Skip to content

a blog on effects

Menu
  • Home
  • collection (486)
  • Ibanez (111)
  • Danelectro (53)
  • DOD, Digitech (51)
  • Electro-Harmonix (40)
  • Boss (54)
  • Other Brands (177)
Menu

Ibanez BP5 Bass Compressor

Posted on 29/07/2014 by mirosol

BP5

What is it?
Ibanez BP5 Bass Comp compressor from the Soundtank series. Made in taiwan around mid 90’s.

Who would have thought that BP5 was the hardest unit to find in all the plastic Soundtanks? Well it was. The complete series did come by more easily than i expected, but there were still a couple of the units that were a lot harder to find than others. My guess is that the number of manufactured units were correlating hard with the sales. Which also means that there are tons and tons of Thrashmetals, Power Leads, 60’s Fuzzes and Tubescreamers just waiting for you to grab them. While the less succesful units are getting scarce, one should still be able to source the Bass Comp or Autowah for relatively low prices. If one keeps him/her eyes open. I did finally get one. Don’t exactly remember what i paid for this, but it wasn’t too cheap.

BP5-guts1

Once the bottom plate is out, the board looks exactly like the CP5, the guitar compressor from the same series. Once we take the board out to see it better, it is exactly the same board. Including the silk screened CP5 label. And if we look at these two closer, we see that there isn’t too much of a difference on the pedals. To be exact, the only change between CP5 and BP5 is one capacitor value. Sure. I knew about the differences before acquiring the unit, which may have been the reason i didn’t go for the ones that were out there with ridiculous price tags.

BP5-guts2

So this is pretty much the same pedal as the CP5, CP10 and CPL. Well designed and well working BA6110 VCA-based compressor.

I must wave a flag here. This is the last post about the plastic soundtanks for this blog. Yup. I’ve finally covered all of them. At the time of writing, there are still two metal cased units i’m on a hunt for. And those two are the original Thrashmetal (i’ve got three plastic ones) and the original Power Lead (i’ve got two plastic ones).

How does it sound?
If there is a difference between this unit and the CP5, i’m having real hard time hearing it. Not too noisy or mushy. I feel that the attack knob is rather useless, but that doesn’t make the rest of the features or sounds any less desirable. To sum it up, this is a poor man’s CP10. Defined and very usable unit. Superb thing with single coils. Haven’t played a lot with this on bass though.

2 thoughts on “Ibanez BP5 Bass Compressor”

  1. fatztreeboy says:
    12/03/2017 at 00:25

    love your reviews of obscure effect pedals. the www shines bright through ur site

    i am in san francisco. u ever review the Dr’ Scientist Tremolessence? or the Source Audio Nemisis delay box? that thing is a full on computer….

    cheers

    Reply
    1. mirosol says:
      13/03/2017 at 08:16

      Thanks for your words. Like stated, i’m more of an analog audio electronics enthusiast and seem to have little interest in “plugin in a pedal form” -type of units.

      And i’m only writing about the pedals i own. And it’s been somewhat slower lately du to so many other things occupying my time.
      +m

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

/usr/bin/locate

/usr/bin/whoami

here used to be a short description of me. however, it wasn't exactly accurate anymore. so i'm replacing it with this placeholder for now. and yes. it's been a long time since my last post. but let me assure you. i'm very much still alive.

Found an error? One of my assumptions is dead wrong? Something else is just not right? Let me know! Leave a comment to a post, or drop a line to mirosol at kapsi dot fi.

I do mods, repairs and custom builds too. For inquiries, use the email address above.

/var/lib/collection

  • Electro-Harmonix (40)
  • DOD, Digitech (51)
  • Other Brands (177)
  • Boss (54)
  • Danelectro (53)
  • Ibanez (111)

/var/lib/tags

Amp Autowah Bass Boost Booster Chorus Compressor Delay Distortion Echo Envelope Filter EQ Filter Flanger Fuzz Harmony Loop Modulation Noise Gate Octave Overdrive Phaser Pitch Power Preamp Reverb Special/Multi Synthesizer Tremolo Tuner Utility Vibe Vibrato Wah

/usr/lib/comments_recent

  • zix on DOD FX55-B Supra Distortion
  • Ali Imran on Ibanez MF5 Modern Fusion
  • Ali Imran on Ibanez MF5 Modern Fusion
  • Schlunzo on Ibanez MS10 Metal Charger
  • Jefferson on Ibanez MS10 Metal Charger

/var/lib/archives

  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • September 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
© 2025 | Powered by Superbs Personal Blog theme