Active Pickups
So let's talk about active pickups.
Just so we're clear: an active pickup, if unpowered by a power source*, 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; the wire wound about 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 them is greater. Active pickups can get you more highs and more lows
- Guitar:
- Single Coils - Humbuckers - Lipstick tube - Acoustic
- Bass:
- Precision Style - Jazz Style - Gibson/Humbucker style
