SteveG673 Posted July 8, 2007 Report Share Posted July 8, 2007 I have been trying to find a way to get a great crunchy distortion out of my guitar when the volume is low. I think I found the answer when I was browsing the band equipment section on the weezer website. Talking about River's strat, it reads: "Additionally, there was a special capacitor added to the wiring that kept the tone thick and crunchy, even when the volume was turned down low (hence the nice "quiet-yet-crunchy" live concert tone on the quiet parts of "say it aint so", etc...) This may have been a "Black Ice" module, which replaces the capacitor on the tone knob and is a passive overdrive/distortion circuit, controllable by the tone knob once you put it in place of the tone capacitor. However, as only the volume knob was left functioning, I believe it was instead hooked into the volume knob, thus increasing its activity as the volume was turned up (or down?)" I am wondering if anybody has experience with the Black Ice unit on the volume pot? How can I wire it so when the volume is turned down, overdrive goes up? Will the volume pot still control volume, or does it just turn into an overdrive control? The stewmac page only has info about connecting it to a tone pot. Does this mean I can keep the capacitors on the tone pots to keep the treble bleed? Sorry for all the questions, I am not the best at electronics, but I really want this effect! Thanks for any help! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Samba Pa Ti Posted July 8, 2007 Report Share Posted July 8, 2007 do a forum search for black ice or strawberry ice, it has been talked to death on these boards... its not worth the hassle in my opinion (need very hot pickups to make it work) and yes if you swapped a tone cap with the black ice you would get variable distortion (it hardly "overdrives") just increases the grit/dirt the stewmac blackice is a waste of money also you can get the blackice mod by using 2 shottky diodes in Anti parrallel wiring (that means they are wired in parrallel together but one is backwards) if i remember correctly the right diode is called BAT 41 and is available on mouser.com (for a few dollars) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hugh Posted July 8, 2007 Report Share Posted July 8, 2007 (edited) Yeah, I can't see passive diode clipping being very effective at all. It's whats found in the later stages of a distortion circuit, following an amplifier. The two diodes make a big difference following a powerful signal, but make a very small difference after something like typical guitar pickups. They will also cut your output a bit, as they definitely weaken the gain of a distortion pedal noticeably. Now if you preamp your guitar and put the diodes in after the preamp, it would make more of an effect. I would keep looking for the right tone in an overdrive or distortion pedal, though. The sounds in Say it ain't so seem like a nice vintage style overdrive to me. Cut your volume back a third or so in the soft parts, and then crank it for the grungy chorus sounds. What distortion or overdrive does he use? That would be the best investment you could make, I think. Edited July 8, 2007 by Hugh Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Masina Posted July 8, 2007 Report Share Posted July 8, 2007 There is a tutorial on it on this website. I built it into one of my guitars, and found that is sucks tone a bit, you tend to lose top end. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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