Tuning pedals for active pickups

[Timko]

In a build report I'm going to submit soon, I am trying to allow a pedal to be tuned for active pickups.  This pedal is not for me; it was built for a friend who was giving it to someone as a present.  This person plays in a hard rock band, and plays with active pickups in that band.  I spent some time thinking of a fun pedal to build him (one that isn't something commercially available, and decided on David Rolo's Giant Hogweed.  I got a text from this guy saying he loved what I built for him when he was playing a guitar with passive pickups like his Strat, but the signal from his active pickups just hit the pedal too hard and he got none of the nuances you get from passive pickups.  Since I don't have any active pickup instrument or play hard rock, I needed to do some research into them.  It turns out that they are often underpowered pickups with a built in preamp.  DYIStompboxes helped me come up with some potential solutions.  The simplest is using a potentiometer (probably a trimpot at this point) before the circuit but after the footswitch to run some of the signal off to ground.  This seems to make logical sense to me; it will reduce some of the signal, allowing you to use the gain and volume knobs like you would with active pickups.  I wanted to see if there's any downside I'm missing here.  I think I'm going to be able to borrow someone's guitar with active pickups to test, but in the case that I don't, I figured this would be a good place to ask.

Thanks!

[Aleph Null]

I have a Telecaster with EMGs. I routinely run the volume at 60%. This puts the output similar to most passive pickups. The volume and tone used with most EMGs (and other active designs) is just a potentiometer that dumps signal to ground, like a passive setup. You shouldn't have any issue doing this at the pedal instead of the guitar. I would use an A25k pot as a starting point, as this is the value I would expect to be in the guitar.

He could also just use the volume knob on the guitar. 

Active pickups don't suffer a tone change with the volume reduction, so that shouldn't be a concern. The only possible issue I see is if the circuit in question is sensitive to impedance changes at the input.

[Timko]

I have a Telecaster with EMGs. I routinely run the volume at 60%. This puts the output similar to most passive pickups. The volume and tone used with most EMGs (and other active designs) is just a potentiometer that dumps signal to ground, like a passive setup. You shouldn't have any issue doing this at the pedal instead of the guitar. I would use an A25k pot as a starting point, as this is the value I would expect to be in the guitar.

He could also just use the volume knob on the guitar. 

Active pickups don't suffer a tone change with the volume reduction, so that shouldn't be a concern. The only possible issue I see is if the circuit in question is sensitive to impedance changes at the input.

The impedance question is a good one for David.  The circuit appears to have a buffer at the beginning, so I'm going to say no there.

I also asked about turning down the volume on the guitar.  His pickups must be stupid hot; he told me he's got to roll the volume down 95% to get the same effect as a passive guitar.