Active or Passive

[joel406]

Simple.

 

What do you prefer? Active or Passive Instrument?

 

And if you can verbalize it.

 

Why?

 

I get people use both. 

 

I have both.

 

If you switch up during sessions. How do you handle the EQ changes? I'm considering several options for drastic tonal changes throughout a session.

 

Sorry.... THat darn brain tumor acting up.

 

Discuss?

[PaulThePlug]

Passive...

I have removed the gubbins from 2x Ibby SR300s, a P Tonerider and a Stacked Maida Vale J, an Ibby 400 to Dìmarzio Split Coil J, an SR500 to Passive Reverse P Mk1 Barts, and a Epi T Bird Pro to a single Dimarzio Mudbucker... Often simple pickup switch, vol and out... tone elsewhere.

 

Dynamics... how many tone stacks do you need?

Get it all in, wobble it about, Wah n Phaser, shove it out, bit of fuzz-o-drive... jobs a good un... DI or Whatever ya got!..

 

Not quite the 'Straight to amp' thread, but not far from it.

Make-a-Move... and enjoy playing.

 

Edited Tuesday at 23:33 by PaulThePlug

[Doctor J]

Active. Start flat and adjust to taste. Lovely.

[NickA]

Active. 

 

Stops the pickups / coils being loaded by eachother, by the capacitance of long cables and by low input impedance amps and effects...which makes for a wider frequency response.  reduces noise pickup as the basses output impedance is low.  Also it allows a separate EQ on each pickup ( if you have a Wal, alembic series or east acg-eq-01 electronics) which is something you can't do on the amp.

 

Still, there's an appealing simplicity to a passive bass and parallel pickups ( eg a jazz bass) have a particular sound due to that mutual pickup loading.

 

My bitsa jazz bass is very active at the moment ( acg-eq-01 ) but may go passive again when I tire of it.

 

 

 

 

[PaulThePlug]

What isotonic newfangled-ness do you distract us mere 4 stringers with?...

 

Save your newness for thy 5 fingered or more banjo-esq player. The thumb be to rest... and doth not count.

 

Active Music Man Type? 😉

[Schnozzalee]

I like to switch between and preferably on the same bass. If you're playing live, active.

[Passinwind]

More knobs = more tone. 

 

Or not, depending, but I have less than zero use for any passive basses in what passes for my world.

Edited 13 hours ago by Passinwind

[itu]

6 hours ago, NickA said:

Active. 

 

Stops the pickups / coils being loaded by eachother...

Which preamp you use that has mixer instead of plain blend pot? EMG, John East, Audere, or do you have a Noll MixPot?

 

(My single pickup fretless has just a step attenuator, and a coil switch. All others are equipped with some kind of a lo-Z circuitry.)

[OliverBlackman]

I use passive. Got a Fender P bass that always sat perfectly in the mix so no need for messing with EQ settings.

[Skybone]

Passive.

 

I owned & used active eq basses for a good few years, and had some very nice basses (a few dogs too), for example an SB1000, a couple of StingRay's, a Thunder 1A, an L2000 Tribute, etc. I was getting into recording, but no matter what I was trying, I just couldn't get a sound that I liked. Tried a passive bass, and there it was. Works for me.

 

I get that some people love active basses, and there are some beautiful basses out there that I'd love to try, but it's passive only for me just now.

[NickA]

1 hour ago, itu said:

Which preamp you use

The Wal individually sums all the coils of each pickup then filters each pickup then sums the filter outputs using an op-amp mixer.  The jazzbass-alike has the east electronics which also buffers and then mixes the two pickups ( it has a total of 8 knobs!).  Not sure what the Warwick does, but the pickups are active ( IE there's a buffer amp in each of the three pickups) so still no current drawn from them.

[warwickhunt]

I have passive basses, I have active basses... I have active, passive basses. 

 

I have pedals, I have preamps, I have preamp pedals and I have amplifiers... ALL of these things turn the passive electronics into 'active' so I don't ever think about it.

 

If I had to make an absolute choice I'd choose active; it's like passive but MORE!    

[LeftyJ]

I have both, but I rarely touch the active EQ on my active basses, and I never touched the tone control on my passive basses, except sparingly on my Jazz Bass. That is, until I got a (sort of) P-bass. Suddenly that control made sense, and became incredibly useful. 

 

My ideal control layout for my needs is very simple: I'll just have a master volume, a buffered pan pot (if twin-pickup), a passive tone control and an active bass boost and I'm happy as can be. 

[pete.young]

8 hours ago, PaulThePlug said:

 

 

Save your newness for thy 5 fingered or more banjo-esq player. The thumb be to rest... and doth not count.

 

Active Music Man Type? 😉

 

Active. It allows you to boost as well as cut. When I do use a passive bass, it's almost certainly with some sort of pre-amp.

 

For a banjo, it definitely has to be active, preferrably Fishman. Regardless of the number of strings.

 

You can use a Boss LM2 to balance signal levels, but that won't give you control of the EQ. You'd need to put a graphic EQ or something in series.

[Jackroadkill]

Passive for me; I like the simplicity and the growl.  I also can't be bothered to be constantly fiddling with a pre-amp; I tend to use my tone and volume control(s) sparingly.

[White Cloud]

Passive.

 

Went all around the active block for decades with an Alembic, Wal, ACG, Vigier, Musicman, Jaydee etc. before arriving back where I started.

 

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication has become my philosophy.

[Lozz196]

Passive. I like the sound of active basses but I`m one of those people that the more tone functions available the more I fiddle with them, concentrating on this rather than the playing. Passive bass with one pickup and one tone control both on full is what suits me best.

[Rodders]

Passive for the vast majority, I've almost always found that active basses are too hi fi sounding for me. 

Plus the simplicity of passive appeals to me, 2 of my basses only have a volume knob, as I can adjust EQ on the amp, that was before I got into using a pedalboard of course which added a host of knobs and settings..  

Edited 20 hours ago by Rodders
Spelling

[BigRedX]

Passive. For me there is little point to active basses:

 

I have superior tone-shaping facilities elsewhere in my signal chain.

I use a wireless system so I already have something that does buffering of the signal from the bass.

I have a set and forget attitude to on-board controls. Most of the time it's everything full on and let my Helix produce the sound(s) I want.

 

The only active circuits I have ever found useful are those that either allow individual tone shaping for each pickup or do something that can't be done better elsewhere in the signal chain such as the the ACG filter pre-amp. 

[AMV001]

10 hours ago, NickA said:

Also it allows a separate EQ on each pickup...which is something you can't do on the amp.

Unless you've got Rick-O-Sound.

[Cat Burrito]

I can see arguments for both. Personally I prefer passive as it is what I have predominately always had. My worry is the flat battery is one more thing to go wrong. A bit pessimistic, I know! A lot of the music I have played over the years has been more old school so passive had the sound I was after BUT all that said, I have nothing against active stuff and can certainly see the appeal.

[NancyJohnson]

I like the simplicity of passive circuitry, but a few years back I bought a Spector Euro LT that had a Darkglass circuit and the thing was alive compared to my passive kit, so I went to active route on everything else.

 

Updated John East/Darkglass circuits on all but two of my basses, the Spector Euro-X has (I think) an EMG circuit.

 

I just feel that a cut/boost active circuit just gives you more control over what hits the preamp; lows, mids, highs, bright and therefore an almost infinite level of control combinations.  This obviously is all subjective; this isn't to say that great tone doesn't exist from a VVT potted bass, because it does.

 

Ultimately, use active circuits sparingly.  It's not all about just having everything full on.

[Cato]

I mainly swap between an active PJ and and a passive Jazz.

 

These days I rarely touch the controls on either except to make sure they're set where I want them.

 

If I did want to experiment with diferent tones then the active PJ does cover a lot of ground.

[neepheid]

I'm not a knob twiddler at the gig - I modify things at the pedal board - EQ, OD, synth, pitch shifting.  That's "dramatic" changes to me.  The knobs on the bass don't really make that much difference in the grand scheme of things as far as I'm concerned - I'm set and forget, as long as I've got some mids to play with, I'm a happy boy.  I buy basses because they're pretty and match certain specifications, some of which are negotiable.  But whether they're active or passive means very little to me.  I only have one active bass right now, that's a Sire Z7, and I bought it because I liked the looks of it.  That's just the way the cookie has crumbled right now, have owned many active basses in the past.

 

I do think that every active bass (with passive pickups) should come with a passive "get out of jail free" mechanism, even if it's raw pickup output.  I know it is our responsiblity as players to keep on top of batteries, but to err is human, and it's far better to be able to limp to the end of a song with the flick of a switch rather than just go silent IMO.

 

[Stub Mandrel]

My default preference is passive.

 

I mostly use hand position and playing style to achieve tonal changes, so quite happy with a single pickup, vol and tone maxed and set the basic sound I want using my amp's controls.

 

With a two pickup bass I will use variations of blend for some songs if I feel more 'bite' or 'mellowness' suits.

 

Of course this means large variations in how different basses sound, but that's the reason for having different basses! Unlike most people I don't want consistency, I enjoy making different basses fit the music.

 

I only have two active basses; my feling is that the controls tend to be far too aggressive so the useful region is around their middle settings. But it can be fun to use some more extreme settings, especially if doing some bedroom blasting.