Guide to Pickup Types for Bass Guitar

If you're a guitar player, or even an aspiring one, you're going to need to be educated on pickups. Pickups on electric guitar are the rows of metal poles underneath the strings. These pickups create magnetic fields to transmit sound, basically. I won't get into too much sound theory here. However, you should realize that these pickups are at least 90% of the tone of your guitar. As such, they are the most important thing after playability. There exists two kinds of pickups, active and passive. Now, there's slight differences between guitar pickups and bass pickups. For this guide, we'll focus on bass guitar pickups only.

Let's get started. Now, as the name active pickups implies, this type of pickup is actually powered by a battery which is usually installed via the back of the bass guitar. This means that the volume of the signal gets a hefty boost before it leaves your guitar. If this is something you desire, definitely get active pickups. The obvious downside here is you need to keep a supply of batteries on you at all times. The usual battery is a nine volt, but it can differ. Playing with fully charged batteries is a must here, and you may get frustrated with the maintenance involved in keeping an active pickup. Passive pickups require no maintenance whatsoever, however they do not have a built in preamp. Passive pickups are by far the most common.

Second, tone. Generally, passive pickups provide a much more dynamic, sensitive, and warmer tone. That is, naturally. Many active pickups come with a plethora of options to customize your tone. The biggest difference I can see here is the dynamics. While you can still play sensitive on an active pickup, it just isn't the same. As for warmth, you can generally make up for it with post production related stuff.

There's a grey area, however. There exists pickups that are both active and passive. Kind of. They give you the flexibility to play both ways. That is, both at once, or just one or the other. This is a very cool feature but isn't available on that many basses. If you're interested in versatility, this is probably the best choice for you.

One final word on pickups, even though they effect your tone they are still not the most important part of the bass. One thing you'll hear many times if you go to music school is ''tone is all in your hands''. And it's 100% true. A real professional can make a horrible pickup sound like magic and somebody who can't play won't be able to make a boutique pickup sing. So before you obsess over pickups, obsess over your own playing. Good luck!