actives vs passives

[Graemewoodman]

Can someone please explain the differences between actives and passive pickups. When playing in a band is it a good idea to have the lead guitarist with passive and rhythm with actives? What are the advantages/disadvantages?

 

[Jody]

In actual design a passive pickup works off of the strings alone. In other words, the harder you hit the strings the louder the sound you make. Think of this string-pickup realationship as a light bulb hooked up to a dimmer switch.

Now actives are very different. They have much less resistance because they are being amplifide by a battery. When you hit the strings, you get the same volume and tone you would get no matter how hard or soft you play. Think of this as the same light bulb hooked up to just a switch. Also, in my opinion they are best in heavyhard rock.

Read more: What's the difference between active and passive guitar pickups? | Answerbag What's the difference between active and passive guitar pickups? | Answerbag

 

[Graemewoodman]

Ok cool thanks what do you like better?

 

[Death by Uberschall]

I'm an active person. EMG 81/85 pups are heaven in a good Les Paul.

 

[Mookakian]

As jody said - If you want to control volume levels via pick velocity and have less mud when you roll the volume down - passives.
If you want constant same level volume, and dont mind the missing highs as you roll off volume - actives.

I also think actives are more mechanical/produced sounding and passives let in more soul.

Depends what you want to play

Try a few

 

[CustomClassic59]

I've tried active pups in a few different axes & just don't like them. To my ears, they just sound muddy, mechanical, and lack soul. Passive pickups just sound more organic (real) to me...

 

[zslane]

I also think actives are more mechanical/produced sounding and passives let in more soul.

I've tried active pups in a few different axes & just don't like them. To my ears, they just sound muddy, mechanical, and lack soul. Passive pickups just sound more organic (real) to me...

My suspicions are always aroused when I see the same exact descriptive terminology used; it is usually an indicator that a particular bias is just being parotted because it seems to corroborate "conventional wisdom". Well, I am constitutionally resistant to conventional wisdom and I tend to question it every time I encounter it.

Take active pickups, for instance. I have a pair of Duncan Blackouts in a Les Paul Custom and they don't exhibit "mechanical" (how do electronics sound mechanical?) or "soulless" (how do inanimate things acquire a soul?) or "less organic" (pickups are all made of inorganic matter, so this distinction has no degrees) qualities.

Adjectives like these are, IMO, simply ways for subjective, unreliable experience to substitute for rational analysis and then get propagated through guitar culture as "accepted" myth.

 

[Death by Uberschall]

The whole EMG vs. Passives pups is way over done. I always hear from the passive guys that EMG's make all guitars sound the same. That's just not true. I have several guitars with the EMG 81/85 or 81/SA pup combination and they don't sound the same. I can take my PRS Custom24 (yes it has the 81/85 set and it sounds wonderful) and put it against my Gibson Gothic Les Paul with 81/85 pups or either one of my mahogany body Warmoth guitars (Tele or Soloist) or against my Hamer Californian Elites and none of them sound exactly the same.

EMG pups have a very full, almost flat curve for the most part, so they sound like your guitar, not like your guitar with a funky eq'ed pup.

 

[CustomClassic59]

My suspicions are always aroused when I see the same exact descriptive terminology used; it is usually an indicator that a particular bias is just being parotted because it seems to corroborate "conventional wisdom". Well, I am constitutionally resistant to conventional wisdom and I tend to question it every time I encounter it.

Take active pickups, for instance. I have a pair of Duncan Blackouts in a Les Paul Custom and they don't exhibit "mechanical" (how do electronics sound mechanical?) or "soulless" (how do inanimate things acquire a soul?) or "less organic" (pickups are all made of inorganic matter, so this distinction has no degrees) qualities.

Adjectives like these are, IMO, simply ways for subjective, unreliable experience to substitute for rational analysis and then get propagated through guitar culture as "accepted" myth.

Well, call it what you want. As I mentioned, I had no "bias" one way or another to begin with. I had a few guitars with active pups in them and always gave them a chance by taking them to several gigs, my thinking being that maybe I'd like them in different guitars. I didn't. I don't know what to tell ya... to my ears they just didn't sound the way I wanted them to sound. The term "organic" is obviously one to describe the feel of the tone, not what the pickups are made of. Come on. Be serious. Is that really what you thought I meant? To be fair, as far as active pups go, I've only tried EMGs, so I'm basing my reaction on those. Never tried the Blackouts. I've worked a good, long time to find the exact pickups & tone I'm looking for (magnet, windings, etc.), so I think I'm pretty qualified to state what I do & don't like...

 

[PINKBITS]

My suspicions are always aroused when I see the same exact descriptive terminology used; it is usually an indicator that a particular bias is just being parotted because it seems to corroborate "conventional wisdom". Well, I am constitutionally resistant to conventional wisdom and I tend to question it every time I encounter it.

Take active pickups, for instance. I have a pair of Duncan Blackouts in a Les Paul Custom and they don't exhibit "mechanical" (how do electronics sound mechanical?) or "soulless" (how do inanimate things acquire a soul?) or "less organic" (pickups are all made of inorganic matter, so this distinction has no degrees) qualities.

Adjectives like these are, IMO, simply ways for subjective, unreliable experience to substitute for rational analysis and then get propagated through guitar culture as "accepted" myth.

Nice post.

 

[RetropM]

Passives sound soulless and mechanical and muddy?

[ame=http://il.youtube.com/watch?v=oQCC2gb0V-Q]YouTube - Metallica - Nothing Else Matters live @ Rock Am Ring 2008[/ame]

Roll off the tone a bit and Hetfield has a clean tone many Jazz guitarists would die for. Don't confuse those kids in Guitar Center and on Youtube who have no clue about tone with passives being crap. Sure they are better suited for heavier stuff, but EMG's clean up nicely and are more than capable of doing things other than Metal and Hard Rock. In fact, the EMG 60 Humbucker was designed around that idea.

And let's not even start on David Gilmore...

The fact is, you can't run Actives into an amp with the same settings as Passives as they are going to sound harsh. EQ your amp for the Actives and let them have a little warmth and fresh air, not to mention use the tone knobs!

 

[ehamady6]

I loaded an EMG 81/85 set in my Custom and they're excellent for the genres of metal I play. They also sound killer on my clean channel. I got hooked on EMGs when I had my Gibson Zakk Wylde (see avatar) and don't see going back to passives anytime soon. High output actives help my articulation cut through. I installed a 9V battery box in a spare control cavity cover for convenience.

.

 

[Death by Uberschall]

Sorry for the sound quality, but it's just a camcorder recordings of the room, but it's enough to let you know they are not dead and lifeless.

My Warmoth Mahogany body, Maple neck Tele.
Listen to the cleans right after the 3 chord lead in. EMG 81/85 pups.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnYY0C7QLgI]Hemorrhage cover- Fall of August[/ame]

My Warmoth Mahogany body, Maple neck Soloist w/EMG 81/85
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukygXhFscCc]YouTube - Zombie cover - Fall of August[/ame]

Gibson Gothic Les Paul w/EMG 81/85, listen to the solo at 3:10
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uw1JeRbpOO0]YouTube - Man in the Box cover - Fall of August[/ame]

 

[Mookakian]

Zslane
My suspicions are always aroused when I see the same exact descriptive terminology used; it is usually an indicator that a particular bias is just being parotted because it seems to corroborate "conventional wisdom". Well, I am constitutionally resistant to conventional wisdom and I tend to question it every time I encounter it

Take active pickups, for instance. I have a pair of Duncan Blackouts in a Les Paul Custom and they don't exhibit "mechanical" (how do electronics sound mechanical?) or "soulless" (how do inanimate things acquire a soul?) or "less organic" (pickups are all made of inorganic matter, so this distinction has no degrees) qualities.

,

I have more experience with actives than passives, arouse suspician as you please but i stand by my opinion, actives lack soul or sound digital in comparison to passives which sound more analog, earthy.... whatever you want to describe sound with words, thats the best i can do in terms i only assume/hope the OP will understand.

 

[CustomClassic59]

Well, as I said... active pups sound this way TO ME. I think they sound fine clean, but through my rig, and with my guitars, and to my ears, they just don't sound good for a big crunchy rhythm tone. It's just my opinion. I'm not trying to discount anybody else's gear, tone, or sound, it's just that EMGs don't sound good to me through my rig. And I don't want to have to roll back the tone knob on my guitar to make my pickups sound good. I found the pups I like, and I'm going to use them. That's all...

 

[snaredrum]

My suspicions are always aroused when I see the same exact descriptive terminology used; it is usually an indicator that a particular bias is just being parotted because it seems to corroborate "conventional wisdom". Well, I am constitutionally resistant to conventional wisdom and I tend to question it every time I encounter it.

Take active pickups, for instance. I have a pair of Duncan Blackouts in a Les Paul Custom and they don't exhibit "mechanical" (how do electronics sound mechanical?) or "soulless" (how do inanimate things acquire a soul?) or "less organic" (pickups are all made of inorganic matter, so this distinction has no degrees) qualities.

Adjectives like these are, IMO, simply ways for subjective, unreliable experience to substitute for rational analysis and then get propagated through guitar culture as "accepted" myth.

i distrust people at least as much as you do, but if two people use the same term to describe something, you usually should just write that off as there are only so many descriptive terms in the language...

 

[zslane]

i distrust people at least as much as you do, but if two people use the same term to describe something, you usually should just write that off as there are only so many descriptive terms in the language...

Well, its not just two. I see the same small handful of terms used over and over again by numerous posters. And I don't really agree that (a) there is a limited set of descriptive terms available, or that (b) these descriptive terms are even useful to begin with. What we have is a limited (more like optimized for easy recall) set of commonly regurgitated terms that don't really say much.

The problem is that these "descriptive" terms are not ways of meaningfully describing sound, but ways of perpetuating bias. For instance, someone plugs a guitar with active pickups into an amp and, without really studying how the pickups work and how they will interact with said amp's circuit design, they hear a tone they don't like and then go through their mental rolodex of terms that others have used pajoratively: mechanical, soulless, lifeless, whatever. They then trot out the same terms, not because they are actually descriptive of sound, but because they convey the fact that they simply didn't like the sound. That's not helpful for someone else who may want to give actives a try but needs guidance on how to use them properly and what to expect under different usage conditions.

 

[weirdotis]

My suspicions are always aroused when I see the same exact descriptive terminology used; it is usually an indicator that a particular bias is just being parotted because it seems to corroborate "conventional wisdom". Well, I am constitutionally resistant to conventional wisdom and I tend to question it every time I encounter it.

Take active pickups, for instance. I have a pair of Duncan Blackouts in a Les Paul Custom and they don't exhibit "mechanical" (how do electronics sound mechanical?) or "soulless" (how do inanimate things acquire a soul?) or "less organic" (pickups are all made of inorganic matter, so this distinction has no degrees) qualities.

Adjectives like these are, IMO, simply ways for subjective, unreliable experience to substitute for rational analysis and then get propagated through guitar culture as "accepted" myth.

IIRC, aren't the Duncan Blackouts sort of a active-passive hybrid?

 

[Mookakian]

You kow Zslane, i think i agree, next time i post ill make sure its more descriptive, something worth posting is worth posting properly.

OP

Actives for me were very responsive, touch the strings lightly and it'll be heard! They do respond to light picking but far from the extremeties a passive will.

Actives will tend to loose high/mid highs when you roll the volume down even with an 18V mod, not as much though. Though this could be good if you want a dark grunge tone in the track!

The lows are a little tougher in an active making them great for powerfull riffs, and chugging rock/metal, but can be overpowering for less aggressive styles styles, eg. Blues or easy rock. Lows take over the high mids/highs a little much for alot of players, same thing with a hot wound passive for many.

Now, the soul i speak of:

Basically a passive pickup works by creating a small amount of voltage using energy from the strings effect on the pickups magnet and coil. Wich is then taken to your pedals/amp where it is recognised, amplified and converted into sound.

An active pickup uses a battery to boost the signal. As the signal is stronger with a lower impedece compared to the passives, less tonal colouring or "signal manipulation" from your wood/leads/pedals/etc.. will be influencing your tone. Actives rely more heavily on the strings, pickups, wiring and battery to create the sound, of course it all makes a difference, but the tonal influences of different wood/leads/etc are far less reactive with an active signal,

Hope that helps

 

[CustomClassic59]

I give up...