Active basses do actually tend to have more compression than passive basses. This alone can make a big difference in your overall sound. Because of the qualities you get from active electronics, you find these basses a lot in metal, slap funk, and other more aggressive styles of playing. An active bass guitar allows you to cut the tone, and a passive bass guitar does not. The best of both is to get a combination active/passive bass guitar that switches automatically to passive-mode if the battery dies. Active bass guitars require a battery, often a 9-volt, in addition to being plugged into an amp. The 18v PRS/Grainger active electronics give you additional punch, headroom and access to more modern sounds but switching the pickups to passive mode delivers some wonderfully vintage tones that quickly become addictive. The Grainger 5-String Bass is available in a variety of gorgeous finishes, including a selection with PRS' best quality 10-tops. Essentially, an ‘active’ bass just has the addition of an on-board pre-amp to give the user further tonal control. Active pre-amps require one (or two) 9-volt batteries although Alembic (who I believe came up with the concept for Phil Lesh of the Grateful Dead) has given the option of additional cables to power the on-board pre-amp. Passive transactional, and a passive– avoidantlaissez-fairefactor (Bass, 1985). Hater & Bass (1988) factor analysed a revised version of the MLQ (Form 4R), reporting that management-by-exception was split into active and passive subcomponents. Charisma and inspirational leadership were scored as two com-ponents of the same factor. With a passive bass it's also much faster to make tonal changes and it's pretty much impossible to ruin the tone. I can't say the same about active basses. A little goes a long way with active tone controls and most of them offer FAR more boost/cut than anyone could possibly need. Basses that use passive pickups (Fender Precision and Jazz for example) produce a warmer, rounder tone, while active bass guitars tend to have a brighter, more defined sound. Actives often have on-board EQ controls which allow the player to shape the tone of the instrument. Passive bass guitars don’t. Depending on how often an active bass is plugged into an amplifier, batteries will generally last 6-12 months. Batteries can last significantly longer if the bass is only plugged in occasionally. The batteries will drain significantly faster if the bass is regularly left plugged into an amp when unplayed. So while milage may vary, you will YlAj.