active bridge/passive neck?

[TimSt.L]

So before I get the "it'll sound like ass" remarks, please let me explain that I never combine pickups. I always use either/or.
I love my active emg 81 in the bridge of my Ltd viper 400. But also love the tones I get from my passive invader when it is in a neck position.
I have the normal two volume and one tone setup on the viper. Will it damage the passive by sharing the tone pot with the active? Does anyone know how I would go about this?
I've thought about it for quite awhile and want to attempt it. Im good at reading schematics and doing my own wire work. I just need to hear from someone who has experienced with something of this sort. Any help is appreciated.

 

[analogsystem]

Its not going to damage anything but your tone pot will be the wrong value for the active pickup. You could possibly use a resistor. What I'd do is probably bypass the tone for the bridge pickup. So you'd have vol and tone for neck and just the single volume for the bridge.

 

[TimSt.L]

Its not going to damage anything but your tone pot will be the wrong value for the active pickup. You could possibly use a resistor. What I'd do is probably bypass the tone for the bridge pickup. So you'd have vol and tone for neck and just the single volume for the bridge.

I'll do that. If I bypassed the tone knob, would it be like the tone was all the way up?

 

[analogsystem]

It'll be very close to having the tone knob at 10....maybe a little brighter and louder depending on the value of tone pot you usually have in there.

 

[walterw]

it'll indeed "work", as long as the passive pickup doesn't go through any of the "active" (25k) pots. use the passive (500k) tone pot as the master tone. doing this wrong won't damage anything, the passive pickup will just sound like weak, muddy ass.

done right, you won't get any kind of blend with them both on (the active will take over) but each will sound fine by itself.

 

[Rockledge]

Other than the pot disparities the only problem I see is the difference in output.
Which is a problem I deal with with passive pickups, it is tough to get the neck output to project on stage when switching from the bridge to the neck, I can imagine with the bridge active and the neck passive that could be an even bigger problem.
Invaders are almost all midrange output and are pretty hot, so likely there won't be that big a disparity in output.

 

[TimSt.L]

Other than the pot disparities the only problem I see is the difference in output.
Which is a problem I deal with with passive pickups, it is tough to get the neck output to project on stage when switching from the bridge to the neck, I can imagine with the bridge active and the neck passive that could be an even bigger problem.
Invaders are almost all midrange output and are pretty hot, so likely there won't be that big a disparity in output.

output volume was also a main concern of mine as well. Im just going to give it a try and see what it sounds like. If it's bad, I'll go back to dual active.

Im definitely using everyone's advise too. I'll post here the outcome when Im done.
Thanks everyone.

 

[Sensible Musician]

there are no active pickups AFAIK. EMG and other similar pickups are completely conventional coil/mag arrangements with a very simple preamp gooped inside the cover

you can add a similar pre to any pickup - just copy any one-stage booster or buffer and voila, "active" pickup. if you want the sound of EMG 81 et al, buffer each coil individually and mix the signals afterward

i.e. simply copy this and run your neck pickup through it: http://www.till.com/articles/GuitarPreamp/

 

[TimSt.L]

there are no active pickups AFAIK. EMG and other similar pickups are completely conventional coil/mag arrangements with a very simple preamp gooped inside the cover

you can add a similar pre to any pickup - just copy any one-stage booster or buffer and voila, "active" pickup. if you want the sound of EMG 81 et al, buffer each coil individually and mix the signals afterward

i.e. simply copy this and run your neck pickup through it: http://www.till.com/articles/GuitarPreamp/

I'd rather just buy an emg.

And I think they just use the word "active" as a way to describe a different design than what is normally used. But I would consider them "active" because they do need a battery to function properly. That seems "active" enough for me.