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Post subject: black ice capacitor
Posted: Wed May 09, 2012 9:59 am
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these things are ment for use with 250k pots but fancy lingo aside, what would this cap sound like with 500k pots? i have two hum buckers and i want them at their full potential.


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Post subject: Re: black ice capacitor
Posted: Wed May 09, 2012 6:04 pm
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selfmade wrote:
these things are ment for use with 250k pots but fancy lingo aside, what would this cap sound like with 500k pots? i have two hum buckers and i want them at their full potential.


Other than asking the manufacturer, there's only one sure way to find out.

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Post subject: Re: black ice capacitor
Posted: Wed May 09, 2012 9:58 pm
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They are not just capacitors. They include clipping diodes in the circuit to create a passive distortion device.

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Post subject: Re: black ice capacitor
Posted: Sun Jun 10, 2012 8:04 am
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Actually they aren't capacitors at all and you completely lose your tone control when you replace the regular cap with a Black Ice (I suppose you could wire up a switch to let you select a tone cap or the Black Ice). It's just a couple of Schottky diodes potted in a plastic cube. If you have high output pickups, the Black Ice clips the signal, giving you harsh ugly distortion.

I was surprised at the 250K requirement -- they didn't use to say that, and since the Black Ice works best with humbuckers (there aren't a lot of single-coils hot enough to drive the diodes) they're been used with lots of 500k tone pots. The only difference the pot value should make is in the response as you rotate the knob -- the "no distortion to maximum distortion" range will be broader on a 250K, making it a bit easier to find the right amount of distortion.

The Black Ice has been around since the late '70s. It seems like a nifty idea, it's got a moderate selling price, and it's inexpensive to build (you can make one for a few cents with a couple of Schottky diodes and some electrical tape to wrap them in), so they sell enough of them to keep making them. But there's a reason why you've never heard one on a record and why you don't see anyone using them -- they soumd like crap. Any/every distortion footpedal does a much more satisfying job.

After decades of being vaguely curious about the Black Ice, I got a used guitar with one installed. I had always heard that they didn't sound good, but everyone's ears are different -- I like some sounds that most people hate and hate some sounds that most people love -- so I tried it with an open mind. And after a couple of days I concluded that it really is a useless piece of crap and replaced it with a regular tone cap.


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