Passive pickup and active circuit

[RVBASS]

You all know much more than I do about electronics. I would like to add a passive pickup (Benedetto A6) to a guitar with an active electronics circuit. Is it possible to add a passive pickup to an active circuit? Or are all pickups actually passive and the ones that require active circuitry just lower impedence requiring pre amplification? Thanks in advance for your insights.

 

[fronobulax]

My uninformed understanding is that pickups are inherently passive. So you should be able to replace the pickup. You might not like the results if the active portions of the circuity were "tuned" for a particular pickup.

 

[nmiller]

The large majority of pickups can be used with or without a preamp - that is, in an active or passive circuit, respectively. There are a few that actually have circuitry under the cover that require a power source, and others that have low impedance or output levels intended to be run through an onboard preamp - but the Benedetto A6 is neither of these. It was designed to be used on a standard passive guitar, but there's no reason you can't run it through a preamp eiher. It's like running it through a boost or EQ pedal, just with the guts of the pedal inside the guitar itself.

 

[RVBASS]

Thanks very much for the replies, and thanks nmiller for the details, very helpful! Sounds like it will work out, so I will give it a try.