Active and Passive in the same guitar

[Jumble Jumble]

I've been doing some experiments with this for a future blog article. It's possible... kinda.

If you want an either/or switching system then it's a piece of cake. If you want to have both pickups active at the same time, not so much.

The best results I've had so far come from having each pickup wired not only to its own volume control, but to its own output jack. Keep everything separate, including separate amps. At this point you can mix the sounds beautifully. The three-way swithc in this instance just mutes the output you're not using.

Of course this also allows you to put different effects on the different pickups. I've done a video here where  I had the active pickup distorted and the passive pickup clean. It gives you amazing control between a clean and distorted sound. You could even replace the volume controls with a single 500/25 blend pot for easier blending of the two sounds.

[flash=853,480]http://www.youtube.com/v/fcooA3rrcPw?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0[/flash]

I'm not going to keep the guitar wired like this - it's my most "normal" strat usually, 3 passive single coils, and I need it that way. I just used it for this because  it has the swimming pool rout so it's easy to fit the battery and weird wiring in.

I did think it was interesting and fun though.

 

[TBurst Std]

very nice!

 

[line6man]

Why not just buffer the higher impedance pickup, to get a single output, when you don't want to run two amps?

 

[Jumble Jumble]

I couldn't quite get that to work. The two signals mixed, but there was something really weird about the sound when they did. Like an inverse auto-wah or something. I'm going to try again soon.

 

[Re-Pete]

The way you achieved the mix of active & passive pickups gives great separation of the 2 pickups. And yes, the separate outputs means you can specialise FX to suit each pickup. Well done.  :icon_thumright:
A more conservative way might have been to incorporate a buffer preamp, like the EMG ABC, and have only one output. Of course, that won't allow you to use separate FX channels on individual pickups, but it is a workaround to the issue of using active & passive pickups in the one guitar.
I've used the EMG-ABC on the Tele on my avatar & it helps to smooth out the output differences between the Guild Humbucker and the old L-Series Bridge pickup, as well as giving me a blend pot instead of a switch.