Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
Forum Ringside => Guitars, Amps and Effects => Topic started by: mia on March 16, 2006, 10:02:53 AM
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is it possible to have active and passive pickups in the same guitar?
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I'm pretty sure it is, but it requires a fancy circuit I think. A guy from another forum has it listed on his site http://www.guitarlab.org/prices.htm under the pickups section.
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I wanted to do the same, but it's more trouble than its worth. I'd have to insert extra emg objects, that means drilling holes for knobs when there is limited space.
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with active pickups, how do they work? Is it that the battery/electric current creates a larger magnetic field and therefore a higher output?
(sorry for going OT)
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with active pickups, how do they work? Is it that the battery/electric current creates a larger magnetic field and therefore a higher output?
Kinda. Active pickups are just like passive pickups, I think, only they have a lower output. That means they pick up less interference and therefore don't hum as much. Because the output is so low, they are paired with a pre-amp that gets built into the guitar somewhere. This boosts the signal. It also means that you have a 9V battery somewhere in your guitar.
I think piezo pickups work on a similar setup.
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You can have actives and passives in the same guitar but it requires having two independant sets of controls as active pickups dont have a ground and use much lower value pots.
Active pickups are wound with a very thick guage wire which produce a very clear tone, but is very quiet. This is then amplified with the pre-amp after the tone is altered with capacitors and resistors. This is why they can sound quite sterile to some people.
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They sound brilliant with lots of distortion but sound pretty dull and lifeless, not to mention scratchy at a low gainsettings. Cleans are, however, OK, if you roll off the volume and some tone.