Ibanez CP-5 Compressor

EZ to use ..

one day i conducted a mini cheap compresssor pedal shootout... on ebay this one was THE cheapest and i thought i'd get another perspective... rocktron big crush, new RI mxr dyna comp , and ibanez cp 5 i wanted the cp 10 but some how ended up the winning bidder on this for like $12 bucks figured there close to the same based on my previous experience with ibanez 10s and 5s

i using this cp 5 and a tech 21 XXL into a vibro chanp running a 4x12 cab (and wah) the big crush was good for smoothing out a nasty fuzz and sustain (at that time had a vox tone bender fuzz) and tried with boss BD2 blues driver but i only like it in that one role not good for clean too digital sounding.. the mxr dyna comp was good clean and dirty but i had to change the settings constantly and truthfully imho not excellent in either role

i ended up keeping this ugly cp5 for 12 bucks because i could dial in a very nice clean bluesy comp and and great distorted comp without changing the settings on the actual pedal. now i know there are other more expensive comps keely ross etc.. but i'm talking under 80 bucks and in this case a lot less than $80. and i saw this pedal getting dissed in the reviews and i felt i needed to write this.

I DID NOT FIND IT NOISY ! no more than any other - it has lots of sustain - smooths outs the highs and lows - sounds good clean or distorted - i can afford to buy a more expesive one but i don't know if it could sound that much better - seriously - maybe its cause of my amp BUT I LIKE THIS PEDAL

owned several ibanez pedals never a prblem with any of em

fantastic value

Very easy to use, level, attack and sustain. As long as you know what these controls do, it's the easiest pedal in the world.

Astounding! Some people have commented on noise when the pedal is turned off. Mine stays on all the time, in a loop, so I don't suffer from any noise. This pedal adds such a punch and long sustain to my bass tone, I have decided to buy as many back-ups as possible. This would also make a great booster/sustainer for guitar.

I have tested it versus Boss compressor sustainer, Boss limiter, Marshal compressor, digitech multiband. It's my favorite compressor!

I have gigged with it for 5 years now in my band www.no-logo.ws and it has taken a lot of abuse! No sign of breaking whatsoever. I want to buy back-ups because i'm scared of getting it stolen. I NEED this pedal.

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As you may be able to tell, I love this pedal and wanted it to have a great review above some of the crap written by people who don't appreciate this pedal for what it is!

This thing is very easy to get a good sound out of. The settings I have on it are: from zero(the first indicator bump)
-one third (to the third bump) for level
-all the way for attack
-to the fourth bump (about two thirds) for sustain

The manual is alright. It explains exactly what each knob does and how to replace the battery and a diagram of how it works. The firmware revision number is CP5 (if thats a firmware revision number)

I use a Fender American Strat with a princeton 112 plus amp. On the settings that I specified above, this thing sounds great. I can get the sound of robben ford and Santana. DO NOT put everything to the max setting on this pedal... you will get squeels and hisses and any form of feedback. With my settings it has the same amount of noise as without the pedal and can get a great sound and compression.

I have been using this for two years and have not had a thing go wrong with it. Very reliable

Never dealt with them

Overall I would say that this is a pretty good compressor. I play blues and solos a lot and play the odd bit of rock. I have been playing for 4 years and would buy this again if it were stolen or lost unless I found a better compressor. The only thing I wish that it had was a complete effects board and eq... but we all know that that's out of the equation.

Easy to use? Yes. Easy to get a good sound with it? Hardly. No box, no manual. Bought it used and have since sold it.

My setup: Modded one-humbucker Strat - various pedals - Roland cube 15 amp.
Noisy? Unnecessarily so. When the effect is off it generates an intolerable amount of line noise. More hiss than one can expect from even a cheap, plastic, pawnshop toy of this quality. When swiched on, however I was able to find a sweet-spot on the level control where the even louder line noise matched that of the pedal when switched off.

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I must concede that if you only play heavily distorted music that this thing does have some usefulness. I have read in previous reviews that if one has a REALLY weak amp that this thing might help out depending on what kind of grinding noise you are looking for. As for clean, sustained single-note lines or clean/slightly overdriven rhythm this isn't it. The one thing that it IS useful for making a fuzz-box or other dirty distortion pedal really, REALLY intense; Louder, crunchier, more grinding. But that is a pretty lame trick for a noisy one-trick-pony such as this.

This is an update to my previous review. The one that called it a stupid elf. I've since bought and temporarily played a Analog Man CompROSSer. So I'm amending my review based on having that comparison. It's still easy to use. The controls aren't "fine tuning" like the AM, But they stay where you put them which is nice as I move my set up around alot.

I always respected what this little plastic black box tries to do, and it still can be unwieldy, But after playing the AM (which has gotten some pretty damn good reviews here, as I saw when doing research) for about a month, I realised how good the old Ibanez was. Granted the AM is smoother through the transition and has that certain ross thing. But in the end when using the AM model with a higher sustain setting, it didn't really sound like my guitar. There was this overtone kind of sound that took over. So by comparison the Ibanez is wonderfully transparent. It has a little more "cluck" on the attack (which I actually like) But through all the length of the sustain it still sounds like my guitar. There is some noise - a bit more than the AM. But the biggest thing is the AM would Amplify a dead signal until it was just noise and interferance in the signal. Though I don't think it has a noise gate per say the Ibanez does much better at leaving these ticks behind. Furthur more, and maybe this is just because I've played the thing for so long (without fully appreciating it.) It's much easier to work with and predictable. Any compressor pushed to extremes will produce, or rather induce in your guitar and setup, noise and feedback -- the ibanez gives me something I can work with.

please don't break. please don't break. please don't break. (I'm not really that worried about it. It'd just suck if it did.)

eh.... huh?

Somewhere there is or someday will be a better compressor (9) and someday I'll find the perfect compressor (10), But having played a highly rated "booty" ROSS knock off (and even thinking that was the sound I wanted. This is still a keeper. I believe it could be beaten/improved. But for clarity, ease of use and practicallity right now it's my EIGHT.

Not very hard... Only 3 buttons, Level, Attack, Sustain.

Well I not QUITE sure what a Compressor pedel was suppose to do (I got a lone of this off the music teacher in school) but this didn't add ANYTHING to my sound, my sustain was a little bit better but when it started to die there was a loud fuzz coming out of it. Also, when your not playing or you got the volume turned down on your guitar it hisses like crazy! I ran through a Yamaha Strat copy w/ EMG 81 -> CP-5 -> GE-7 (EQ) -> DS-1 (Distortion) -> Fender Deluxe 90. Then I switched the GE-7 and the CP-5 but there was hardly any difference. I was gonna get a Boss compressor but if this is all a compressor does I'll be saving my $150.

Its plastic, doesn't look like it'll last too long.

No idea.

Sounds pretty crappy to me. When your not playing theres feedback like crazy! It doesn't do anything! Adds a LITTLE bit more sustain! I'll be bringing it back to my music teacher tomarrow.

it's straitforward but a little tempermental and unweildy. It's like a dull knife, it does the job but if you're not carefull it will cut you.

it's very noisy when sustain knob is set higher, espeecially when used at low volumes. you can hear the overall volume level raise as the sustain kicks in.

I do depend on it. well I don't depend on it. I bring it everywhere but I don't always use it. if it stopped working it wouldn't really effect my playing much. It seems so simple I can't immagine anything going wrong with it.

NA bought it used.

this is the first and only compressor I've owned so please bear that in mind. It's got pretty dramatic capabilities but very little smoothness and refinement. In the end I think of it as a little stupid elf who likes to mess with the volume knob. But it's got heart. If you don't ask too much you can get some nice milder effects, but if you crank it up he'll try and give you ten times more than he can responsably handle.

i'ts a sound tank three knobs, level, sutain, attack (feo plastico )

all knobs turn rigth sound like anfetamine guitar (great!) very long sustain.
my set up: Cry baby, whammy-wha (qui wha?), octaver oc-1 (boss),electric misstres (panussis clone),xxl distortion(tech21 barta's pride), sd-1, ds-1 (boss),4sec.delay dod, vibrothang dod, pearl phaser, cp5 and limiter (boss) epiphone 25 wattas amp. all sponsored by PATANAS (amo y se?or de los picantes)

plastic (plastico feo y malo, cabrones)

good for long sustain sound, ugly plastic box (plastico bien feo mamones). te dara un buen sostenimiento (largo como el pichulete de miguel)