Has anyone tried a resistor in front of the Blackfire....

[RDV]

...to make it work better with humbuckers. Mine is kind of splatty and blatty when I lean on my rear humbucker. I wonder if a 10 to 33K or so in front could help?

Regards

RDV

[Joe Davisson]

Try changing the 470k/470pf after the gain control to 2.2M/100pf. That should maintain a similar tone but with lower gain.

[RDV]

Try changing the 470k/470pf after the gain control to 2.2M/100pf. That should maintain a similar tone but with lower gain.

So what I'm experiencing is over-overdriving of the second stage?

Thanks Joe

RDV

[Joe Davisson]

Yeah. The second stage is subject to being driven harder than the first, which the 470k/470pf tries to avoid. Raising that resistor will lower the drive to it.

Also, the gain of the output transistor is a tad high. I need to update that. Just use a 100k/22k bias on it instead of 470k/100k. Treble response will be slightly increased, however, so you may need to increase the 10k resistor (up to about 100k max) before the ouput transistor. (or use a simple tone control...)

[RDV]

I replaced the 470pF/470K with 100pF/2.2M and tested and I really like this! Much more open & natural with humbuckers(even an EMG81!). I've also used the 470 ohm resistor in series with the first 10uF bypass cap(from the old stuff file "Hi-Fi preamp"), added the tone control from the Obsidian with a .22uF in place of the .003uF, lost the 470K volume bleeders, and I've got something here. I love it at gigs where guitar players are not able to find a frame of reference as to what my "sound" is like. HA!!!

Regards and again: Thank You Joe!

RDV