Another bass guitar question? (I am such an amateur!)?

Question

What is the difference between an 'active' and 'passive' bass? And what is the difference between the low impedence and high impedence sockets on my bass amplifier? What do they do?
I make apologies for being such an amateur!

Answer 1

Passive pickups don't need power, and usually have a volume and tone control. The tone control is a treble filter,as you turn the knob you control how much treble is thrown away.

An active pickup has control circuitry that needs power - usually from a 9 volt battery. The control curcuit enables you to have much more control over the signal produced by the pickup, and therefore the sound the instrument makes.

Most pickups sound best plugged into the high impedence socket on the amp. Most pickups are high impedence, some special ones are low impedence, and can use much longer leads. The difference is quite technical and you don't need to know the details, just go with what sounds best. If in doubt use the high impedance one.

Don't apologise for your lack of knowledge or experience. Everybody was in the same position once. The only stupid question is the one you want to ask but don't!

Keep on rocking!

Answer 2

Active/Passive refers to the pick up on an electric bass. Active receive their own power (from a 9v battery) and thus have a stronger output, and you can usually have a bit more fun with more varied sounds from the guitar with an active one. Passive pickups just take their power from the lead, and play like any other guitar.

The low/high impedence inputs are there so you can choose which one suits your bass better, which is all down to the impedence level of the pickups. Again with actives you're more likely to wanna use the high impedence input, as you may overload the low impedence input, resulting in some pretty nasty sounds.

Answer 3

i began out out on piano while i became into 8...took up guitar at 10, and bass at 13. that's "less difficult" thoroughly relies upon on what sort of music you prefer to play. you may no longer learn a bass line to a punk music to something like "YYZ" by Rush. i've got been taking part in for 40 years now, and that i'm nevertheless studying the two guitar and bass. i visit tell you this...i'm getting greater demands bass artwork than guitar, with the aid of fact greater human beings prefer to be a guitar participant. stable success. Greetings from Austin, Tx Ken

Answer 4

The low and high outputs on your amp are one puts out a louder level of sound than the other and active pickups can have a 9 volt battery that they run off of which makes them active.