Half active and half passive pickup?????

K

krulty

New member
So if you take an active single coil (like the blackout single as-1) and then take an rwrp passive single coil and bolt them both to a humbucker base plate (or into a hb slot on a scratchplate)

Then In theory you have a half active/half passive humbucker. So you should get a ballance of the two right?

Can anyone confirm this? Has anyone done it? Does it already exist?

(Id probably try it with an emg active "s" singlecoil and an emg passive "s3". I like duncans better but id get a more uniform look from emg's, as they look so similar)
 
Re: Half active and half passive pickup?????

Well you have one hum-canceling pickup and one which isn't, so there is hum.

Active and passive can be put together with no problems as long as you don't try to use pots with them. Aka run without volume and tone control. You can't "mix". It's just on/off.
 
Re: Half active and half passive pickup?????

uOpt said:
Well you have one hum-canceling pickup and one which isn't, so there is hum.

Active and passive can be put together with no problems as long as you don't try to use pots with them. Aka run without volume and tone control. You can't "mix". It's just on/off.
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Emg passive "s3" is noiseless. Or could use a lace sensor. But why cant a volume be used?
 
Re: Half active and half passive pickup?????

Could you run say a 500K pot to a passive pickup, then have a 25K resistor in parallel to the active pickup? That would give 500K to the passive. And 23.81K to the active pickup (close enough). Taper might be a bit wonky, but this might be a way to use one pot with both active and passive pickups.
 
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Re: Half active and half passive pickup?????

Chad said:
Could you run say a 500K pot to a passive pickup, then have a 25K resistor in parallel to the active pickup? That would give 500K to the passive. And 23.81K to the active pickup (close enough). Taper might be a bit wonky, but this might be a way to use one pot with both active and passive pickups.
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I'm still not clear why it need anything like that? Why cant it run off the same volume pot? (If it comes to it two pots can do the trick right? Les pauls have two vols per pup. Why not per coil)
 
Re: Half active and half passive pickup?????

First of all, what would you be trying to accomplish by mixing an active single coil and a passive single coil to make a humbucker? I sounds pretty impractical.
 
Re: Half active and half passive pickup?????

because passives use a 250k or 500k volume and actives use a 25k.

you can add a preamp to the passive to boost it up to active levels or put a resister in front of the active to make it see 25k but using it with a 250k volume makes it an on/off switch.

it'll never really be a balance, pick one or the other.

a 30k resister in front of the active will make a 250k pots look like a 28.8K pot and a 30k resister in front of a 500k pot will see 28.3k and trim some gain off, but I've really only seen this work for say a passive neck and an active bridge, where you are looking for very different sounds and outputs from the same guitar.
 
Re: Half active and half passive pickup?????

allstarrme said:
because passives use a 250k or 500k volume and actives use a 25k.

you can add a preamp to the passive to boost it up to active levels or put a resister in front of the active to make it see 25k but using it with a 250k volume makes it an on/off switch.

it'll never really be a balance, pick one or the other.

a 30k resister in front of the active will make a 250k pots look like a 28.8K pot and a 30k resister in front of a 500k pot will see 28.3k and trim some gain off, but I've really only seen this work for say a passive neck and an active bridge, where you are looking for very different sounds and outputs from the same guitar.
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But a tapped or spilt humbucker is still on a 500k pot. So since id use them as a humbucker and not as singles. It should be fine shouldnt it
 
Re: Half active and half passive pickup?????

Myaccount876 said:
First of all, what would you be trying to accomplish by mixing an active single coil and a passive single coil to make a humbucker? I sounds pretty impractical.
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It says on the original post what im trying to accomplish. A ballance of active and passive tonal qualitys. I want the advantages of an active but i want to keep some sweetness to the tone. And im not sure how its impractical??? Once its all wired it would work the same as any pup.
 
Re: Half active and half passive pickup?????

You also can't just put two single coil sized ones so close to each other, they mess up each other's magnetic fields.

The 25Kohm pots will kill the resonance peak of the passives, the 250 Kohm pot won't impress the active.
 
Re: Half active and half passive pickup?????

uOpt said:
You also can't just put two single coil sized ones so close to each other, they mess up each other's magnetic fields.

The 25Kohm pots will kill the resonance peak of the passives, the 250 Kohm pot won't impress the active.
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They only mess up each others magnetic field if there both standard. I did say the passive would be rwrp. So the magnetic fields would work fine.
 
Re: Half active and half passive pickup?????

uOpt said:
No they won't.
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Why wont they? I dont know the details but i know the science. A humbucker is made by two coils in series. One polarised and wound as normal the other with a reverse polarity and reverse wound. Active just means it has an in built pre-amp. Other then that its a normal pickup made the same as any. I know for fact you can use two passive single to make a humbucker. And i know you can use active and passives in the same instrument. And i know 100% there magnetic fields wont interfere (if they did the guitars loaded with 3 humbuckers like many gibsons, wouldn't exist)
 
Re: Half active and half passive pickup?????

it will work but even with a resistor in front the active will stand out and be much louder than the passive.
 
Re: Half active and half passive pickup?????

allstarrme said:
it will work but even with a resistor in front the active will stand out and be much louder than the passive.
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Isn't the loudness due to the hotness output? There should be a way to compensate for that should't there? Maybe a less hot active and a more hot passive? Also if im using them as one, Then it should still colour the tone sweeter. Right?
 
Re: Half active and half passive pickup?????

The humbucker has a bar magnet at the bottom. Right next to a SC with rod magnets upright both fields will be messed up.
 
Re: Half active and half passive pickup?????

uOpt said:
The humbucker has a bar magnet at the bottom. Right next to a SC with rod magnets upright both fields will be messed up.
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Bar or rod a magnetic field is a magnetic field. They dont come in types! And you can get passives with bar mags, like the passive single i mentioned (emg s3) has.
 
Re: Half active and half passive pickup?????

Why ask for advice if you're not interested in taking it? Just put the coils together and see what happens. That's what you seem to be determined to do anyway.
 
Re: Half active and half passive pickup?????

aleclee said:
Why ask for advice if you're not interested in taking it? Just put the coils together and see what happens. That's what you seem to be determined to do anyway.
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Sorry if you misunderstand me. Im interested in the sharing of ideas. But i know when some are based on opinion and presumption. Of course until its done, presuming is all that can be done. Im only objecting to the points i know cant be right.
 
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