Active Pickups
So let's talk about active pickups.
Just so we're clear: an active pickup, if unpowered*, is essentially a passive pickup. What makes an active pickup "active" is a built-in, or onboard pre-amp. That's all. Electronically, that is the ONLY difference. Perhaps shocking, but true. People can tell you that there is some kind of "magic voodoo", or that actives are "wound differently", or that "they're epoxied" or whatever. All of that is nonsense. There is no "magic voodoo" to an active pickup. An active pickup, electronically, starts life as a very very low output passive pickup. Here's what's different, construction-wise: the magnets are weaker; the winds of wire are fewer; and the wire wound around the magnets is thicker.
In terms of a signal going from an instrument to an amp, active pickups differ from passive pickups in three ways:
- Since an active pickup has very few windings of relatively thicker wire around the magnets, the frequency sensitivity from the pickups is greater. Active pickups can get you more highs and more lows.
- An active pickup has a built-in pre-amp. It's really not any different from a "buffer" you'd find in a pedal. It takes that extremely low output signal from the pickup, and boosts it.
- Because there is an in-line pre-amp/buffer, the output signal is no longer high-impedance; it is a low-impedance signal. Again, just like above, because of the pre-amp/buffer the length of your signal chain becomes far less important because of the low-impedance signal. Similarly, the length of your instrument cable connecting your instrument to your amplifier is no longer so important.
- Guitar:
- Single Coils - Humbuckers
- Bass:
- Precision Style - Jazz Style - Gibson/Humbucker style
