience. Every passive bass I've used seems to sound more open (good way to describe it). I have active basses too and don't have a preference as such, or think one is better than another, but my passive basses definitely have always seemed to 'breathe' better.

[Jack]

They all sound poop when I play them. 

[Bassfinger]

I'm not fussed either way - a good tone is a good tone.

 

In any case, I ise a preamp for gigging so I can DI into the mixer, so regardless of the signal coming out of the bass I can juice it up a little anyway.

[Lozz196]

I prefer passive basses, nothing to do with technology or anything I just prefer the sound.

[itu]

pickups - blend - vol - tone stack - output

 

Show me the bass which has a fully "active" signal chain, please. If the blend and the vol are plain pots, only the tone stack is battery operated. (Yes, I am excluding those buffered EMGs and few other specialities.)

 

I wish the word "active" would have another word beside it which would separate hi-Z adjustments + battery tone stacks from true mixers (like some EMGs and John East stuff). Mixer would be fine but because so many people do not understand the difference, thus mixer will not be a widely used term.

 

I do see that the tone stack itself can be the issue (and is easily replaceable), just like the poor blend+vol stack (which is maybe worth £2). Take a look inside a studio mixer channel, and think why it probably has better sound than your "active" preamp that is worth £10. And I do not mean the price at the dealers. I mean the price of the components and the PCB.

 

You want to compare something, take a good hi-Z set (like @KiOgon) and try the same bass with a mixer (like East), then this discussion has a better start. Cheap tone stacks are just, yes, cheapo.

[fourbanger]

Active for live, passive for recording I guess. Though I don't have an active bass right at the moment, in the past I gigged with them but I've not been on the wrong end of a stage for five years now. I prefer simplicity these days. Iv'e two Ps a Jazz and a Yamaha beater bass. I generally play the P bass at mid tone with vol at 80% and rarely deviate much. I'm recording at a good studio in about two weeks, I might have something to add to this after that lol.

[Jack]

8 hours ago, fourbanger said:

Active for live, passive for recording I guess. Though I don't have an active bass right at the moment, in the past I gigged with them but I've not been on the wrong end of a stage for five years now. I prefer simplicity these days. Iv'e two Ps a Jazz and a Yamaha beater bass. I generally play the P bass at mid tone with vol at 80% and rarely deviate much. I'm recording at a good studio in about two weeks, I might have something to add to this after that lol.

Out of interest, why 80% volume?

[BigRedX]

For me I can't see the point of active basses. 

 

In terms of tone controls I have far better adjustments available on my Helix.

 

If I needed to cable long enough to be noticeably affected by buffering issues/signal loss/capacitance, I'd probably be going wireless.

[chris_b]

I'm very happy with the sound of my active Sadowsky Jazz bass. Would it sound the same without the preamp? I very much doubt it, so there is definitely a place for active basses.

[NancyJohnson]

I have no real preference for active or passive, several of both.  

 

Stock active basses aside, I've got three (I think it's three) John East circuits installed on different basses and suppose the joy with these is that you simply have more control over the frequency bands you choose to cut, boost or sweep; active for me is very much about controlling the mids and boosting the low end where necessary (I find the top end on John East stuff a fraction too bright, but generally just leave the treble in the notched central position).  You simply don't have that flexibility with a single tone knob, I mean, how could you?

[fourbanger]

4 hours ago, Jack said:

Out of interest, why 80% volume?

To leave a reliable amount of headroom to adjust on the fly. I set my volume for the room/stage at the amp. If my bass is turned fully up theres nowhere to go if need more, and I hate turning around and fiddling with an amp mid set or song. With the 80% setting, I know exactly how much more I've got in reserve.

 

An active switch can be handy too in the same respect if you need different sound setting or a change of levels mid set or mid song without dial fiddling.

[Lfalex v1.1]

In my experience (and we're all different and play different instruments for different reasons), passive instruments sound more "immediate" There's less evidence of sonic tampering going on with the sound. Better EQ systems are usually less intrusive sounding. 

One of the bonuses of active setups is that extremes of EQ are easily available, and adjustments, big or small can be made on the fly.  Active pickups are another story again,  as are low-impedance outputs.

 

Two of my favourite basses are almost polar opposites in active/passive terms. I like the tone and playability of both.

[Woodinblack]

2 hours ago, BigRedX said:

If I needed to cable long enough to be noticeably affected by buffering issues/signal loss/capacitance, I'd probably be going wireless.

 

That is always an issue, although I would say that a cable long enough to be noticably affected by signal loss / capacitance would be very short. Which is fine if you don't mind that loss.

 

9 minutes ago, Lfalex v1.1 said:

In my experience (and we're all different and play different instruments for different reasons), passive instruments sound more "immediate" There's less evidence of sonic tampering going on with the sound.

 

My experience is entirely the opposite to that. And I am not talking EQ, as I rarely do anything other than flat EQ.

[Lfalex v1.1]

12 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

 

My experience is entirely the opposite to that. And I am not talking EQ, as I rarely do anything other than flat EQ.

 

That's interesting. The two passive basses to which I was particularly referring are a Yamaha Attitude and a G&L SB-2 Tribute. 

With DiMarzo and G&L MFD pickups respectively. 

I certainly wouldn't say that the pickups were the most natural or neutral around (hardly, in either case!) but apart from that, the responsiveness in both is first rate. 

Perhaps because I can play a little hard with my plucking hand, I cause 9v active systems coupled to low output (passive) pickups to sound compressed. 18v electronics/active pickups or hot passive pickups seem to suffer less in this respect. 

Edited March 16, 2022 by Lfalex v1.1