Active Humbuckers

Pickups are either active or passive. So far every other pickup mentioned in this guide is passive. Active pickups are pretty much the same as passive pickups but with a preamp built in which is powered by a battery. The preamp works in a similar way to an amplifiers preamp and basically adds extra tone shaping and more EQ possibilities than passive pickups can provide. Extra voltage gain in the guitar signal makes it more powerful and allows pickup manufactures to tune specific frequencies of the guitars output. This therefore makes active pickups popular with rock and metal guitar players.