John Frusciante’s Ibanez Soundtank Pedal

John was seen using this pedal on a photo taken on January 26, 1990, in Kawasaki, Japan. As far as the exact model of the pedal, although some sources claim it’s a CS5 Chorus, it seems impossible to tell for sure based on the photo below.

John Frusciante. January 26, 1990, Kawasaki, Japan.

The label does look purple on the photo, but the whole stage is basically the same color, probably because of the stage lights. So even though it’s possible that it’s a CS5 (purple label), it could also be an Ibanez Powerlead (pink-ish label), or even one of the pedals with a blue label, like the flanger or a phaser. There were a ton of these pedals all looking pretty much the same aside from the label, and it’s impossible to tell anything for sure.

Be that as it may, given that the photo was taken in Japan, and Ibanez is a Japanese company, it could be that this was simply something that John pickup up while being there. It was not seen on any other occasion.

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Fran Nieto
Fran Nieto
2 years ago

It’s very strange about that pedal because I practically can’t make sense of what is there, more than anything because for that show John used very few effects, a distortion, a chorus for some songs, of course the wah and some reverb or delay. just for the solo part. So it would make little sense for it to be a flager or phaser because those effects are not perceived in that show, nor do I think it is the PowerLead because, why are you going to use another distortion if you already have the Boss DS-2, and I think that of the Chorus It is the most logical because even though he already had the CE-1 chorus, John used it more than anything to split his signal to stereo, so perhaps to have a purer chorus he used the ibanez cs5

Fran Nieto
Fran Nieto
2 years ago
Reply to  Fran Nieto

Although thinking that I use a delay effect in the solos and it is not known where the delay pedal is, perhaps it is also the Soundtank Digital Delay (which has a blue label) and that for the chorus if I have used the CE1, but I’m sure which is between those two. Either the Soundtank Super Chorus or the Soundtank Digital Delay