Honestly - I don't think Active vs Passive by itself is very important. A good instrument is designed to work as a system of parts. You can get very good instruments in both camps. It's near the last criteria I use to asses an instrument. That Said: I lean active for. Multi-Bass gigs, like if I'm switching between Fretless and Fretted. Active inputs are padded down so that instruments with extreme hot output levels don't overdrive the input stage of you amp. The labels 'active and passive' don't really correspond to basses with or without preamps, since some passive instruments can have much higher output levels than many active instruments. The difference being (a very basic explanation) that passive DI boxes are made with transformers and active ones are made with opamps. Their purpose is the same. For cheap DIs go with active, as opamps are cheaper than a good transformer and a bad transformer is worse than an opamp (lower level and tone). On the high end go with what sounds I have often felt there is a huge difference in what the tone control does on a passive bass, versus what the treble eq does an active bass. Example: On every passive fender bass i have ever played, rolling the tone off seems to completly remove all the treble, resulting in a sound that is soft, muted, and "closed" (sorry, that's the only word I can think of) A sound I highly like. With a passive bass it's also much faster to make tonal changes and it's pretty much impossible to ruin the tone. I can't say the same about active basses. A little goes a long way with active tone controls and most of them offer FAR more boost/cut than anyone could possibly need. The rock solid hardware is durable enough to put up with plenty of abuse on the road, and with these looks you definitely won’t want to keep it at home. (Image credit: Ibanez) 4. Ibanez SRMS805. A forward-thinking bass guitar for the modern player. Specifications. Body: Okoume body, Poplar Burl top. The -15 dB pad really comes in handy when you’re plugging both active/passive instruments into the Radial Pro48. I usually use it when I connect my active basses/guitars. That being said, the Radial Pro48 DOES work with active instruments, but you just need to make sure that the instrument doesn’t produce more than 9 dB of gain. jaysee_playsbass • 3 yr. ago. Most basses have passive pickups with an onboard preamp (active) that allows you to boost certain frequencies as well as cut. Most passive basses just have a pot to trim off the treble a bit. The active bass can boost a preset frequency or trim it down a bit at the cost of maintaining battery life. เบสแบบ Active เบสแบบระบบ Active จะตรงกันข้ามกับระบบ Passive ที่ต้องการไฟไปใช้ในการเลี้ยงวงจร จึงจำเป็นต้องมีช่องสำหรับใส่ถ่าน 9V ( บางรุ่นต้องใส่ 2 ก้อน Oh, and because of the impedance difference thing, I tend to hear more of a difference between passive basses than active (buffered) basses (or on the same bass in passive vs active mode). With regard to only having one volume knob to turn down between sets, or whatever, I typically play with a tuner pedal (with a mute function), so this is not oqwP.