Using Active Pickups in Passive Configuration

David Dick (62)

Bass Building/Repair Forum
12/14/2004 11:40 AM

I have seen alot of guitars and basses with active/passive pickups. I have an Epiphone EBM-5 (fretted) that looks alright, and fells great. Problem is it has active electronics and (in my opinion) a terrible pre-amp. I've been looking for information on these pickups to determine if they can be used in a passive configuration, but I can't figure out what brand/model the pickups are. There aren't any "labels" on their face, but I haven't taken them out to check the back. The pickups are a J/P configuration (bar on bridge, split at neck). I would like to pull the preamp and wire up two "No Load" volume pots, a 3-way pickup selector, and a series/parellel switch. Any thoughts? I'm going to try (in the next couple of weeks) to wire one of the pickups directly to a jack and see if it works. Until then, any idea/thoughts/etc. would be greatly appreciated.

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Re: Using Active Pickups in Passive Configuration

12/14/2004 11:46 AM

John Lundgren (9107) wrote:

I dont think it would be a problem, I doubt the pickups in a Epi would be active.
Maybe they are low output, but there's a bunch of other pickups that would fit.

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Re: Using Active Pickups in Passive Configuration

12/16/2004 11:16 AM

David Dick (62) wrote:

Thanks for the response John. After looking at the current wiring I believe these are passive pickups running through a preamp for EQ purposes (mostly). There are only two wires coming out of the pickups, the start and end of the coil. Since there isn't any direct connection from the battery to the pickups, they should work fine. I'll find out this weekend. Would it be correct to assume that the black wire is negative and the white wire is positive (since that's standard in DC circuits)? Or, does it really matter since we're really just talking about two ends of the same wire wrapped around a magnet.

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Re: Using Active Pickups in Passive Configuration

12/16/2004 4:02 PM

John Lundgren (9107) wrote:

It would be right to assume that the black is ground yes, but in some cases you need to flip them on one of the pickups. You will notice if that's the case when you run both pickups at full and you get a weird hollow sound that disapear when you roll off one slightly.
Otherwise just wire it up like a standard Jazzbass and you'll be fine.