DaPsyCho
Active Member
Lets say that I have one volume and one tone. If I change from passive to active pickups or vice versa, will I have to change the volume and the tone pots or just the volume? Thanks in advance.
Yes you will. Active pickups are electromagnets and hence require different amount of resistance to give out a "guitar" sound.
Basically, the lower rated the pots (the lower K it has), the more warmer/duller tone u get. Passive pickups aren't very trebly, at least not as much as actives, hence they have higher rated pots, to give them more "punch" or treble and make them sound like a guitar should (the balance between bass, mids, and treble).
But Active Pickups have much more treble, and not as much bass, which is why they almost never sound "muddy" and sound "crisp". But the thing is this extra treble needs to be balanced out, to give out a sound that is pleasing and more guitar-like. Hence to cut the treble, Actives use low rated pots usually 20-25K. U can see the difference between the normal 500 for a passive and a 25 for an active, and thus using a 500K pot on actives will sound quite terrible and m8 make ur ears bleed due to the insane amount of treble.