Ibanez CR5 Crunchy Rhythm

Level, tone and dist. Quite easy, but to get a good sound is very hard.

The worst thing about it is that it cuts a LOT of bass. The distortion is always there even if you turn it to zero. The tone control is too narrow in the register. It??s supposed to be a stomp box for a rhythmguitarist, but it isn??t. You can??t get a crunchy sound out of it. Only thin, noisy distortion. I??ve tried it in a Marshall JCM900 Master Volume and a Vox AC30 and those amps are great. My guitar is a Gibson Les Paul Standard, also great. If you run the pedal with an AC adapter it humms a lot.

The on/off-switch is completely worthless! I would NEVER use it on a gig.

This pedal is for hardrockers. It was the first pedal I bought, back in 1991. It worked for me then as a teenager playing at home, but as you grow up you have absolutely no use of it. It only pisses you off!

it's three knobs! you tell me.

i forced my mother to purchase this pedal for me from don lesmans music (here in ABQ) i have had it and used it ever since...it is kind of the missing link between a t-s9 and a DS-1... i love this pedal.

ok, now, lets bitch about it...the switch SUCKS, i've had to replace the IC (i don't remember with what) and did i mention the SWITCH SUCKS...ugh...
After i modded the pedal to take a REAL momentary switch and a new IC it still rocks!

The switch mod does not change the look of the pedal

i work at a music store and we're an ibanez dealer...they're cool.

it rocks, you know it, and i wish i had second one.....if you want me to mod your pedal (switch) contact me. i will NEVER sell this pedal..it really suits my style of guitar playing!

www.myspace.com/anatung
www.anatung.com

three knobs its simple.

I have been looking for one of these for quite awhile. Early soundtanks were made of metal, I own a MF-5 Modern Fusion (like a low gain tubescreamer)and a PL-5 power lead. Both metal bodies. I was suprised to find out that the TS-5 wasn't in the original soundtank series. I compared this with a Mostortion MT-10 pedal, I just got. I ran them through the clean channel of a Peavey Bravo (great amp, EL-84's) with a celestion. The Mt-10 had a similar distortion but was more compressed on the low end but similar grind. The CR-5 was more open. I think that mixing the two sounds while recording would sound really cool. I was using a Peavey Impact Torino (PV's stab at a PRS)with a high output humbuker in the bridge. Very nice distortion, one of the better ones I've heard. I own a STL Super tube but its at my studio so I couldn't compare the two just yet.

the input jack is faulty, I'm sure that sooner or later that I'll lose the battery cover and the on-off switch will go bad. hey its a soundtank. but at least its metal.

?

I lucked out when I found this at a pawn shop. It is always great to find rare pedals at a store cheap. I have tons of distortion pedals, and this is one of my favorites. I love my deluxe big muff, DOD corrosion, STL super tube, original TS-9,Morley JD-10 (especially for strats) and an old DOD distortion. This has a nice clear crisp sound and it will mix well with other thicker pedals while recording.

three knobs, rive, treble, level, crank it, like it...

The sound of the pedal is great. I have several Marshalls, an old 1970 jmp 50, a jtm 45 reisuue and a 1959 slp. the sound of the pedal comes very close to those non master marshalls. It's grat too to use it as a dirty sounding treble booster, easy to get AC/DC, Eddie Van Halen sounds.

The effect is dependable, I have three of it. the first I played for 10 years as my standard distortion box until I damaged the enclosure, I put the electronics into a Hammond die-cast box, its still in use today...
For a short period I think in 1989-90 Ibanez put the CR5 out in the now familiar plastic boxes until they discontinued it.

I play all types of music, from jazz to blues to funk to rock to punk... I played in bands for nearly 20 years, but now "retired" 'cause there's not enough time to do it anymore...
If my CR5 will be stolen, I'll be really sad... but not so sad because I had the luck to find 3 backups in the last months on ebay germany.

Hey guys, if you can get one of these, buy it, try it, I'm waiting for the pedal beeing the next ts808...

Three knobs: Level (effect volume) / Tone / Distortion
What more to say...
Got no manual.

I bought this pedal on ebay. Wanted to get some harmonic crunchy sounds for my 50's re-issued Stratocaster without the need of cranking up my amp to high volumes. Well, I plugged the thing in and expected some fuzz sounds, but....hell..... I couldn't believe my ears. Thats exactly the sound I wanted! The Strat sounds are clear and crunchy at the same time, high on trebble but not so terrible twanging....smooth to the ears.....it's fantastic.
Then I tested the CR-5 with my Epiphone Les Paul. Turning the Distortion to maximum I get a sound my Marshall MKII 100Watt never was able to produce. It's incredible... I don't know what Ibanez has put in this machine but it must be something from the gods. Even if the guitar strings aren't 100% in tune the overdrive chords sound so perfect in tune as if they would come from a synthesizer. On higher gains there seems to work something like compression as well. For some mystik reason with the CR-5 now I can play the guitar like I never dreamed of *biggrin*

It's die cast or some kind a zinc sheet. The poti knobs seem to be a little bit shaky and fragile (?) Therefore the rating "8"
But yes, I would use it on a gig without a backup.

Never dealt with the company.

I play every kind a music from Jazz to AC/DC for about 20 years.
If it where stolen? Well, it doesn't have to be stolen...if I ever see another one - be sure I'll purchase it. This thing is it worth to keep a second one in stock for bad times.

Not a hard thing to tweak, it's only 3 knobs, tho I've found it does need some getting used to, it's worth fine tuning.

This pedal sounds better(to me) with fender type of amp or tone, marhsall and mesa tones don't seem to work the same. Using it with fender amps gives you a better low end and rounder tone. I prefer the sound I get with it using humbuckers or middle and neck singel coils paired at the same time. Humbuckers both at neck and bridge sound good with this. In general I prefer neck humbucker with it. The humbucker I tested this with are Paf Pro(DiMarzio) I do find teh pedal to be a bit noisy, it's worst with single coils which is normal but I would not use it with bridge single coil or bridge/middle... too noisy in those situation. But like I said I prefer neck humbucker with this pedal.

I have to depend on it... finding another one of these is like impossible! It's all metal, which is the case for a few early soundtanks pedal, they should have kept the metal case idea but their plastic ones are great also. The CR-5 wasn't built into a plastic soundtank like a few others have after the first few plastci soundtank were introduced.

In general Ibanez have a great customner service... but they're not that great to dig some infos about older products, they're not the only one doing this but that's not an excuse.

If you need a good rhythm sound with humbucker this pedal is worth checking into, for leads it can mange it with a neck humbucker or bridge with some tone knob tweak on the guitar. I can see myself using this one in various situation, but this one doesn't give metal sounds for me... it's more of a blues, rock kind of crunch. Worth trying, and if you can get one and want a rhythm sound (maybe a backup one?)get it they're hard to come by. For the price I paid it's a total bargain! If I can help you drop me an email I'll try my best to help.

very easy to get a hard metal distortion heavy crunch i am in tonal bliss heaven (maybe im just easy to please) but i do love the sounds this pedal produces you could turn all the knobs at 12:00 o clock and still get a usable distortion granted you love heavy dist

i use it with a mesa subway rocket reverb split to streo run it into a vox and walla also use the em-5 echomachine with a supertubescreamer st-9 with a tr-5 tremolo and thats my sound love it or leave it i also ocatinally use it with a sd-9 sonic dist to boost it super saturated gain but use it with a boss noise gate nf-1 wow now im out of breath but it works well with all of this and its not a noisy pedal by itself the tremolo it works well with if you use it right u can get that thick guitar layering sound if u know what i mean

i was very happy to score this pedal these suckers are hard to find i found it alot easier to find a rare st-9 or od-9 than it is to find one of these its one ibanez made out of metal instead of plastic like all the other potatoe bug series x-cept for the first powerlead issue and classic metal they onlycame out with the first issue of these and stopped there oh yeah its very dependable

ibanez needs some work in this dept like a online store that sells replacement battery covers for their nine series pedals so you dont have to go through some of these thrird party pedal dealers that charge like 20 for (u know who u are) ibanez tells me that they sell them for 2 dollars they need better online support like ansering emails cmon ibanez your a big corp hire a secretary to do these things

i was sooo happy to finally have gotten this pedal i searced high and low for over 14 months (i need to get a life) anyways the type of music i play is well this is how i describe it if the bands 311 and coal chamber were to have sex and nine months later out pops a kid and that kid plays in a band when he grows up well that band would sound like my band PAREL-FIVE ANYWAYS GETTIN BACK TO THE PEDAL IF IT WERE STOLEN you better hope the cops get to you before i do it is one of my top fav distortion pedals i will definaly be using this alot in my pedalboard

Well! Level, tone and dist, how easy can it get

I use it whith a Fender Pro Reverb,78 with mastervolume with pull push. Guitarwise i use a 68'Fender Telecaster with Texas Specials and a 71'Gibson 335 all stock. I got the pedal in a deal with an Ibanez CP-9 pedal and it even took a couple of weeks before I plugged it in, I thought that I just might sell it to reduce the cost of the CP-9. I plugged it in and my ears almost fell of!! Now it's the only distorsionpedal that I use. It has more distorsion than a ts-9 and it has a great compresion built in to it, think 50w plexi on 10! The only drawback is that it don't follow so well when you reduce the volume of the guitar, and that it's a little bit to much distortion right away. Turn it; L=12:00 T=13:00 D=13:00 and it's a nice rockcrunch!

It's solid metal for some reason!

It's cheap and sounds better than most dist. pedals. Forget how it looks and listen to it instead.

Your typical three knob Soundtank distortion pedal. Distortion, Tone, and Level. No upgrades; this one came stock with a JRC4558 op-amp.

Last night I compared this one against the MF5 Modern Fusion and the TS5 Tube Screamer. The gain level on the CR5 is higher than both and the tone is a little brighter and sweeter. Interestingly, this Soundtank sounds closer to the ST9 Super Tube Screamer or the STL Super Tube (in other words a very nice sound). With the tone knob at 1:00, level at 1:00, and the distortion all the way up, it sounded the least artificial of the three Soundtanks I compared.

IT'S ENTIRELY METAL! I had no idea that they made die-cast Soundtanks, and didn't even realize it at first until I saw a little chip on the stomp pad. Lo and behold, the entire thing (except the plastic battery cover) is made out of metal & painted black. Too bad the rest of the series is made out of plastic. This is my first Soundtank that i showing evidence of a dying footswitch. If you ever look at the inside of one of these, it's amazing that any company would use a completely dinky POS switch like what is used in these. At least it's a breeze to replace... Giving this category an 8 due to the nice metal construction, but still using the junk switch.

This one might turn into one of my primary distortion boxes used with my MusicMan 210 Sixty Five, it sounds that good. I thought this particular pedal was a rumor, having heard only one reference to it on the web. When I got my MF5 Modern Fusion with the original package, the CR5 was listed on the back. This has been the only one I had ever seen for sale (on Ebay). I'd definitely try to snag another if I saw one turn up; the metal housing is reason enough for me.