All hail the Ibanez Soundtank DL5 delay

[Petie]

I just dug out my old digital delay pedal (it was a birthday present when I was about 15). It wasn't working any more so I took it apart to look for any loose solder joints. Couldn't find anything, but I gave it a general clean-out and now it miraculously works fine, though the switch requires a good hearty stomp to activate - might see if I can do something about that.

Now that I've played about a million delay units, I appreciate this one a lot more. It doesn't sound as warm as my MXR Carbon Copy, but it's a little soft around the edges compared to a Boss digital delay. The repeats sound slightly smoothed over, and when used with a good power supply it's very quiet.

Delay time is only 400ms, but that can be tweaked with a simple mod. Construction feels a little flimsy, and battery life is remarkably short, but despite these little niggles, I still really like it, and I've made a permanent place for it on my pedal board. I might put it in a true bypass loop just in case the switch gives me any further trouble.

[reguv760]

... ya, those pedal's are kinda fragile. As teenagers who were barely starting out, my bestfriend got one of these bad boys for his main distortion:


From what I remembered, they weren't bad although I have no idea what happened to it but i'm pretty sure your DD pedal has outlasted it! hah
I'd rather hunt down an Ibanez Shark Distortion :P


Reg

[Petie]

Wow, that looks cool! Like something you'd see built into a control panel on the Death Star, hehe.

I've recently been toying with the idea of starting up a guitar blog, using a bunch of my articles from some magazines I write for, as well as writing new articles, so I've set up a test blog to learn how to do it. After I posted this thread on Jemsite, I thought it'd be a good basis for a blog post, so I expanded upon it a bit.

EDIT: Wow, I just realised I've made 2 Death Star references today. Must be time to watch Star Wars again.

2010 EDIT: The site's now http://iheartguitarblog.com and the post about the Soundtank is here: dl5-digital.html" target="_blank">http://iheartguitarblog.com/2008/09/...>-digital.html

[reguv760]

Blog site's cool... would like to read other Star Wars references in your reviews :P
The Shark Distortion's nifty device though the casing is similar to a Soundtank... bought one NOS around a decade ago but sold it a year afterwards IIRC. It's a half-rack/pedal unit with a [Rocktron] Hush built-in. There's like 3 other effects that came in these format.

Reg