Voodoo Lab Sparkle Drive

Extremely easy to use. It has 4 knobs - Gain, Tone, Clean and Volume.

I use an Ibanez (like a Gibson 335) and a Washburn Nuno through a Peavey Delta Blues amp. The amp's clean is excellent, but the overdrive is pretty bad, so I needed an overdrive pedal. The only noise I get from the Sparkle Drive is when I turn everything up, which I really never do. I listen to Jeff Golub, Chuck Loeb, Larry Carlton , Terry Haggerty, James Vincent, and a variety of others, from jazz to blues to rock. I love a nice crisp, clean sound, as well as overdrive and sustain. The Sparkle Drive is perfect. It does exactly what I was looking for. I had tried the Boss BD2, Ibanez TS9, Marshall BB2, Mesa Bottle Rocket, and others. But this one nails what I hear in my head. If you're looking for very clean and crisp, but also want a nice crunch or smooth sustain, this is your pedal.
All other pedals made my sound muddy or were not very versatile. This one does it all. And it's true bypass.

I haven't had it that long to know if it will last forever, but it seems to be built very well.

Haven't had to deal with them...and I hope I never will.

I play light jazz and blues mainly. This pedal, I would think, would be great not only for the music I play but for rock too. I first picked up the guitar 37 years ago. If the Sparkle Drive were lost or stolen, I would definitely would want another. I haven't found anything near as good in this price range...or even a little more expensive. I love the tone. It's all about tone, and this has it! The clean has a nice bite, and the overdrive is smooth.

Simple layout, 4 knob control just like other Voodoo Labs Pedals. Gain, Tone, Clean Blend and Level.

I use various guitars, PRS, Ernie Ball, Tele's and Godin's. Planet Waves cables, Fender Tube Reverb unit, Phase 90, Various SansAmp products, Soldano HR50XL head and a Marshall 212 cab with Green Backs. I got this pedal to use on the lo-gain input of the Soldano, I like that input cause it gives me more of an old Marshall Tone I also have a reissue TS9, the Sparkle Drive comes thru cleaner and clearer with more presence and cut than the TS9. Nice and quiet with its hard by-pass. I run it with the power supply .It adds a nice crunch, I don't go for the heavy saturated lead tones, although I have them on tap with the lead channel of the Soldano. Each guitar comes thru with it's own character clearly. I set it from clean boost, to a dirty crunch. The best feature is the clean boost , I can blend the clean guitar signal into the drive which again helps the character of each guitar come thru.

I took it apart and its clean and tough. I dont mind the battery access cause I use an adaptor anyway. Im a big guy so I need to make sure when I stomp down on something it is going to survive. Having looked inside, I know it will survive a pounding, I treat my gear with respect and with care. It will last.

I bought it from Long & McQuade Scarborough Ontario. I also deal with Digital Music Corp on a regular basis. They are great to deal with. John A has been a great help. I know they woulden't leave anyone high and dry when it comes to their products. Im planning on adding more of their effects to the lineup. I wish they had a Phaser ( to replace my MXRthe Microvibe and Chorus pedals dont do it for me) and an analog delay like a good MemoryMan.

I play blues and rock. It fits perfectly. I would buy another if it ever went missing. I compared it to a TS9 reissue, several Boss pedals, Marshall and various other boutique items. Cost, sound and build quality all make it a winner. Its a single effect pedal so it gets a 8 .

Four control knobs, vol, gain, tone, and clean and true bypass. The clean control obviously is what blends in the boosted clean signal. The gain, and tone controls do not effect the clean boost, which is how you want it to be.

This pedal deserves the ten mark here. A chameleon it is. There are numerous sounds to be had with this pedal. Many different shades of overdrive, edgey clean, and even a bit of crunch using the tone and gain controls. However the magic really is with the clean boost. Have all the overdrive you want, and add in just the right amount of clean boost, well...you can hear everynote in the cord with just as much gain as you would ever use. My setup is Les Paul, TX Spc Fat Strat, into Vox wah, Sparkle Drive, VL SuperFuzz, straight to a Peavey Classic 30 1x12 w/1x12 ext. The Sparkle drive does great things when used infront of my Superfuzz as well. I have honestly never used an original 808 unit before, but they say this is basically the same guts with more tonal range and the clean boost added. Who knows if it is, I do know this pedal smokes like popeye.
This pedal with its array of incredible usable sounds, is suited for everything from, blues, jazz, funk, to rock, also a nice feature is to use it as just a solo boost with the gain at 0 and the boost turned up as needed. Remember the gain and tone controls do not effedt the clean.

Reliable? Do you take care of your the things you own? The unit is built as tough as they come, as strong as any Boss pedal or better. Metal casing, heavy plastic knobs, switches seem durable. The knobs are not to big, and shouldnt get in the way much to be kicked. With a five year warranty, you cant go wrong.

Have'nt had to call.

Like I said, an array of sound to be had with this pedal. I'm into playing blues, classic/hard rock, Hendrix, Stones, Aerosmith, STP, Alice n' Chains, Allman Bros.,Clapton ,Zepplin ,Nirvana etc. Great for this music and more. Again, never played a real 808, but this is what I have been looking for. The price and the warranty combined with outstanding sound makes it a winner. Two of thes would be really cool, using one for clean boost only.

Im not kidding. I got my "grail" tone in 20 secs. This pedal is absoulutely amazing. I could kick myself for not getting it sooner

Great! It was just what I was not looking for at all..but I found it anyway. I went to the voodoo site and listened to it, and it hit me: this is "THE" pedal. I love it...can you tell. I set the gain at 9, tone @ 12, clean @ 1-2, vol @ 12. I think it is every bit as good as my Fulltone Fulldrive, and at $120 you cant go wrong. This thing is sonic butter

ehh...It is good as long as youre gentle (just dont beat it to a pulp)

I highly recommend this pedal. I got it here in town at guitar heaven. I got 3 overdrives: FD2-SPARKLEDRIVE-voodoo overdrive. This is my favorite. It makes my strat and PRS sing.

Fairly straight forward Drive Tone Clean and Volume. Nothing to get lost on. Getting a good sound is another matter. No manual with the one I have. I'm not aware of any upgrades.

Very much a let fown. I had heard all the hype and, in theory it sounded good. The 'ol blend of a clean sound with dirty to get that SRV "Little Wing" thang, yadda yadda... Having had several nice Tubescreamers of various vintages including a TS-808, and having several BF Fender amps and a decent Strat or two I can say with assuredness, the Sparkle Drive aint no Tubescreamer. More like cheesy fuzzy buzzzy noise. IMHO there is nothing "sparkly" about this unit. Then again, I generally think of amps when I think of sparkle. Good BF or Tweed Fender or Groove Tubes Soul-O comes to mind to name a couple. The unit is reasonably noise free, but I can't help it, it's also "tone free" as well. In fairness I suppose the buzzy tone it renders could be good for something, though nothing I can imagine for my own use. I wouldn't use it for a good blues tone or a good rock tone. Maybe something experimental? I tried it with my BF Deluxe Reverb and Super Reverb with equally dismal result. I have a Marshall Super Lead, but after the Fender run I just didn't have the heart to continue. Maybe I missed something huh?

Very well made. Nice compact package, good layout, though the knobs are fairly close to one another. It seems dependable enough.

No opinion. Never dealt with them. Because I tried another Sparkle Drive other than my own I knew I didn't have a dud. So, I never bothered to call them. Any mfr can rationalize why a particular person doesn't care for their products. I fully understand that others may greatly appreciate the same tone I find to be lousy.

I play mainly Blues, Rock, and Jazz/Blues. Been playing for 25 years, and presently have a '59 Tweed, '65 BF Deluxe Reverb, '66 Super Reverb, '70 Marshall Super lead, '74 Boogie MK I, a nice Les Paul and Strat and a pack of pedals. Honestly, I don't know what I would compare with the Sparkle Drive. I can only describe it as a somewhat compressed fuzz with no real definition like one might expect from a Tubescreamer or comparable OD pedal.

Knobs are self explanatory & most settings are useful.

I have 3 strats all rosewood necks, a '62 reissue japanese fender with no alterations(a quality guitar), a Squier silver series with Texas specials and a mexican with '54 reissue pickups, so it's important to me to retain their excellent clarity of tone. I use a Fender Blues DeVille 4x10 for gigs and an SJB Ant 1x12 with valve reverb,(an excellent 19W all valve british made amp). The only digital effects I use are reverb/delay and lezlie type effects which I find are acceptable for my needs, I use an Alesis Midiverb 4 for this. Setup is Strat>Colorsound wah>Crybaby wah copy>Boss CS-3 Compressor>Home made TS9(Lo drive setting)>Home made TS9(Higher drive setting)>Midiverb4>Amp. (the midiverb is used in front of the Ant and in the effects loop of the DeVille.) All effects are true bypass except for the Boss and Midiverb. I have used the Sparkle drive to replace the 1st TS9 and that's now my backup. I use combinations of the 2 drive pedals and volume on the guitar to vary the mount of drive. Yes I do play SRV stuff, but I play lots of different styles besides, such as Jimi Hendrix, ZZ Top, Robben Ford, Buddy Guy, Offspring, AC/DC, so it ranges from jazzy clean to electric blues to hard rock/punky type stuff, quite a mixed bag really.
The Sparkle drive is very quiet in operation on it's own, but obviously adds a little hiss when used along with other pedals because they have noise of their own so this is expected anyway. Excellent quality overdrive and the clean control is a masterstroke as other users have said. It sounds great with my kit with one reservation, it sounds far better used with the normal channel of my amps as opposed to the bright channel because it sound a bit thin used like that. This is no problem for me, because I use this channel anyway, I find the tone is far better for me. The pedal is a true bypass regardless of what previous doubters have said. The way you can test this is to remove the battery and plug in guitar & amp with it in bypass. If you still get a straight through sound, it's a true bypass, and it does do this. Unpowered electronics will not pass uncoloured signal if any at all, and this does! I have a considerable amount of experience building my own effects and have built Ts9s, fuzzfaces etc all with true bypass features to retain the original guitar tone when bypassed,(I hate fet/electronic switching because it artificially brightens or boosts the sound level, but sometimes you have to put up with it if you have no alternative. I'm referring to the Midiverb of course, which is not too bad I suppose!) so I do know what I'm talking about regarding the points about true bypass. I don't know how they got the LED to work and have true bypass with a DPDT switch, but they have.

The quality of this product is excellent. The individual who criticised the build quality of this pedal must have a problem with spotting genuine quality when he sees it. The comments he made actually contradicted themselves. Yes, the footswitch is PCB mounted, but its also screwed firmly to the box which supports the PCB rather that stressing it. The box is a sturdy metal one, so that's no problem then. The comment about the LED is a puzzle too, board mounted LEDs are far more reliable than flying leads, in fact the more leads you have floating around the more likely it is that one will come off, I have had this happen in one of the pedals that I made, so as far as possible I minimise flying leads. The comment about the connectors is in the same category, you can easily get replacement PCB mount 1/4" jack sockets, and these support the front of the PCB too so I don't understand the concern here. The PCB itself is a quality Fibreglass type board, unlike the crappy, brittle SRBP boards you find in most of the other effects I've looked inside, so this persons critical comments are not really valid. I work in the electronics industry and I know quality components when I see them, and I see them in this pedal. Incidentally I have nothing to do with the company or UK distributors, I used these reviews to decide on whether to buy the product or not, so I have no axe to grind(if you'll pardon the pun)! It's not my intention to criticise the person who sent in the review in question, but his views did aggravate me, because they could mislead people who didn't know any better.
I haven't had it very long, but having seen inside it I would gig this without a backup if I didn't have one.

I haven't needed to contact them so I can't comment here

I have been playing about 15 years and I have been apalled at the cruddy quality of some devices I've seen and I have returned some in disgust before now. It's fantastic to see that there are still companies out there who still care about quality and can do a quality product at a reasonable price. If I lost it etc. I would buy again at the drop of a hat and I will be recommending it to my musician friends into the bargain! Keep it up Voodoo Labs, I'll be checking out some of your other products before long. A comment my wife passed made me chuckle(she's the bass player in our band), She said that the Sparkle Drive looked like something that I would put together, which I thought was an interesting observation, but actually quite accurate I suppose. Although the Sparkle Drive was definitely nicer looking than anything I've put together, limited resources doncha know!

Simple. Like most overdrive units out there.

I have an array of guitars I use but my favorite is the American Deluxe Fat Strat. I use an Ampeg SuperJet(2x6L6 tubes, 2x12AX7 tubes)which is a great amp by the way. It doesn't have an overdrive channel so I use a couple different overdrives. I have two seperate effects chains. The first(in order) Boss BD-2..TS9 Turbo Reissue..Cry Baby Wah..Guyatone Chorus..and a H&K Replex. The other is a Boss CS-3..Sparkle Drive..Line 6 DL-4 and a Boss EQ. I use the first effects chain for most of my lead work. The tone out I get from the TS9 and BD-2 together is just outstanding. I never bypass the replex so it's always on reverb or delay. When I picked up the Sparkle Drive it didn't necessarily blow me away but it is a good pedal. The clean boost is nice. Definatly doesn't sound like two amps, but it does add clarity if used correctly. For me I use it when creating loops on my Line 6 Delay Modeler because it can be set to have that bluesy edge without loosing clarity in chord progressions. I also use it for a lot of riffs when I'm playing with my band. To be honest, I'm an effects junky. I love to try them out and use different ones for a time. But the only one I've ever fallen in love with is the Replex. Running that TS9 though it is the most beautiful thing you'll ever here. I'm into SRV, Dave matthews band, and phish to name a few. I take my influence from almost any music just too stay sharp. And I would say that The Sparkle Drive is very very versitile. Especially if you learn the clean control's function and use it to your advantage.

I have read some junky reviews on this things reliability. I haven't had any problems yet so I'll say it's alright. Feels sturdy.

N/A

I'd say this one is good to buy if you have another overdrive pedal. I wouldn't use it as your only tone source. But some may disagree. Anyhow, if you're into smooth overdrive and you like to hear everynote in those big chords than you'll love this pedal. If you want one that you can use to scream out metallica riffs you won't find it very useful. Try setting it with the gain all the way up, the clean set pointing at the LED(a little less than 50%) and the volume at 12:00(I'm running to a small tube amp through a clean channel). See what you think.

Pedal is very easy to use, four knobs, everything is self explanatory. Easy to tweak on the fly, this unit really does not make a bad sound.

I have five guitars, they are as follows: Gretsch Chet Atkins Tennessean, Fender Custom Shop Strat, Limited Edition Hot Rodded American Series Strat, Yngwie Malmsteen Signature Strat, and a Jackson DK-2 Dinky. I use this pedal only with my strats for a nice bluesy sound. I play through a Blues Jr., a Deluxe Reverb, and a Hot Rod Deville 212, and use the sparkle drive with my Boss Delay Reverb Pedal for some ambience. I have owned several tube screamer type overdrives, and this one is my favorite hands down. The tone is there, it does not make a bad sound. This pedal features a knob that enables you to blend in clean sound over your overdriven sound. This feature is just awesome, you can get anything from a nice smooth saturated blues overdrive, to a clean sound thats just a little hairy around the edges for some bite. The tone control on this pedal is very well balanced, it responds well to tweaking. Great for anything Blues, SRV, Clapton, etc. Pedal does not have a lot of gain, so if you want something really crunchy and in your face, look elsewhere. If you want tone and a great smooth bluesy overdrive, then this is your pedal. This unit uses the same Op amp chip as the ts-808 tubescreamer, like I said earlier, the tone is there!! Best of all, at $119, its no more expensive than all of the other tubescreamer clones on the market, and its HAND MADE IN THE USA!!! Gotta love it!!

This thing has a 5 year warranty like Boss pedals have, and is built like a tank. I expect no problems.

If your after the tube screamer type sound and your tired of everything else on the market, try this thing out, its the best tubescreamer type pedal I have ever heard. Pedal makes a nice variety of blues type sounds, and works great with some nice tube amps and some strats. This unit HELPS ME TO MAKE MUSIC!! GO TRY ONE OUT!!

The Sparkle Drive is very is to use it has 4 knobs Drive,Tone,Clean and Volume.
But I wish Voodoo Lab would make batttery acsess a little easier.

I use a Fender Strat(Noiseless pickups and Boost) through a MXR Dynocomp and the Sparkle Drive through in to either a old Musicman Valve combo,Fender Blues Jr,cheap Yamaha amp or a Boss stage monitor.
You can get a really clean bluesy overdrive with that bottom end crunch.
You can also get those SRV tones.

It seems to be very reliable the knobs are sturdy and the metal casing is tough but I still wished there was easier battery acsess on it.

The customer support sucked on the net I tried getting info off them by sending a E-Mail but they still hav'nt given me a reply.

This is a Voodoo Sparkle Drive bought new a couple of months ago. Fairly easy to get a good sound, although you should have a good idea of what you're in for here... Not a high gain pedal, but one that gives you a moderate buzz ala Walter Becker or John Jennings (Mary Chapin Carpenter's lead guitarist). If you're looking for the big buzz, forget it. Nothing complicated about the pedal, and I'll defer to previous reviewers as far as the features.

I use a disgusting array of guitars, Reverend, Strats, and an old PRS Standard, into a bewildering array of amps (Mesa Mark III, Rivera Jake, and Budda SD 30). So far not nearly as noisy as my previous favorite, the Morley JD10; in fact, this is close to dead quiet. I can now nail lower gain lead sounds like the above mentioned players, along with that infamous SRV stuff, if I needed to.

I'd depend on it, although I can function freely without it if need be. I use it with no backup all the time.

Never had to consult with them...

I don't know much about the old TS808 sound that people crap themselves over; they say it's in this box, with a clean undertone. Whatever. I never really GOT that boutique thing anyway. But this is a great sounding, low gain overdrive that gives you a great tone without much onboard volume knob twiddling, or sweet-spot-locating on your Boss or DOD or Rat distortion box. Tailor made for jazz rock, modern country, or blues players. I REALLY like the clean control, which lets you open up your distortion and lose the boxiness that you get with most overdrive units. This also functions as a pretty decent clean boost for solos, and adds some nice saturation on an amp's distorted channel.