What is the difference between active and passive pickups?

[danny458]

Hi all, can someone please explain what the difference is between active and passive pickups? I have a brief idea but i need a detailed explanation. what type of pickups is a single coil? is it a passive or an active? what type of pickup is a humbucker? is it an active pickup or passive? I don't really understand and would really appreciate it if someone could explain it to me thank you

 

[Der Oberherr]

Re: What is the difference between active and passive pickups?

I'm pretty sure you know this already, a pickup consists of a magnet and a wire which is wrapped around thousands of times to form a coil. Both active and passive pickups contin these features.

When you play a note, the vibration of the string interferes with the magnetic field caused by the magnet, and electricity is generated in the wire. Basically, the pickup senses the vibration like a microphone senses a voice and turns it into electricity, which travels to your amp, and sound is emitted. The more times the wire is coiled, the louder the signal will appear to be usually.

In a passive pickup, this is all that happens, nothing else. The electricity generated goes through the wires and into your amp and becomes that amazing sound you know and love. However, the story is different in an active pickup. An active pickup contains a preamp, a bit of electronic wizardry which is usually powered by a battery. The pickup still senses the string vibrating and makes electricity, but then the electricity goes through the preamp and the changes caused by the preamp can make the signal louder or change its EQ. As a result an active pickup can have less coils of wire in it and still be just as loud as a passive pickup with many coils.

Overall, the only difference between active and passive is that the active pickups have a preamp and the passive ones don't. If a guitar has a battery in it, then the pickups are active, simple.

A single coil pickup can be passive or active. A humbucker can be active or passive too. For example, a JB is a passive humbucker, but a blackout is an active humbucker, because the blackout needs a battery.

I hope this cleared something up. If anyone else has a better way of putting it then I'm sure they'll comment.

 

[danny458]

Re: What is the difference between active and passive pickups?

thank you so much thats really helped me

 

[Der Oberherr]

Re: What is the difference between active and passive pickups?

I'm glad you found it useful.

 

[Aceman]

Re: What is the difference between active and passive pickups?

The MOST important difference is that passive pickups are living, breathing things with a soul. They are natural, organic, and responsive to not only your touch, but even your emotions when you have the right ones in your guitar. They are alive. Each is a unique creation. They have a heart, and a personality.

Actives, on the other hand, are powerful, yet cold, sterile, lifeless robotic machine hearts that all sound the same in everything from a two by four to a hand crafted custom axe of ultra tone wood.


No - seriously - the first discussion nailed it. The thing about actives is that they are indeed active. They are pre-amped even before they hit the guitar amp. That can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on how your ears feel, and the specific guitar and pups. Also, they are of course, powered. Depending on how that is done, they can be more consistent sounding that passives because the preamp makes them sound that way, but are often far more powerful (but not necessarily).

I like few passives, but really love my Duncan Blackouts.

 

[EAProwlerB]

Re: What is the difference between active and passive pickups?

IMO passives are like tube amps or high quality SS amps. Actives are like modeler amps. On one hand you have a "pure" natural tone to work with as you please. On the other hand you have a contrived tone that you can work around. There are excellent and terrible models of passives and actives just as with the two types of amps. I can't make a quantitative statement about either but my experience has been that I find the tones of passive to be more to my liking than active modeler pickups.

 

[Mincer]

Re: What is the difference between active and passive pickups?

^These might be the worst definitions I have ever read.

From our FAQ (the short version):

Passive pickups use a magnetic source of energy and relatively large coils of wire to generate their signal. Active pickups use smaller coils of wire and have a preamp built into the pickup to boost the signal. The upside to active pickups is that the smaller coils in them make active pickups far less susceptible to outside interference and as a result they are very quiet. Also, with active pickups the output and EQ of the pickup can be changed and shaped by changing the parameters of the preamp. All active pickups operate off of a battery to power the preamp.

 

[PicoRiveraTele]

Re: What is the difference between active and passive pickups?

It's hard to categorize all actives as being different from passives in a particular way. EMG's, to a large extent, are like passive coils with a preamp all in one, but the new Fishman Fluence is a different thing entirely. Probably the biggest advantage with actives that they all have in common though is that you can turn down the volume on the guitar without losing treble.

 

[dave74]

Re: What is the difference between active and passive pickups?

You can also "activate" passives by placing a boost/overdrive between the guitar and amp.
This way it's more adjustable but will be much more prone to noisiness, or at least have a higher noise-floor.

There's also modular active preamps that mount in the guitar's cavity instead of within the pickup's housing.
I think some of the modular preamps have active tone-controls as well. (carvin's do IIRC)

 

[darthphineas]

Re: What is the difference between active and passive pickups?

^These might be the worst definitions I have ever read.

Post-of-the-day-Award

Ibut the new Fishman Fluence is a different thing entirely.

Which Fishman Fluence have you tried?

 

[BRHGM]

Re: What is the difference between active and passive pickups?

If you record to a computer, active pickups are much quieter with less interference. This is really annoying when using single coils with loud amp modelers or from line out of an amp. Computers are poorly grounded for audio. I use active and passive pickups. They can sound good or bad. It doesn't matter which type they are. You'll have to sample each to decide what you want in your guitar and whether or not it fits your style.

 

[daenius]

Re: What is the difference between active and passive pickups?

Important thing to note about active pickups is that you don't just automatically max out your volume and tone! With the active preamp, they function more like "boost and cut" knobs as opposed to "cut" knobs. The tone knob in particular, for years I've always just maxed it out like I would on a passive pickup and always found the actives to be too bright and sterile sounding... Then I lowered it to be about half and... heyyyyyy regular good ol' humbucker tone! Turn it up if you want some treble boost for soloing, turn it back to center for your regular tone. Same goes with the volume.

 

[EAProwlerB]

Re: What is the difference between active and passive pickups?

Which Fishman Fluence have you tried?

Yes, thank you, those Fishman Fluence active modeling pickups are an outstanding example of my analogy: conventional amps vs modeling amps. Look at the Fishman line up and description of voices they are like the selections on a modeling amp. They even have selections within individual pickups between two voices and HF tilt.
It's a choice a Fishman Fluence modeled "vintage PAF bridge humbucker tone" or a passive Seymour Duncan ANTIQUITY HUMBUCKER- BRIDGE. Why chose an electronically simulated version of a pickup when you can just buy the real thing?

 

[LtKojak]

Re: What is the difference between active and passive pickups?

Lee, I know it's you. Each and every one of your newly- created aliases.

As long as I participate in this group, I'll always find you.

 

[Vasshu the humanoid typhoon]

Re: What is the difference between active and passive pickups?

And the small matter of impedance....sigh.

 

[darthphineas]

Re: What is the difference between active and passive pickups?

Lee, I know it's you. Each and every one of your newly- created aliases.

As long as I participate in this group, I'll always find you.

 

[DavidRavenMoon]

Re: What is the difference between active and passive pickups?

It depends on the pickup brand. Lots of people think active pickups have low impedance coils. But most don't. For example EMGs are just standard hi-z pickups. Probably the same pickups as the HZ counterparts.
But then they wire each coil to the inverting and non inverting inputs on an op amp. This is what's known as a differential connection. This helps cancel noise. The preamp gives the pickup a low impedance output. And it doesn't really boost the level up at all.

But each brand does it a little different.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[greekdude]

Re: What is the difference between active and passive pickups?

^These might be the worst definitions I have ever read.

From our FAQ (the short version):

Passive pickups use a magnetic source of energy and relatively large coils of wire to generate their signal. Active pickups use smaller coils of wire and have a preamp built into the pickup to boost the signal. The upside to active pickups is that the smaller coils in them make active pickups far less susceptible to outside interference and as a result they are very quiet. Also, with active pickups the output and EQ of the pickup can be changed and shaped by changing the parameters of the preamp. All active pickups operate off of a battery to power the preamp.

This is also very wrong in general. If an active pup like http://www.electrosmash.com/emg81 uses imbalanced inputs (coils) then the humcancelling will not be so effective and the preamp will only make it worse. No wonder ppl with the EMG 81 and the PA2 experience lots of hum : http://www.musiciansfriend.com/accessories/emg-pa2-preamp-booster-switch

 

[Johnny the Kid]

Re: What is the difference between active and passive pickups?

IMO passives are like tube amps or high quality SS amps. Actives are like modeler amps. On one hand you have a "pure" natural tone to work with as you please. On the other hand you have a contrived tone that you can work around. There are excellent and terrible models of passives and actives just as with the two types of amps. I can't make a quantitative statement about either but my experience has been that I find the tones of passive to be more to my liking than active modeler pickups.

This is not accurate. The Fishman Pickups are the only examples that work with this analogy and they are absolutely superb from everything I've heard about them. Active pickups do have their own unique tones. They aren't trying to model any other pickup. They simply are their own pickup. Now some people like active pickups but find them too compressed and try to work around that by using things like the 18v mod or such but that's not really the same thing as modeling a pickup like what's Fishman does.

Modeling preamps are their own thing as well. I wouldn't describe them as contrived. I also never look at the amp that they're modeling as "this sounds just like a Marshall 800" rather "this is a very similar tone. If you like the 800's you'll probably like this as well." But that's just me.

 

[PicoRiveraTele]

Re: What is the difference between active and passive pickups?

That's why you can't compare all actives to all passives. The Fluence and EMGs are two different things. As DavidRavenMoon says, an EMG is two high wind coils feeding two sides of an op amp, while an Fishman Fluence, I was assume, is a "low wind" coil whose signal is "modeled" or "shaped". They voice Fluences to sound like passive pickups, but EMG's just have a unique sound unto themselves. I'm sure there are more differences than that, but this much is readily apparent.