active or passive?

[as_i_amyung]

hey all

im just wondering if you like active or passive pickups better? im more of a passive kinda guy...dont have to worry about a battery :p

[burtonbassist_101]

i'd have to say that, thus far in my bass-playing experience, i too am a passive guy. its simpler, and no battery (like you said)

however, i suppose that having a bass with a active/passive switch would be good too, i just havent had one yet

[FunkMetalBass]

I like passive because active has about half the volume, and I can't cut through with it.

[funkyhoney]

i say active, having two basses, one active one passive, i definately like my active better

[IPolkaLikeThis!]

other than a MIA p-bass, all of the basses i plan to get will be active.

[Mailman]

Well, if its a P or J bass, passive. But otherwise, I like Active.

Ideally my bass setup goes like this:

Some kind of passive Fender J Bass White with Tort
Some active bass, probably still the Ibanez BTB I have now
Hamer 12 string Chapperal Bass

Through either an Ampeg/Orange/Mesa Rig.

[jollygiantchris]

passive....get a better old school sound with it @ least to my ears

[FunkMetalBass]

Am I the only person here who can't tell the difference except for volume-wise?

[Strange Brew]

i find active too bright.

[peeted]

well i voted active because you have more controll but i think its best wen you have a swich so you can change from active to passive.

[mister_tee]

I have an active, and the output signal is too powerful for some amps which sucks. Hard. So passive gets my vote, even though it's quite possible that the lame setup on the active is my own fault.

[bottlerocket]

Passive for a J or a P but active for anything else...I like having a passive J because I get a growly and dirty tone from it but I like having an active Schecter because I get way more tone shaping from it.

-Gav

[eaton1012]

I have one of each.

[maco]

Active--I like having more control over the tone (and I don't like walking over to my amp even if I'm sitting like 3 feet away from it)

As to what everyone's saying about P's and J's, I had Titan's (Yamaha's Squier) version of a P-Bass, and that was passive. I don't know what it'd sound like active, but it was alright. The d'amned frets weren't even though, so the action had to be really high. But hey, getting used to fretting harder with the high action means flats don't take much effort at all.

[darrell]

Hasn't this poll been done 25,000 times?

[bottlerocket]

^ Yes...25,001, actually...

-Gav

[edgebass5]

Active (i.e. not necessarily active pickups, but an active onboard tone circuit) basses have tone circuits that are made (typically) from components that you could find at Radio Shack for about $0.80 a piece. Most of them are cheaply made, and not very powerful at all. The outboard processing found in most amplifiers is far more powerful and musical than that of the common onboard preamp. Combine that with the advantages of having no batteries to deal with, and the fact that its impossible to overload (i.e. run out of headroom) a passive tone circuit.

The one advantage I can find for active basses is the fact that they can drive longer cables with less signal loss/degradation.

[Chris K]

I use (mostly) active when I play, I like the "hands on" tone shaping that it allows. But the cool thing about the Kubicki is that it has two active and three passive modes. I like to play around with the passive mode (Passive mode 2 is very cool as it has a very growly jazz bass sound it to).

Whats also nice about this feature is it means you don't have to play with the onboard EQ engaged in the studio, meaning you could run through a brilliant studio EQ (sometihng like 120 sliders to play with :D )

[ebe9]

I am going to have to say I am still undecided..........

I own 2 corts which are both active but have a switch that allows me to change between active and passive........

I tend to just leave it off and do my adjustments on the amp itself but definetly do like the option of switching to active should i need it.

But I will go with what I use the most...........Passive