Black Ice Overdrive? Preamps?

[everlong]

Wow, I was going through the Stewmac site and saw these things under electronics...and all I can do is stare blankly at the screen and go "huh?"

I never even knew these types of things existed. I always assumed any added stuff like gain, sustain, etc had to be done OUTSIDE of the guitar...but now you're telling me I can put a little cube in my guitar that'll give me some gain? I'm lost!

Basically I don't want to have to use any battery operated stuff in my custom LP I'm making, but that Black Ice Overdrive sounds great! So it replaces the tone for one of my pickups...so say I used it for the Seymour Duncan JB in my bridge, I can be playing clean and get a little (or a lot?) distortion by turning this thing up?

Totally lost, please help

What are some other cool electronics like these?! My guitar project has just been opened up to a whole new level of customization!

A quick edit: I also noticed that the Black Ice requires a 250k pot? What will be the consequences for using a 250k pot with a SD humbucker?

Edited December 21, 2004 by everlong

[Mickguard]

, but that Black Ice Overdrive sounds great! So it replaces the tone for one of my pickups...so say I used it for the Seymour Duncan JB in my bridge, I can be playing clean and get a little (or a lot?) distortion by turning this thing up?

Have a look here: varitone

And here's a version with distortion:

Varitone w/Distortion

Neither of these requires batteries...the idea is that they let you switch through various sized capacitors, so you get different sound settings.

Personally, I don't trust the Black Ice thing...I prefer playing through my tube amp and dialing up the grain with that.

[goth_fiend]

you should also look into neal mosers booster switch, its a 10x gain boost unit, so whatever your using is going to get a bit of omph!

[Drak]

Every review of the Black Ice I've ever seen sez it pretty much junk.

Haven't tried it personally, and no plans to really.

[Paul Marossy]

I remember seeing a discussion about the Black Ice. It's really just a couple of diodes that clip the signal from the pickups. The type of diodes are low voltage schottkys.

Here's a thread about it at Aron's Stompbox Forum: http://www.diystompboxes.com/sboxforum/vie...9&highlight=ice

I saw this a while ago, but had no interest in trying it. I should, just out of curiousity...

[unclej]

good morning everlong..no need to spend the money at stewmac..just hit the search function here..type in strawberry ice and you'll get a tutorial on doing the same thing that the black ice does. i offer it as a mod here at my shop and i've learned a couple of things; it works much better on guitars with humbuckers than with single coils and it works pretty well on basses. it's a very easy mod and all you need is a couple of diodes, a toggle switch and a soldering iron.

[everlong]

Haha, sounds great unclej, I'll go do some reading up on it now.

Thanks for the replies everyone, I wasn't entirely sure what that thing was but I think I get it now!

[Paul Marossy]

it works much better on guitars with humbuckers than with single coils

That makes sense, since humbuckers have a higher output than a single coil does. I guess I'll have to try it sometime just for kicks.