Wednesday, December 13, 2017

Blackouts = passive?


I chanced upon this FB post earlier today citing the Seymour Duncan Blackout as a passive unit. I've been a Seymour Duncan fan for a while (since 1994, in fact) & don't recall the Blackout range being passive pickups. I posted a query asking Xtreme Guitars to help me highlight the fact that I might have missed a recent update of sorts; Seymour Duncan might have revised this product range & I might have overlooked crucial details.

PIC: https://www.seymourduncan.com/pickup/blackouts-neck

I was linked to the relevant SD Blackout page (which I've visited before), a portion of which is reproduced here to highlight the fact that one of the accompanying Blackout accessory is a battery clip. Ladies & gentlemen, am I right to say that only active pickups require a power source (in this case a battery supply) to function?

On that note, Xtreme guitars is a local commercial entity here in Singapore, please drop by their FB page & do your part to support local business. 👌

3 comments:

Daniel said...

they do have a "passive mount" pup, verses the "active mount", where the screw holes might differ, maybe that's the source of the confusion?

I love my active AHB-1 pups :)

subversion.sg said...

Some of the product descriptions also cited 'inspired by high output passive humbuckers' (eg: Jeff Loomis model) which might add to the confusion. In any case, I do not wish for the buyer to discover the pickups 'did not work' after the transaction took place because they saw 'passive' there.

YusTech said...


Yes sir, you're correct that battery clip indicates active system.

I would like to add that guitar pickup(Coil+Magnet+Wire) does not need battery to work however a pre amp circuit requires battery regardless whether the circuit is inside the pickup(Blackout) or outside the pickup(Blackout modular pre amp)