What’s the Difference Between Active & Passive Guitar Pickups?

Electric guitars come in various shapes and forms. With that said, the most important aspect of any electric guitar is going the be the electronics it comes with. After all, that is what essentially produces the sound on this instrument. There is a heated debate within the community that has polarized guitar players all around the world. Is it better to use passive pickups or active ones? Answering this question is hard, but also pretty pointless.

Today we are going to go deeper into this subject, and talk about what each of these types of pickups has to offer. If you are at the point where you need to decide whether or not you want to get a set of active pickups, this article should clear some things up for you.

Is One Better Than The Other?

The short answer to this question is no. Contrary to popular belief, active pickups are not the next evolution of this technology. Rather, they are optimized in a way that brings certain benefits but also some drawbacks. Same thing goes for passive pickups. It all comes down to what type of sound you are looking toe get. Let's go over each of these types individually, and see what they offer.

Passive Pickups

Passive pickups are the original design that was first created in the early 1930s. This type of magnetic pickup works by picking up (hence the name) the vibrations from the strings, and sending them down the line into your amp. As expected, passive pickups are the most prolific type of pickups on the market. Since they are not that expensive to make, most of the affordable guitars will come with a set of passive pickups.

When it comes to benefits of this type of guitar pickup, there are several that need to be mentioned. For starters, passive electronics are generally considered to be a lot more expressive. Ever subtle action on the guitar will be accurately detected and reproduced in shape of a matching feedback from the amp.
Speaking of which, when combined with a decent tube amp, you can really get a nice and flexible tone. For a list of great amps, check out our guide on guitar amplifiers.

Another thing to keep in mind is that passive pickups are very sensitive. For example, when you change the angle of the pickup by working the adjustment screws, you can change the tone of the guitar. With that said, there are some drawbacks to passive pickups as well.

First and foremost, their output is limited. This issue was solved by adding several more layers of wire on each pickup, however doing so had a negative impact on the definition of sound. Additionally, the feedback is also an issue. On top of that, passive pickups are easily affected by the choice of tonewood and quality of the guitar in general.

Active Pickups

Active pickups solve a lot of issues that are troubling the passive type, but they have several of their own. In general, active guitar pickups use a dedicated power source to increase the output.

This means better handling of high gain distortion, which is why active humbuckers are becoming the norm in the world of metal music. Every guitar that has active pickups will have a battery compartment in the back. This is also the very first drawback of active systems. If your battery runs out, you are pretty much stranded with a useless instrument.

However, active pickups are less dependent on the rest of the guitar. This means that you can still get a great tone even if the tonewood and build quality of your guitar isn't the best. Because of this, installing a set of active pickups is among the most popular upgrades.

With active electronics, you don't have to worry about your tone changing as you lower the volume on your guitar. Additionally, you can achieve better EQ control without needing any additional equipment. Bottom line, active pickups have more power and deliver a more consistent tone.

Because of the fact that active electronics are a bit more complicated to manufacture, you won't find them in affordable guitars. If you are a beginner, you might have to settle for a set of passive pickups. If you're interested more about choosing your first guitar, you should check out our article that is dedicated to that subject “How To Choose Your First Electric Guitar”.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, whether or not you should go for active or passive pickups comes down to the genre of music you are playing, and your playing style in general. One is not better than the other. Both active and passive pickups serve a very specific purpose and have qualities that are appropriate for different genres of music. In our electric guitar guides and lists we’ve included both types. If you are a metal player, you might benefit from a set of active pickups. On the other hand, if you play blues or jazz, passive pickups are the way to go.

Those who have some experience with guitars find this whole debate silly. Thankfully, this argument is slowly dying down, and people are realizing that there is no right or wrong.

When choosing whether to get active or passive pickups, simply put all of your requirements on a piece of paper, and you should have a pretty clear picture which path you should take. There is a huge variety of both active and passive pickups on the market, and sometimes their performance is close to intersecting.