diy Black Ice?

[superfish]

Has anyone seen the black ice overdrive at stewmac? if so, is there anyway to do it yourself? also, how do you measure the output of your guitar? any help would be great

[Fender56]

I think it is only two low voltage schottky diodes put back-to-back in opposite direction (just like in a MXR Distortion Plus). You need a high-output pickup so your signal will be clipped by the diode (like 0.3V maybe...). Otherwise, no effect!!!

[JHS]

2 back to back Schottky- or Ge-diodes. A high output PU puts out app. 400-450mV when you hit a string hard.

JHS

[Gus]

Did you try "black ice" in the search?  You should find a few threads.

[Caferacernoc]

Yep. It's that simple. 2 diodes incased in epoxy for $24.95!

[Mark Hammer]

The diodes need to have as low a forward voltage as possible so that there is at least a tiny likelihood of generating some clipping at less than full volume and power chords with an overwound humbucker.  $25 might seem like way too much money but: a) they have to buy more diodes than they need and select lower forward voltage ones, b) they have to mold the units and package them, and c) they don't exactly sell them in vast quantities, simply because it won't work in all cases.  My guess is the makers are not, as of this moment, cruising the Caribbean in a yacht christened "The Black Ice", sniffing cocaine off the taut bellies of supermodels, and laughing all the way to the bank.

So, if you want to make your own, you will likely want to buy a bunch of Schottky diodes and measure them with your DMM, selecting the ones with the lowest forward voltage.

One of the things that has never been discussed is whether the passive clipping idea would work better with some sort of transformer that increased the efficiency of the signal....and maybe whether the epoxy blob might even have one in there.

[runmikeyrun]

i tried it on my bass with active soapbars and a dimarzio x2n pickup (pretty hot) and it sounded like crap.  FYI.

[darron]

it's easy to make. not a nice distortion. it's not practical to use also, as the clipping takes back a lot of your volume which is lost and never restored.

open up a guitar lead and put the diodes across the lines (don't even solder it) to see how it sounds.

[ambulancevoice]

these things cost 30 bucks!!!?!??!?!
AHHH!!!

i tried it on my bass with active soapbars and a dimarzio x2n pickup (pretty hot) and it sounded like crap.  FYI.

thats because its not supposed to be used with active pickups
http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Electronics,_pickups/Components:_Black_Ice_overdrive.html

[drewl]

I built something similiar that you stick on the output of a keyboard preamp. A passive diode clip some guy read about and had me build for him.
Sounded decent.

[LMJS]

My guess is the makers are not, as of this moment, cruising the Caribbean in a yacht christened "The Black Ice", sniffing cocaine off the taut bellies of supermodels, and laughing all the way to the bank.

Whatever happened to the good old days?