Favorite Active Bass?

Sure, but remember, an active bass is simply a bass with a built in preamp (mainly for convenience) of a particular tone pallet, but you can achieve same with a preamp pedal etc.

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Just quietly, you can make almost any Ibanez bass since 2014 have swept mids if you buy the knob from the K5 or EH series and plug it into the EQ circuitboard. You just need this one:
Model No. : 3EMMV84-C
Description : GUITAR PARTS PREAMP MODULE
Note : BEQ3 module Variable freq. (80Hz - 4kHz) Mid, Concentric

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I will never understand swept mids. Like, OK, I can sweep to whatever mid frequency I want to cut or boost, but what if I want to cut or boost two frequencies? Or three? Or all of them? Blargh, I digress. Here is my favorite active bass:

That’s a Kiesel Osiris. It’s 18v and has main volume (pull to go passive bypass), high, low, and mid pots, and mid sweep (which I just keep in center position because see above, LOL).

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Mid sweep to me is more for me to find my tone in the mix.

Parametric EQ is so fundamentally useful to me I would call it a completely mandatory thing; just not built in to the bass or pedals :slight_smile:

It does seem neat on built in EQs though too; allowing selection of the frequency center of the Mids knob is just nice

I had a Jackson 5 string and now I have a MM Bongo and a MM Sterling Darkray. I play the Bongo more than the Darkray, but both are killer. Anymore, when I pick up a passive, it seems odd to me.

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all is right in the world :slight_smile:

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Does anyone even make H or HH basses that are passive? I’m sure there must be some, but I’m not aware of them.

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If you are staying in the music man family. Their passive pickups are killers.

Sure! Gibson, Gretsch, I am sure lots more. And many active basses have an active/passive switch - the pickups themselves are nearly always passive.

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Yeah music man. Their short scale and the Joe Dart signature. Their new Sterling sb14 is passive and wired parallel.

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Sterling

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It will be a while, I have to liquidate some past hobby projects!

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Pretty much any H pickup I have ever looked at is passive.
I have a Seymour Duncan SMB-4A in one passive bass that is outstanding.