Black Ice and other cool tone pot options

[JaySwear]

seeing as how i never use a tone control (my last warmoth didn't even have a tone, just a single volume and 3 way toggle) i've been looking into different things i could do with the extra knobs i'll have on my telecaster deluxe. i found the black ice capacitor on stewmac and thought it would be an awesome fix for me. besides the fact that i'd have to leave the tone control at zero all the time (i'm so OCD about these things that might get to me). however, i don't know much about these things and thought you guys might have some cool suggestions for me.

here's the black ice http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Electronics,_pickups/Components:_Black_Ice_overdrive/Black_Ice_Overdrive.html?tab=Instructions#details

also, would this be wired in as a capacitor normally would? it looks like it to me, but just want to make sure. the only difference between this and a capacitor it seems is that this MUST be used on a 250k pot.

and any other cool alternatives to the classic tone control?

 

[bbl4ck]

Yea, I noticed that on StewMac myself and have often wondered about it.  :icon_scratch:
I am interested to see what the group has to say about this. 
I have an old Jap Strat that I could use to play around with something like this...

 

[Mor Paul]

http://www.unofficialwarmoth.com/index.php?topic=9756.0
http://www.unofficialwarmoth.com/index.php?topic=610.0
Quick search gives even more results.

 

[JaySwear]

thanks max. so the black ice seems a bit gimmicky. too bad, was looking for something cool to do with that pot. any other tricks i could use instead of the classic tone pot? i'm generally looking for something without battery power needed. i ALMOST got this guitar routed for a battery box, but decided against it. kind of kicking myself now, even if i didn't end up using it right away.

 

[tfarny]

I love messing with tones and EQ, but always found guitar tone controls to be just "mud knobs" rarely very useful. I think the vast majority of players are the same.
I just redid the 'tone pot' in my bass to be a 5-way rotary tone switch.Now I have a wide open position, and four different cap sizes to choose from. Gives a much wider and more useable range of tones than a normal control. Try a .01uf capacitor in place of your standard cap and you'll see what I mean - it gets rid of highs while leaving the mids alone, unlike a .047 control turned halfway down, which reduces both highs and crucial mids. Really different, and it's my new default setting on bass.
Next step is to do a guitar version, with maybe two tone cap values, .01 and .022, and two q filter settings dialed in. Still learning about inductors etc.

 

[-CB-]

Lawrence (Wilde) Q-filter.  With a bit of experimentation, you can make your neck or bridge pickup sound like the #2 or #4 position on Strat. 

It depends on how you wire it, (or two of them) but you can get a nice notch out of it.  Sometimes there's a limiting cap, sometimes a bypass cap.  There are a lot of ways to wire a nice inductor (hum canceling) in the circuit

 

[Dan025]

+1 on anything bill lawrence
and +1 to tfarny's the multi cap 5 way switch but i would probably find one or two positions i like and say the hell with the rest so a 3way as he said or even an on/off AKA a sweet switch would be good enough for me. 
this is different from a tone as it actually boosts the output slightly below the rolloff point. a larger cap and a pot combo only does this just before you hit zero and boosts at a lower mudier pitch after you already killed all the highs

i use a .01uf cap for the tone on my strat, it works in a goofy control i came up with although maybe im not the first. it can be a notch with an inductor or a high cut. i generally use it at 0 or 10 as a high cut.

the q filers are great, lots of funky stuff you can do with it. it can provide some phase shift to sound more stratty in a tele or hum/hum guitar, drop the inductance to sound brighter at the cost of some output. wire in series with a cap for a notch tone control.

black ice is a schottky diode pair that clips the signal, it might give some new interesting sounds. it will limit the peak output of the guitar and the hotter the pickup the better it will work. a 1meg pot for the volume might help the output at the circuits resonant peak therefore giving more distortion from the diodes. if you want to get crazy you can buy schottky diodes and play with combos of them for one way and/or asymetrical clipping.

if you interested in the q filters i can get schematics, how many knobs do you have? you may be able to do a combo of things.

 

[JaySwear]

so after reading what i could find on the q filter i'm just curious, how would i go about getting one? i've emailed bill lawrence and i assume it's just paypal through his private website, but i know they (he and his wife) can be hard to reach sometimes. i bet especially during the holidays.

 

[Dan025]

i took an isolation transformer out of a dial up modem and wired the coils in series. parallel would also be enough to work for something. or an old single coil pickup w/o magnet could be used and any resistors excluded from your circuit. that is if you have ample room in the route.

you may find something in digi key or another online supplier of electronics.

to be honest you could probably make your own as well. a gibson bass i've seen that aparently had many designs that looked like bill lawrence had his hand in it's design had what looked like magnet wire wrapper around maybe a 10-32 screw with some tape to insulate the threads. a couple of plastic washers to hold in the windings and you have an inductor. wire 2 up on the same screw and wire out of phase and it's humbucking.

i don't know what gage wire or how many windings. there are formulas for it and i know you want maybe 1h to maybe 3h something comparable to the pups would be about right. as for the formulas well it would take a bit of figuring. 

but just dont go to radio shack and expect to use a noise choke or something, they are not nearly a high enough value.

 

[tfarny]

Hey Jayswear, another think you could look into is an onboard boost control for those extra pots, for your soloing fun, if you don't mind having a battery in there. I think SD makes one, I know GFS does too.

 

[-CB-]

The Q filter was 900milliHenries, but has been changed to about 1.8Hy instead.  I think they did that to make it usable with other pickups, as BL's are noted for being rather low inductance.

By shunting the signal to ground through an inductor, you're allowing the low end to pass to ground.  At what point it does that, depends on the total capacitance of the circuit, the inductance of the pickup and value you're using for an inductor as a shunt.  You dont want too small of an inductor as a shunt, because it will pass lots of lows and mids and highs to ground.  The higher the value, the more highs you "hold back" and allow to be your signal.  Bill suggests using a limiting resistor, and bypass cap for that.  You end up with slightly more complex filter arrangement, and one that is open to tweaking of all values.  You can get a real nasal tone from it, or a rather sweet swell from it, depending on the values.  You can make it sound exactly like an acoustic guitar if your pickup is a bright one.  It will cut the mids out and lows... and you get a very good approximation of an acoustic.  You can make it sound like the 4/2 positions on a Strat.  Its all in the tweakage.

 

[Dan025]

am i the only one that got all that? good info thanks =CB=

 

[-CB-]

For those in Rio Lindo and Port Saint Lucie, a low value inductor, ie a wire, will shunt lows, mids and highs... all of the signal.  As the value of the inductor goes up in Henries, its ability to hold back highs becomes greater.  Since its a shunt to ground, only the highs get through to the output.