Active and passive...

[mia]

is it possible to have active and passive pickups in the same guitar?

[tewboss]

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.

[Cattivo Ragazzo]

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.

[willo]

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)

[Searcher]

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.

[Steve-Mr Pig 2U]

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.

[OD-Black_Fire]

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.