BLACK GATE (OF MORDOR)

Let the BLACK GATE (OF MORDOR) be the only thing standing between you and the disgusting hordes of chaos and disorder.

The concept is simple: suppress noise, feedback and hum while sacrificing as little tone, pick attack or sustain as possible.
From an engineering standpoint, easier said than done, especially when the most common IC chip to make this happen has been discontinued. Luckily I've found an alternative that works equally well and (for now) is available. I'll be buying up about 100 of these chips I've found as soon as possible and after that, who knows?

INSTRUCTIONS:

The setup might seem complicated at first but once it clicks you'll get it down:

Plug your guitar directly into the input (tuner first is fine) and then put anything you'd normally put in front of an amp (or the preamp itself) in the DIRT FX LOOP and then to either your amp input if you use it as a pedal platform or into the FX return if you use amp gain.
Let me clarify:

You will put compression, wah, fuzz, distortion, overdrive, boosts or anything else you like before your gain INSIDE THE DIRT LOOP.
(We will call all of these "dirt" pedals to simplify things in the instructions)

•If you run all pedals into the front of a clean, pedal platform amp:

1) FROM the SEND jack of the BLACK GATE >
TO the first pedal your "dirt" pedal chain>
2) FROM the output of the last pedal of your "dirt" pedal chain >
TO the RETURN of the BLACK GATE>
3) FROM the OUT of the BLACK GATE into your modulation and ambience pedals (chorus, delay, reverb etc.) >
TO the input of your AMP.

•If you use a high gain amp:

1) FROM the SEND jack of the BLACK GATE >
TO the first pedal your "dirt" pedal chain
2) FROM the output of the last pedal of your "dirt" pedal chain >
TO your amp/preamp input
3) FROM the SEND of the AMP FX LOOP >
TO the RETURN of the BLACK GATE
4) FROM the OUT of the BLACK GATE >
TO the RETURN of the AMP FX LOOP

•If you use modulation/delay/reverb and a high gain amp

1) FROM the SEND jack of the BLACK GATE >
TO the first pedal your "dirt" pedal chain
2) FROM the output of the last pedal of your "dirt" pedal chain >
TO your amp/preamp input
3) FROM the SEND of the AMP FX LOOP >
TO the RETURN of the BLACK GATE
4) FROM the OUT of the BLACK GATE >
TO modulation/delay/reverb pedals
5) FROM modulation/delay/reverb pedals >
TO the RETURN of the AMP FX LOOP

(Don't worry, I'll draw a diagram and post it in the photos and make a short video explaining the connections)

The external knob controls the threshold. This sets the point at which the gate kicks in and how much gating there is.

•There are two trim pots inside for bias, please do not touch these.
•There is a third trim pot for decay which sets how long the note holds before cutting off.
Too short and it cuts off too soon, too long and some feedback/noise might creep in after a mute. We will be setting these before hand. If you do decide to tweak this, take a close up, hi-res photo first!!

All BLACKHAWK pedals and preamps are true bypass and standard “one spot style” 9v, Negative tip, 2.1mm barrel.

CURRENT DRAW less than 20ma

Please allow 1-2 weeks build time as every BLACKHAWK pedal is made by hand for YOU.