Disclosed herein are embodiments of an active RC filter that has a gain-setting attenuator. An embodiment takes the form of a filter circuit having a filter-circuit input node; a filter-circuit output node; an operational amplifier (op-amp) having first and second inputs and also having an output coupled to the filter-circuit output node; and a passive feedback path extending between the filter-circuit output node and the first op-amp input, the passive feedback path having a gain-setting attenuator segment in series with a signal-filtering segment.