Is it possible to put passive pickups in an active guitar or bass?

Yes. All you need to do is install the pickups wire it correctly according to the diagrams they give you, and take out the lil circuit board/battery in the toggle compartment of the guitar.

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you could leave it in as well, just to take out the hastle of removing it, could be a twee bit easier, just make sure to take the battery out.

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Typical pots in active guitars are 25k while the pots in a passive are usually 250k or 500k, so you'll likely want to replace the pots, too, or else you'll have a really bassly dull sound from the lack of any trebel.

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Good point.

I mean best thing to do from this kinda question is just go talk to a local guitar tech. He'll set it up.

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Its not a problem to do it but you will have to be more specific about how you want it all set up with the volume, tone knobs, and switches.

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The reason I'm asking is because I bought a bartolini bass pickup off ebay believing it was an active pickup, but it's actually a passive pickup. How much do you think they will charge me for having them install it for me?

30 bucks maybe. Maybe even less than that. 15 dollars.

Although i like to do alot of the stuff by myself sometimes its just not worth it to dick your gear up. I mean if you don't have a decent setup area where you can solder in peace it gets dangerous. I was soldering my old explorers pickups in my room when i was like 16 and touched the guitar on accident probably twice in the process. God damn tiny ass cord.

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That is why I always solder using an extension cord with a killswitch.

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That would help, but i really wish they had wireless solder irons that were worth a damn.

It just gets in the way and is awkward with the weight on of the cord pulling on the backside. It is just one of those small things that annoys me so bad.

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I normally charge $25 labor for a rewire and pickup install for guitar. Soldering does take time to be skilled at much like playing. I've seen many first time solder iron guys ruin the pots on a guitar because of overheating.

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Since were talking about soldering, what's the deal with lubrication/vaseline?
I was always thought to put a little vaseline gel on wherever I was going to solder, but no-one kinda mentions it in regards to electronics soldering.

Shed some light on that?

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I've never done it. I've never even heard of it actually. As long as you are using a rosin core flux solder then you need nothing more.

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Yeah the rosin acts like a lubricant. I think old old old solder doesn't have it.

Its not too hard to do the soldering. You just gotta know how to solder well enough that you aren't touching anything for unneeded amounts of time. (like soul said)

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I can do a reasonable solder job
I learned it at various art/shop classes on different schools.. but they always used lubricant.

Maybe because they used very old (cheap?) tin wire or were conservative in the techniques or something..

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