What's the reason behind active pickups?

[StratTom]

All I know is that active pickups have a battery that they use, but really what's the point behind it? And why do some prefer active over passive?

[bryvincent]

Re: What's the reason behind active pickups?

less noise, no electrocution

[StratTom]

Re: What's the reason behind active pickups?

less noise, no electrocution

Your referring to active or passive? I thought actives were noisey

[DiminisheD-7th]

Re: What's the reason behind active pickups?

active pickups have alot of trates passive pickups dont have. active's arent just passives with a battery.
active pickups sport very weak magnets that are amplified and modeled with a pickup preamp. they generate an entirely different sound. the building of active pickups is superior. they are also dead quite and barely induce hum, generate low impedence output. actives bassicaly have zero string pull and so they allow the string to vibrate properly even when they're close to the strings, this is also why they have more sustain (along with the gain and resonant peak modeling coming from the preamp).

this is how it looks on paper. you have to check out actives (especially EMG's) and see for yourself if you like it or not. some people dig, some hate and some, like me, enjoy both worlds

[StratTom]

Re: What's the reason behind active pickups?

Thanks DiminisheD-7th!!

[TattooedCarrot]

Re: What's the reason behind active pickups?

They also will not shock you, and they keep the signal integrity when using long cords or a long effects chain; passive's signal will start to degrade in those cases. But IMO EMG's always sound somewhat compressed and flat (EQ). I like them, but not for everything.

[DiminisheD-7th]

Re: What's the reason behind active pickups?

definatly
EMG's have their pro's and con's
you have to know when its good to use them and when its not.
i would also like to point out that EMG's are excellent when used as "tools" to develop clean technique.
a pickup like the 81 will pick-up EVERYTHING you play.
people who cant play cleanly call it "unforgiving" sometimes.

anyways, my point is, if you practice alot of technical playing, or very fast rhythm work or whatever you'll have to play more cleanly for it to sound clean. if that makes any sence.
when i got EMG's i was just starting to develop my technique and "touch/style" and so the pickups actually helped me out in sounding cleaner and bringing out my own style out, and then you can do that on any guitar.

[ArtieToo]

Re: What's the reason behind active pickups?

I don't really think the pickup has any bearing on whether or not you get "shocked". If you're getting shocked, its probably because the amp is plugged into a mis-wired or non-grounded outlet. The amp may then place voltage on the ground side of the guitar jack. Active or passive, if that occurs, you're going to get zapped.

One of the reasons for actives is they often use transducers other than a coil of wire, like peizo elements or hall-effect devices. These devices are either low output, or need external power to operate. They always run into onboard pre-amps which is why they seem to have much higher output.

You can, of course, add an on-board pre-amp, (such as the D-Tar Eclipse), to any passive pickup, and gain all the benefits of actives - hi-gain, easy blending, quiet operation, low output impedance, etc.

[Rodney]

Re: What's the reason behind active pickups?

active pickups have alot of trates passive pickups dont have. active's arent just passives with a battery.
active pickups sport very weak magnets that are amplified and modeled with a pickup preamp. they generate an entirely different sound. the building of active pickups is superior. they are also dead quite and barely induce hum, generate low impedence output. actives bassicaly have zero string pull and so they allow the string to vibrate properly even when they're close to the strings, this is also why they have more sustain (along with the gain and resonant peak modeling coming from the preamp).

There is quite a bit bigger reality or perspective than that.
Active pickups don't use weaker magnets, they generally use a smaller coil winding. The additional sustain that sometimes comes with active pickups is the result of the preamp. Gain and output always increases sustain and has nothing to do with magnet strength.

Just for the record (and for education), active pickups are not built with any more 'superiority' than passives. Not even sure where that idea would come from but rest assured it isn't close to true. If anything it would be the other way around.

The 'tone' of an active pickup is generated by a pre-determined EQ. That is why certain active pickups sound just about exactly the same in any guitar you put them in. The color of the pickup is so strong that it dominates over the natural flavor of the guitars wood, resonances, etc....

That, BTW is why so many people prefer passives. Actives do not allow the guitar room to breathe and they don't develop the guitars natural tone. The 'response' is very limited and predictable, which works perfectly well for certain types of players.

The 'passive /active' scenario is a good one to explore. I have heard jaw dropping tone from both. Personally I prefer passive pickups, active pre-amp solutions. YMMV.

Hope to help.

[Nate]

Re: What's the reason behind active pickups?

Try asking this question on the dreamtheater.net forums. See how many replies of "Actives suck/they have ZERO tone in them/they sound muddy/they're useless pieces of garbage" you get.

[sanrafael]

Re: What's the reason behind active pickups?

----------------------------------------------------------------- QUOTE:
The 'tone' of an active pickup is generated by a pre-determined EQ. That is why certain active pickups sound just about exactly the same in any guitar you put them in. The color of the pickup is so strong that it dominates over the natural flavor of the guitars wood, resonances, etc....

That, BTW is why so many people prefer passives. Actives do not allow the guitar room to breathe and they don't develop the guitars natural tone. The 'response' is very limited and predictable, which works perfectly well for certain types of players.
-------------------------------------------------------------------

That could be true for a particular active preamp, but in principle, pickup + electronics in one case is no different from pickup + electronics outside the guitar. It might be harder to get good electronics inside the pup case than outside, but that is just a practical problem that someone will solve eventually if there is enough market for the product.

[Humbucker]

Re: What's the reason behind active pickups?

That could be true for a particular active preamp, but in principle, pickup + electronics in one case is no different from pickup + electronics outside the guitar. It might be harder to get good electronics inside the pup case than outside, but that is just a practical problem that someone will solve eventually if there is enough market for the product.

Actually, the point of having an active pickup is so that you have a preamp built right into the pickup's terminals. The effect isn't the same as having a preamp farther down the line, even if it's just in your guitar's control cavity. Any amount of wiring between the pickup and the preamp, even if it's only a few inches, affects the frequency's of the output of the guitar sound. Having the preamp built right into the pickup gets you as close as possible to the actual sound of the pickup and the guitar. If it's any farther than that, you start losing tons of frequency response very rapidly. Of course, a lot of people consider this a good thing, because that "impure" sound is what we grew up with.

Alembic did a lot of groundbreaking stuff with active pickups back in the seventies. Active seem to suit bass guitars better because a lot of the times basses seem to be missing some high end definition.

[sanrafael]

Re: What's the reason behind active pickups?

The effect isn't the same as having a preamp farther down the line, even if it's just in your guitar's control cavity. Any amount of wiring between the pickup and the preamp, even if it's only a few inches, affects the frequency's of the output of the guitar sound. Having the preamp built right into the pickup gets you as close as possible to the actual sound of the pickup and the guitar. If it's any farther than that, you start losing tons of frequency response very rapidly.

In the normal passive setup the capacitance of the cable between the guitar and the amp is a big factor in deteriming the resonant frequency of the system. Passive pickups are designed with a variety of resonant frequencies so that the guitarist can select the desired tone, which includes the effect of the cable. If you eliminate the cable effect by putting the preamp in the guitar, it is necessary to add capacitance across the pup to get the correct resonant frequency or redesign the pickup. There is no significant inherent loss from the cable unless you want a really high resonant frequency for some reason. The typical guitar speaker does not reproduce these frequencies, and if it did the result would be too shrill.

A few inches of wire inside the guitar cavity has no significant effect on the frequency response. The purpose of putting the preamp in the pup case is to have a product that can easily replace a passive pup and get some of the advantages of an active guitar. From a practical point of view, if you want an active guitar (which has many advantages if done properly), the electronics should be in the guitar cavity where there is more room, and one can take advantage of active pup combining techniques and tone controls.

[Kent S.]

Re: What's the reason behind active pickups?

Basically this will recap what was already said ...
The real reason behind it (as relayed to me years back from EMG) was that it freed up the designer of the pup in terms of getting the tone, lower magnetic pull, better noise specs, an output level that wasn't co-dependent on a particular tone curve, and lower in source impedance (that was more of a byproduct). As all of those qualities that I mentioned are inter-depedent on a passive pup, and much less so of an active pup.
Some people swear by them, and some people hate them. I stick by passives, just for the reason that I've always gotten what I wanted from them. All personal taste.

[Rodney]

Re: What's the reason behind active pickups?

----------------------------------------------------------------- QUOTE:
The 'tone' of an active pickup is generated by a pre-determined EQ. That is why certain active pickups sound just about exactly the same in any guitar you put them in. The color of the pickup is so strong that it dominates over the natural flavor of the guitars wood, resonances, etc....

That, BTW is why so many people prefer passives. Actives do not allow the guitar room to breathe and they don't develop the guitars natural tone. The 'response' is very limited and predictable, which works perfectly well for certain types of players.
-------------------------------------------------------------------

That could be true for a particular active preamp, but in principle, pickup + electronics in one case is no different from pickup + electronics outside the guitar. It might be harder to get good electronics inside the pup case than outside, but that is just a practical problem that someone will solve eventually if there is enough market for the product.

I don't think I understand your point or how it relates to my post?

Whether the preamp is housed with the pickup or not has no relevance to the outcome. If the pre-amp is set at a specific gain and EQ and cannot be altered, it will always have the same characteristic sound. Often times, that particular sound is so colored and strong that it will produce the same (or very similiar) results regardless of the instrument. It is predictable.

Generally, in industry practice, the actual pickup and pre-amp are not seperated when talking about active pickups.
Sometimes there are active pickups AND an on-board active pre-amp for additonal tone shaping...Sometimes there are passive pickups with on-board active electronics for tone shaping.
At one point in Duncan history, the original Pro Active bass pickups had dip switches to alter the pre-amp gain and EQ curve, resonant shift etc. No one bothered to use them so they eventually went to a traditional design.

Whether you like active pickups makes no matter, great tone can come from many parameters and sources.

Peace.