A bass with two-band EQ offers separate knobs for treble and bass. If the EQ circuit is passive, filtering occurs over that frequency range when you turn the knobs. When both knobs are wide open (i.e., turned fully clockwise), you’ll hear the uncolored sound of your bass. The pickups in this thing are amazing - there are three Dingwall FD3-Ns which offer a punchy, high output. You can get them sounding nice and smooth but also gnarly and aggressive. With an EMG 3-band EQ, active/passive toggle switch and a 4-position Quad-tone pickup selector, you’ve got a huge scope for crafting very different tones. Read Aside from the aspects of how active vs. passive pickups technically function, I'm in the middle of sorting out whether I'm okay or not okay with one sort of the other. For the record I have one of each layout: fully passive Jazz bass, MM bass with passive pickups and active preamp, and a P/J with active EMG's and a bass/treble preamp on board. CONTROLS: Volume, pickup blend, three-band active EQ (1x mids boost/cut pot, 1x stacked treble/bass boost/cut pot), active/passive toggle switch HARDWARE: Fender tuners, HiMass bridge FINISH: Olympic Pearl, 3-Color Sunburst, Belair Blue, Aged Candy Apple Red (reviewed) What matters is the capacitance, which (with a passive bass, not an active one) rolls off the high frequencies. The longer the cable, the more highs are lost. Active devices (preamps, buffers) can have positive gain (be louder), negative gain (quieter), or unity gain (same volume). It is NEVER safe to assume an active bass will be louder. Active Vs. Passive Bass Guitars. In the bass guitars with active cables or high-output pickups, you may need to boost frequencies in the mid-bass region (70-130 Hz) to give the instrument more punch. If you have Passive Cables and/or less powerful pickups, you may want to raise frequencies in the low-mid region (50-100 Hz) to add more weight XF1V.

active bass vs passive bass