Is there a way to make passive pickups sound like active ones?

Maybe a compressor in front of the amp? Any ideas? I just got a Solar guitar and I'm giving passives a try but they are missing that something EMG81 and Fishman Ceramics
 
I would try a drive as a clean boost and tweak the EQ curve or even just an EQ. I think one of the cleaner drives with the gain down and level up a bit would be the first thing I would try.
 
That's disappointing that the only thing Axefx can do it an eq. Might as well change pickups at that point.

I thought because active pickups compress the signal, a compressor might work.....
 
That's disappointing that the only thing Axefx can do it an eq. Might as well change pickups at that point.

I thought because active pickups compress the signal, a compressor might work.....
I've never heard that active pickups compress the signal...

Also, it's a little odd that you're disappointed that the Axe Fx can't make one pickup sound like another. That's not really what it's for ;)

By the way, you might try a Tone Match of the pickups - some people have had good results with that in some cases.
 
Shameless plug I have some fishman moderns in the classifieds section ;)

That being said, as said above you can try tone matching or trying an eq before the amp. You might need to hunt down which frequencies you prefer from the actives and which frequencies the passives you have now are dominant in.

Have you pinpointed what you love about actives?
 
maybe this can help:

all-freq-response.jpg
 
Maybe a compressor in front of the amp? Any ideas? I just got a Solar guitar and I'm giving passives a try but they are missing that something EMG81 and Fishman Ceramics

Sort of. With appropriate compression and EQ you ought to be able to get close to the sound. But there are other factors like tone knob response and interactions between string and magnet that aren’t practical to emulate in an amp modeler. The most important thing to emulate is the battery, so you can feel the genuine disappointment that comes when you realize your pickup battery is dead.
 
I play several Music Man Luke 3 Guitars with passive Pickups.
The L3 has a aktive Preamp and boost build in which works perfectly and absolutely flawless.
Cheers
Sash
 
When the solution already exists (swapping pickups) I don't see why you would try and find a longer and much more difficult/time-consuming way to the same destination.
 
When the solution already exists (swapping pickups) I don't see why you would try and find a longer and much more difficult/time-consuming way to the same destination.
I can't tell; is that a sarcastic/ironical response, or are you being serious?

To swap pickups, you have to buy pickups, and if you're unsure which ones will produce the desired outcome, you have to do a lot of installing, comparing, uninstalling, comparing again, rinse, repeat.

Even if you have the perfect pickups lying around, I don't suppose anyone can swap pickups (plus manage the associated wiring details, like the battery, or changing pots to better suit the pickups) in under 10 minutes' time (and in some guitars it's notoriously difficult to do so). Meanwhile if there's a block one can turn on and try out, it's a matter of seconds. Sure, you might take a half-hour tweaking the settings to taste; but that part's fun.

It would, however, be very time-consuming if you didn't know which block(s) to try, in at least a general sense. So, it seems to me that @Joshtownsend made the smart move: Eliminate the largest chunk of wasted time by asking for suggestions on the forum. If the forumites had all agreed on some particular solution ("Oh, yeah, that's not too hard; put an EQ block to bring the low-mids up a bit") then it would have been a matter of minutes before he was in the settings-tweaking stage.

As it happens, we didn't have an out-of-the-box solution to offer; just some vague ideas. But he didn't know that until he asked.
 
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You're going to tweak with the new pickups too.

I'm entirely serious. Drop in an emg 81/85 set and see if it's what you're after.

Buying pickups doesn't take long. Installing pickups doesn't have to take long (a tech can do it in 30m-1hr, would depend on que).

Want the tone of active pickups? Just buy active pickups.
 
You're going to tweak with the new pickups too.

I'm entirely serious. Drop in an emg 81/85 set and see if it's what you're after.

Buying pickups doesn't take long. Installing pickups doesn't have to take long (a tech can do it in 30m-1hr, would depend on que).

Want the tone of active pickups? Just buy active pickups.

It takes a hell of a lot longer than testing a couple EQs which you don't need to leave Axe Edit to try...
 
This is a masterclass in people being unhelpful.

What pickups are in your Solar guitar? If they're the solar standards some quick googling tells me they're voiced like a '59 in the neck and a Custom 5 (formerly custom custom custom) in the bridge. Which is an AlNiCo 5 version of the Custom Custom (Itself a custom version of the Custom... Seymour Duncan what are you doing)

Anyway, so if you want something constructive to try and work on to get a closer sound without swapping pickups, even just to prove to yourself that swapping pickups is worth it, I'd start by understanding that AlNiCo 5 and Ceramic pickups often have a pretty different EQ profile. I'd play with an input EQ to try and get the guitar tone closer to the Ceramic.

Another common difference between passive and active is that actives are low impedance signal, like having a built in buffer. They handle long cable lengths better without losing highs, and don't lose as much highs into lower impedance pedals. On the axe the latter isn't a concern.

Finally, some of them offer some compression just based on their built in preamp (which is what makes them active), EMGs expecially can sometimes clip within the pickup, but the Fluence's shouldn't have that issue or be as compressed so I don't think that's a big part of what you're missing.

So I'd play with the pre-eq on the amp, or an eq after your input, add some more mids in to the typically scooped AlNiCo sound, and work on getting the highs to sound similar.
 
maybe this can help:

all-freq-response.jpg
Did you make this graph? It's bizarre that many of those pickups look so damn similar if you just raised or lowered input gain. Especailly since having played several of them I know how different they sound and feel. Im assuming they were all tested the same and all data treated the same???

Back to offering solutions to the OP...check out singtals guitar vault in the pickup tone matching thread and you might find exactly what you want.
 
I play several Music Man Luke 3 Guitars with passive Pickups.
The L3 has a aktive Preamp and boost build in which works perfectly and absolutely flawless.
Cheers
Sash

I have an LIII also. The preamp is good, but it's part of the circuit, and you can't turn it off. From the outset when the guitar was new, I felt that it was a bit loud, way louder than my EMG equipped Luke's. I thought it would have been nice to be able to reduce the volume of the preamp, to more like what the output would be if it weren't there. That said, as the guitar itself has gotten older, it's become 'darker' sounding, so the harshness of the preamp is a lot less of an issue, in fact, it's sounding pretty good now.
 
When the solution already exists (swapping pickups) I don't see why you would try and find a longer and much more difficult/time-consuming way to the same destination.
I've seen this recently too. These complex scenarios that someone wants to do while only using variable A, when the scenario is simply as going and using variable B.
 
Did you make this graph? It's bizarre that many of those pickups look so damn similar if you just raised or lowered input gain. Especailly since having played several of them I know how different they sound and feel. Im assuming they were all tested the same and all data treated the same???

Back to offering solutions to the OP...check out singtals guitar vault in the pickup tone matching thread and you might find exactly what you want.

no, I found it doing a quick google search
 
There are so many things wrongs with that plot, I don't know where to start.

To the OP, you can't make a passive pickup sound active with some simple EQ. Buy active pickups if that's what you want.
 
This is a masterclass in people being unhelpful

I’d call it realism. Any advice we give is going to address an EQ curve and not the texture and timbre of the tone which is what he really wants. If he’s got an Axefx, he knows about EQ, and he also mentioned a compressor which (to me) is the dead give away that what he wants is a product of a hardware interaction.

My “no credit card allowed” approach for emulating with the axe would be:
Put an EQ in front and another after the amp, and go sweeping (tight Q with a ridiculous level of boost, then sweep frequencies) on one, zero it out and then sweep on the one after the amp and just go exploring to see where the pick attack is living as well as the meat of the signal and the differences between accentuating them in pre and post EQ. If you send a really tight and slightly light on bottom guitar sound into to a darkish or neutral amp, then add low mids and presence back gently with post amp EQ, I think you might be able to replicate some of that hifi quality that you could be seeking. Most my attention would be getting the top end right but on the other hand I don’t feel like actives are all that bright. Brighter passives don’t sound more like actives, it’s just that the treble and presence of an active just seems to hit the amp differently. My gut says you’d end up with treble and mids slightly pulled back, and wide Q gentle presence boost. I’d probably lop off 8khz and higher on the cab block‘s EQ sliders to fight fizz. The presence rise would be boosting frequencies that aren’t even supposed to be there, which seems counterintuitive but sometimes it can deliver some “hype” in the overtones without fizz.

edit: Here I am recommending a presence rise when the EQ plots all show significant rolling off after 2khz. The top end of an active really is just a different animal I guess
 
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