active and passive pickup combination

[Skaldir]

So I bought an active pickup and want to put it in my guitar, but Seymour Duncan writes it's not good to combine with a passive one, because they work differently.
But I'd like to know what exactly will happen.
Is it just a difference in the output level? Can you switch to one of them but not in middle position where both are activated?

 

[JeffTD]

You can do one of two things...

Get an EMG PA-2 preamp for the passive pickup, to change it's impedance to match the EMG's and make it work properly with the 25k EMG pots.

or

Install the EMG with the 500k pots of the passive pickups. It'll work fine, but the volume knob won't have it's normal taper - on 10, the pickup will sound fine, but roll it off to about 5-6, and it'll cut off the sound completely, more like an on/off switch.

 

[Skaldir]

Thank you!

 

[xmarcelx]

Or if you got two volume knobs (les paul etc) just use 25k pot for the active and 500k for the passive. The passive maybe doesn't sound good at the mid position!
You can also replace the tone pot with a second vol pot...

IIRC the FAQ on the EMG webpage got some infos about this issue too

 

[Skaldir]

Ok, after some trying it's done.
First I ran both over the 500k pot, and it really was like an on/off switch. But it wasn't really satisfying somehow, so I got rid of the tone pot and gave every pickup his own volume pot, like marcel said. A good sollution for sure!