| Author | Message | ||
| crobbins
Senior Member Username: crobbins Post Number: 655 Registered: 6-2004 |
What is the difference between a pickup for an active electronics guitar and a passive guitar? | ||
| lbpesq
Senior Member Username: lbpesq Post Number: 4518 Registered: 7-2004 |
Alembic pickups are low impedance. Passive pickups are high impedance. Bill, tgo | ||
| crobbins
Senior Member Username: crobbins Post Number: 656 Registered: 6-2004 |
Is that true with all active pickups? Are the magnets different? | ||
| davehouck
Moderator Username: davehouck Post Number: 9518 Registered: 5-2002 |
I'm not an expert, but here's my take. I think the general answer is that pickups aren't necessarily 'active', the electronics in the guitar are either passive or active, and pickups are designed to work with either an active or passive circuitry. Bill is right in that Alembic pickups, being low impedance, need an on-board preamp, i.e. active electronics, whereas high impedance pickups don't. In either case the pickups themselves aren't 'active'; the term 'active' refers to the presence of a preamp in the instrument and a power source for the preamp circuitry. I think there may be some pickups that have a preamp built in to the shell rather than separately installed in the instrument. There's a good wiki on the subject here. Some manufacturers call their pickups active pickups, but again, technically, I think this refers to the fact that they are designed to be used with a powered on-board preamp, i.e. active electronics. That's my understanding, but I'm not an expert. | ||
| crobbins
Senior Member Username: crobbins Post Number: 657 Registered: 6-2004 |
Thanks Dave. I have also heard the Ceramic magnet vs Alnco magnet argument.. I dunno.. | ||
| tmoney61092
Senior Member Username: tmoney61092 Post Number: 421 Registered: 9-2008 |
heres a company that uses neodynium magnets, they also use a high z for the bridge a medium z for the neck, i really want to try them out, my dad was talking to a representative of theres and he said that they were starting to experiment with 1 meg pots instead of the traditional 250 or 500 k http://www.q-tuner.com/ ~Taylor (Message edited by tmoney61092 on July 31, 2010) | ||
| mario_farufyno
Senior Member Username: mario_farufyno Post Number: 462 Registered: 9-2008 |
As far as I know, it seems that you affect Impedance with how many turns you make on the coil... Less turns means lower Impedance and a broader frequency response. But, as this means less signal, you must use a "buffer" to rise it up (the main function of an onboard Active Preamp). |
