In my world, the choice of passive - active electronics is mostly about different tonal characteristics. To my subjective ears; passive basses have an organic, laid-back, raw, dynamic sound/feeling which goes well in certain situations. Active basses have a sterile, hi-fi, snappy, compressed sound/feeling which goes well in other situations. Oct 17, 2005. PDX, OR. owner, OVNIFX and OVNILabs. With almost any bass, you can tell if it's active or passive by looking to see if it uses a battery. Battery = active. The reason I said "almost" any is that there are a few Alembic basses that use an external power supply, and some battery compartments are hidden under the pickguard and are The volume knob can be pulled and the bass is passive. The 3 band EQ and the two pickups give it a lot of sound variation. Active / passive is not a big change as far as i can tell, but i love to have the option to go passive if the battery runs out. Unless you've got a SUPER high end preamp, I'm not usually a fan. Active vs. Passive Pickups Passive pickups are the original pickup technology and have powered electric guitar and bass sounds for classic recordings from Eric Clapton, Paul McCartney, and more. They are still the most common form of electric guitar or bass pickup, and are largely responsible for the “classic” electric guitar and bass sound A bass with two-band EQ offers separate knobs for treble and bass. If the EQ circuit is passive, filtering occurs over that frequency range when you turn the knobs. When both knobs are wide open (i.e., turned fully clockwise), you’ll hear the uncolored sound of your bass. One move to consider, if active basses in your budget aren't doing it for you, is to get a solid passive bass and a preamp pedal. Then you can turn on the preamp pedal for an active sound and turn it off for a passive sound. That's what I do, because I have a very good passive bass and didn't have the budget for an equally good active bass. Passive, no battery. Active, battery. Active has a powered preamp that allows you to have more EQ controls on your bass. Active input on your amp has a dB damper or a quieter level to compensate for the usually louder active preamp/bass. Passive input on the amp does not. I'm a noob too, so there will be better definitions. Search passive vs epwea.

active bass vs passive bass