Xploration • Curation • Recommendation
Leyland Pedals revives Ibanez's somewhat criminally underrated Soundtank PL5 Powerlead Distortion in vibrant etched enclosure Peace Lily Edition
Key Points
Ibanez’s Soundtank PL5 Powerlead Distortion ran from 1989–1999, first in metal for two years, then plastic. Leyland Pedals’ Caleb revived its circuit as the Peace Lily Edition.
With a TL072CP and six C1815L transistors, it delivers fuzz-tinged, hard-clipping distortion: vibrant, cutting and searing, with Big Muff-y chord texture. Lo is potent; increased Gain adds compression and darkens the output. Controls are Volume, Gain, Lo and Hi.
Preferred settings are Volume 4 o’clock, Gain 1, Lo 8, Hi max. The Peace Lily etching is a highlight. As of the article’s date, the price was £150; a new batch was imminent.
Ibanez’s Soundtank PL5 Powerlead Distortion was manufactured over a 10 year period from 1989 to 1999. For the first 2 years in a metal enclosure, before then being rolled out in plastic - which is what the Soundtank series is now mostly associated with. Most people forget that the very early editions were in metal enclosures!
In any case this 6 x Transistor + Opamp Distortion has been discontinued for over a quarter of a century, and it’s fitting that Leyland’s Caleb saw fit to hone and revive this fantastic circuit.
It kind of comes across as slightly fuzz-tinged, with an added sizzle to it - based on those 6 Transistors which do a lot of the sound generation here. This pedal is a Distoriton / Fuzzstortion - it definitely has a slight fuzz edge to its profile - but leans much more into the distortion side of things - with a vibrant, singing lead line sort of profile - presumably intended more for single note lead line melodies than chords. While if you do deploy chords it can sound a little Big Muff-y - with a little more sizzle and texture to its output.
The 2-Band EQ is interesting, with seemingly quite a narrow ’Q’ bandwidth, which means those frequencies hit pretty hard, and particularly for the LO control! The Lo EQ has massive amounts of hard Bass, where I never feel the need to take it over the half-way mark (typically I’m attenuating those frequencies!), where the Highs though hit with a little more subtlety.
The pedal has a very simple control topology and is very easy to dial in!
Controls - Volume, Gain, Lo, Hi.
Internally - the sound-generation is handled by 1 x TL072CP OpAmp and 6 x C1815L Transistors - which bring about the really vibrant and cutting fuzz-tinged distortion output profile. It definitely feels like more of a hard-clipping style arrangement in how the core voice is delivered. And as with all of Caleb's circuits - the PCB layout is incredibly neatly arranged.
As mentioned, the Lo frequencies hit pretty hard - both in their potency and character - such that I typically have that control rolled back quite a bit. The Highs are more subtle - so typically I need plenty of Highs, but minimal Lows.
This Peace Lilly is essentially my 3rd Leyland Pedal - as I also have Caleb's very heavily modified Boss DF-2 SUPER Feerbacker & Distortion, and his Hum Along Distortion Pedal based on that.
The Peace Lilly etching is my favourite of Caleb's to date - the Hum Along comes close with its 4 LED stars - but overall the Peace Lilly is his most visually appealing pedal to date - great choice of LED colour too! I'm not the biggest fan of the DM-1900 variants of knobs - but feel they work very well for these pedals - so the overall aesthetics are pretty spot on here!
Sound-wise I could possibly do with a little mote elasticity in the output profile - in that it hits quite hard - as I've mentioned once to twice. These are sabre-like cutting and searing tones overall - with plenty of volume on tap, while I tend to keep the Gain fairly moderate - as the compression can ramp up quite quickly - which tends to increasingly darken the profile and density of the pedal's output.
My Preferred Settings are : Volume @ 4 o'c, Gain @ 1 o'c, Lo @ 8 o'c, Hi @ Max.
That delivers a pretty open, searing and well balanced soundstage - it's the ideal Goldilocks setting for me - I'm always about the ultimate texture and harmonics - and at those levels the texture is at its richest and most complex - that's why I have the Volume up - as it opens up the profile a little more.
Crank up the Bass or Gain though and the overall profile gets darker and denser - and you loose some of that vibrancy you have peaking at my chosen settings.
For sure an interesting and distinct distortion! I have acquired a few Transistor Distortions of late - including the Hagerman Gamma Radiation Distortion - that one has a slightly softer EQ, while both have similar cutting and searing output profiles that you might expect to get from a large number of Transistors deployed - the Hagerman utilises 7 Transistors!
The Peace Lily goes for £150 on the Leyland Pedals Store and is currently awaiting the arrival of a new batch - which should be fairly imminent. It's well worth checking out - as are Caleb's Boss DF-2 Mods, and his Hum Along Distortion.
Demos
