Can someone give me the quick and dirty on powered vs unpowered pickups? Also is there a powered vs unpowered tone? Curious if these 2 are separate things.
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Interesting comment in there:
However, active pickups usually have fewer wraps. This means they would be very quiet if it weren’t for the built-in preamp boosting the signal. It also means that you get little to no unwanted background noise.
Surely that can’t really be the case any longer with many active setups as they often have a bypass, as does mine and it’s only marginally quieter than with the preamp.
Active pickups and active EQ are two completely separate things. Every bass with an active EQ preamp and a bypass switch also has passive pickups. You cannot bypass active pickups.
Active pickups are actually pretty rare, and the vast majority are sold by one company (EMG).
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Seymour Duncan has a line of active pickups, though I bet less than 5% of their business. EMG makes good ones though
General usage when people say active bass, they mean preamp.
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So does that mean my active emg-x pickups are only active pickups and not EQ?
I also have to imagine that because I have sound and only 1 pickup that if I hear sound they are working.
Does a Sterling Stingray Sub 5 have both pickups and EQ then? Maybe that’s the difference in output?
So does EMG make an active preamp I can add to their active pickups?
BTC preamp comes to mind from EMG
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It means they are separate things. The pickups can be active or passive (and if active, contain a built-in preamp that is usually just a flat frequency response or close to it), and the bass can also either have a preamp w/EQ or not.
It’s early and I am not quite parsing this sentence, sorry 
A Sterling Stingray Sub 5 most likely has passive pickups and an active preamp/EQ, from what I can see.
Active EQ and pickups does not imply higher output, at all. In fact often passive pickups will have higher output than active ones. Preamps and active pickups output an Instrument level signal and usually have a gain set to mimic a passive pickup in output.
Conversely, there are some passive pickups with very strong output; you often see this with overwound pickups or with strong magnets (ceramic usually, part of why I love ceramic pickups).
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I think BTC is unpowered and BQ_ is powered from what I see on AZ.
BTC is an active preamp (9V).
I thought BTC used a battery. I think there are different ones for powered (active) and unpowered (passive) pickups
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I was just saying that my active pickup creates sound so it must be powered and working since I only have the 1.
So would adding an active EQ allow me more ability to shape the tone that is coming out? Rather than increase output and sustain?
(Thanks for putting up with this so early)
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Yep! And also there may be an output level change (especially if you boost/cut EQ frequencies), I am just saying that active vs passive generally doesn’t tell you anything about the output
no problem!
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Well, most active pickups are passive some are single coil while many are split coils or humbuckers. There are some fun ones like the EBMM Sterling with the Phantom/ Ghost coil, a hum-free single coil feature.
What makes Active pickups better is the clarity and top end. It’s actually more accurate representation of your bass sounds than passive. Recording with more high/ top end is better than not. It’s always better to cut in post than boost. Boosting anything in post usually introduces more side effects, like more noise and that’s never good.
BTC (Bass Treble Control) are available in both passive (HZ) and active depending on your setup. BQ system also available on both Passive and Active. I have both system on both Passive and active pickups installation the only difference is the ground cable.
Active pre don’t increase sustain.
Like @howard said EMG is among very few companies that offer active pickups, they use the 9V current to reverse the 60 cycle hums, that’s why on their active pickup there’s no need to connect the ground. They are also not louder than average pickups except for the X series. What they offer is tone and clarity.
Sorry I’m just an EMG fanboy, 
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Ok cool. EMG-X is what I have on my Ibanez.
To be specific in terminology here: The BTC is always a powered, active EQ. It just has different variants for EMG active and passive pickups.
Oh yeah! That’s 
without power it’s just a tone knob 
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