Difference Between Active and Passive Volume Pedals?

Question

I'm about to purchase a couple of volume pedals for my pedal board setup. I have a Les Paul and two acoustic guitars, both with pickups and 1/4" out. My amplifier is a half-stack with an all-tube head (B-52 AT-100), a Tom Scholz Power Soak to enable me to drive the tubes at capacity, and the amp has an effects send loop, which I will use to send to and from my pedal board.

I'm particularly looking at Tapestry Audio's Bloomery Volume Pedals, which come in passive and active models.

My specific use-case is to have the first hop on the effects send enter a volume pedal before reaching additional pedals in the chain, with the second volume pedal being connected to the expression input on my Boss PH-3 Phaser and other pedals which support this.

I'm having a hard time determining whether I want an active or a passive pedal, as the Bloomery comes in either active or passive models.

What is the difference between active and passive volume pedals and which should I choose for both use-cases? It seems like I should get an active pedal for the first hop volume control and a passive one to control the expression input on other pedals.

Answer 1

There isn't really any point to using an active pedal volume pedal in your setup. The advantage of an active pedal is that it can offer simultaneously high input impedance and low output impedance. High input impedance is important when you're directly connecting a passive guitar (else the pickup resonance is damped by the load), whereas low output impedance helps avoiding noise interference if there's a long cable from the volume pedal to an amp or whatever.

But in your case neither of that applies; you'd in fact be fine with the opposite: low input impedance and high output impedance, because both input and output go directly to active units – the effect send output is low impedance anyway, and the output to the next FX pedal is a short cable that'll be perfectly stable even at high impedance. In particular, you're most certainly fine with the medium in- and output impedance that most passive volume pedals offer.

Answer 2

According to the product manual [PDF], it seems that the active pedal has a buffer and the passive one does not:

Feature Comparison

Bloomery / Active

• No String
• Tuner Out
• Solid Steel Construction
• Dual Buffer
• Includes Optional Grip Tape
• 20mA Center Negative 9MM Power

Bloomery / Passive

• No String
• Tuner Out
• Solid Steel Construction
• Includes Optional Grip Tape
• DIP Switches

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Thus, it seems that the main differences are that the active pedal uses power (obviously) and contains a dual-buffer for preserving tone¹, while the passive one does not use power and has DIP switches for configuring the pedal for use as an expression input to other pedals.

Therefore, it seems that for my specific use-case, I'd use the active volume pedal as my first input on my pedal board and the passive volume pedal as the expression control for other effects.

If I had another buffer pedal in front of the first volume pedal, a passive model would make sense for the first pedal, but I don't. It would be cooler if I did have a buffer in front so that I could optionally get both passive pedals and connect each to a different expression input to control up to two pedals at once.

I think what I'll do is purchase the passive pedal first, fool around with it, and then make a decision on whether to go active or passive for the other pedal.

The FAQ seems to suggest that it's possible to use the active pedal to control expression pedals with additional hardware:

The active version of the Bloomery cannot be configured to be an expression unless you use an insert cable through the input and output. (2 mono TS to 1 TRS)

I'm not exactly sure what this means, but I'm curious to find out.

¹: Tone Tips: A Crash Course on Buffers

Answer 3

Pickups that are intended for electric guitars and basses are normally of the attractive inductance style. Attractive pickups typically contain alnico magnets, which are encircled by a bobbin enclosed by extremely fine copper wire. The vibration of the strings cause the attractive transition to sway, and actuates an A/C voltage through the curls. The current is then conveyed to the amp or recording hardware, bringing about the sound that you hear when you strike the strings.

One misinterpretation is that there is something characteristically extraordinary among dynamic and aloof pickups. In all actuality, ALL pickups are inactive. Dynamic pickups essentially have an implicit preamplification circuit that gives on-board command overtone and volume, rather than making the changes at the intensifier or on a pedal or processor.

The bit of leeway to going with actives is that your tone is significantly less influenced by the length of the link between the guitar and amp. It likewise has a moderately level recurrence reaction due to the lower inductance displayed by the preamplification circuit. The lower inductance additionally takes into consideration the ideal "sound" while interfacing straightforwardly to a blender, in situations where utilizing an amp isn't wanted.

Detached pickups are generally favored by players who float towards rock, blues, and nation, as the vast majority of the adored players of those types made a "sound" based on a particular guitar. Since dynamic pickups didn't get mainstream until the mid-1990s, these guitars generally conveyed aloof hardware.

Guitar volume pedal assists with controlling the volume of the guitar and is a significant part of guitar impact adornments. It conveys numerous impacts.

A portion of these pedals are expressed beneath:

• High Gain Volume Pedal: This guitar volume pedal can control dynamic sounds. Batteries are not needed for this periodical.

• Low impedance volume pedal: This one has an enormous number of impacts. It tends to be changed and changed according to the necessities of the player.

• Mono Volume Pedal Junior: This is an exceptionally little volume pedal. It fits in the paddleboards without any problem. It doesn't take a lot of hardware and it has got two unique alternatives for volume swell.