Voodoo Lab Sparkle Drive

The FIRST thing to understand about the Sparkle Drive (SD), is that it IS a TS-808. Pure and simple, it's a TS-808....INCLUDING the venerable "Mid-Hump". If you absolutely don't like the TS-808, you WON'T like the SD. Even WITH its "Clean" pot, you still won't really like it. You can find a way to live with it, but ultimately, you won't like it - it will lose its slot on your board, and you'll sell it.

NOW.... if you DO like what a TS-808 can do with your sound - the way its own overdrive circuit sounds; the way it interacts with your amp; the way your guitar(s) sound pumping their signal through it - then you'll REALLY like the SD, because the SD gives you much added contouring of your sound. The interaction of the Clean pot with the Gain is THE key to success with the SD. (You???ll also find that the "Tone" and "Volume" pots react very differently from your standard OD pedal, depending on how you use the Clean & Gain pots.) There's much to be had sonically in this regard ... from a boosted clean sound, to mild grit, to more saturated grind. Your guitar will retain its character with the SD. BUT.... i say this once more ... you've got that inevitable "Mid Hump" to deal with. (I had been away from TS's for a long time; and that mid-hump jumped out the pedal and bit me in the butt???..OUCH.)

SO.....that's my take on the SD. I like it, and I can live with the mid's. I can feed its signal into other pedals and get some really nice dirt. I can feed a booster into the SD and get some REALLY nice sounds that way. I can EQ it externally and turn it into a different-sounding beast altogether. I can get all manner of grit out of it, with clarity.

In short: IT WORKS.

See 'Ease of Use'.

No opinion, per se. I haven't had any problem with the switch, so who knows?

No opinion.

See 'Ease of Use'.

i got my sparkle drive about a week ago, and i'll say that this pedal is a steal. i sold a Visual Sound Jekyll and Hyde to buy it. i got it used at a local music store for 100 USD. Mine hasn't been modded and honestly i don't plan on it, ever.

I use a A.S. Fender Stratocaster> 1996 Epiphone Sheraton> Boss TU2> Line 6 DL4> VOODOO LABS SPARKLE DRIVE> Ibanez TS9> Boss Tremolo> 90's Peavey Classic 50. This pedal is possibly the quietest overdrive pedal i've ever heard, even with single coils. i run everything pretty much at 12 o'clock, give or take, i keep it on most of the time, and when i need a little more OD, i stitch on the TS9, which is run.. gain 25%>tone 50%>level 60%.. and its perfect for me, but if i had the cash for two, the TS9 would be sold in a heartbeat... Or maybe just docked for a while. I'll give it a 9 because who knows, there's probably something a little better, never know.

I read all the reviews about the switch breaking, and with that in mind, i thing a little lighter of a foot could be used guys, seriously, don't bash the damn thing.

But yes, I depend on it, and if it ever breaks, I'll send it off, and they'll fix it.

I would use it without a backup any day.

never dealt

I play blues, folk, lighter rock, nothing too harsh, MuteMath, etc.. its beyond perfect for me, a pat on the back for selling the J&H. I've been playing for 7 years, But i've learned alot about tone over the years, i mentioned the gear i have previously. i'd definitely get another one if it were stolen of lost.

I love love love the Clean feature.. The only thing i hate about it is that I don't have two.

I compared this to the Jekyll and Hyde, and Ibanez TS9, nuff said.

I just wish it had a Cloning feature that would at any wanted time clone another one for free. :)

i'll say it helps make music, you can't help but to souund good with this thing.

If you think this pedal sounds bad then I'll personally transport myself to your location somehow and stomp on your foot really hard and spit in your hair..

Very Straight Forward. The knobs are all very responsive. you can really fine tune what your going for in a sound. This has Not been upgraded. I bought it new and have had it for a year.

This thing sound great. I love it, love it, love it. I play a Strat with 2 area 58's and a virtual blues 2 by Dimarzio in the bridge as pick ups, through a Ampeg RR212 into the clean channel. Quiet as can be, you don't even know that its on. It actually makes the other effects sound a little better when its going. You can dial everything from Nashville to Austin and beyond on these. It doesn't get scooped metal saturation, but thats not my gig anyway. I originally used it in conjunction with a Radial Tonebone Classic, but shelved that and got another Sparkle Drive. The clean boost is flawless the overdrive is creamy and works super. when you want to clean up a little with your guitars volume knob.

So far know problems and i run two of them

Haven't had to deal with them

I play, Blues, rock, R&B, Americana, Country. If it were stolen i would miss my rent to get another one. I run a Vox Clyde Mcoy, a TC Electronics Nova Delay, A boss Rotary Simulator and 2 Sparkle drives and I use and adore the Voodoo Labs Proctavia. But thats a different review.It gets a incredible Tubescreamer sound when the Drive is up and the Clen is down. But the magic happens when you start blending in the clean. It makes amps sound better.

Non-keeley modded Sparkle drive. Great Pedal without a mod! Easy to use. 4 knobs. Very straight forward.

Excellent tones all around. From clean boost to hard overdriven tones. Easy to get great sound especially if you use it with cranked valve amp. Right now, I am using a strat plugged straight into the Sparkle Drive and then into a fender pro junior. Yes I am currently a minimalist. Clean knob is genius. I could switch from crunchy overdrive to a clean boost. Wide range of sound you can get from this pedal.

Hasn't failed me yet.

Haven't dealed with them yet.

Overall outstanding pedal even without the keeley mod. Great range of sound. Excellent for jazz, blues, and maybe even a bit of rock. Depends on how driven you want your sound to be. But I'm looking forward to getting mine modded by keeley to get more gain.

no rocket science here, just plug in n'play. easy to work out. Manual was a bit of a joke I thought, but then once you know what the 4 knob do, it's just experimentation from there. Apparently there is some firmware upgrade available for the unit , but haven't looked into that as yet.

This is where the pedal excels! the sound is unreal. Probably my favourite use of it, is to have it running completely clean ( knob on 100% ) and really punch the pre-amp. Volume knob up high as well (70%), and you get these gorgeous thick velvety sounds on clean channel of a tube amp. Also like running the same setup into the gain channel, and it really gives the gain channel a good hiding. At first, I didn't use the mixing facility ( clean/gain) much, but lately I've discovered a fantastic SRV sound, by running into the clean channel, with the gain knob on about 40%, clean knob at about 75% and volume to suit, tone on about halfway.
My set up is: Amer. strat into the Sparkle drive and then straight into a Carvin Belair. Also use a PRS Santana III, and a George Benson GB 10, but I think the hook up with the Strat ( single coils, seems to give the most luscious sounds.

First I thought it was only me, but after reading tons of reviews, I realized that everyone has been struck by that cursed footswitch!
Let me down several times in the first months on stage, pulling my few hairs out trying to work out the problem. What I can't understand is, why have Voodoo lab let this go on for such a long time????????????????
I have 15 other pedals & never had the switch go on one of them. ( except maybe a couple of home made ones !)
Mind you, the company is good as far as help goes. Sent them an email, and they sent over a new switch all the way to Australia!!
Only a 3 rating, because such a simple problem that hasn't been fixed can aggravate you big time, when you're counting on your gear.

As I said, pretty helpfull sent over a new part as soon as they were available all the way to Australia!!

Love older rock, blues, jazzy styles playing for about 35 years. Seem to enjoy it more and more as I get older!
If the pedal was stolen I would but another, but noy until they fixed the switch problem. I have an OLD green tubescreamer from years ago, and Ibanez used FET silent switching back then, and never a problem. Come on guys, this is 2007 !!!!!!!!!!
This pedal is PEREFECT for that clean full sound of the 70's, if you love country/rock and blues, this one will blow your ears off your butt !!

It???s pretty easy to get the sound you???re looking for with the four knobs on the Sparkle Drive. After only a few minutes, I dialed in the sound I was looking for. The GAIN and CLEAN knobs are pretty interactive, think of the CLEAN knob as more of a MIX knob that controls the blend between the clean and overdriven channels while the GAIN knob controls how much overdrive there is to mix in with your clean tone. Still, pretty simple and user-friendly.

Before anything else: I bought this pedal for my bass guitars and overall, I was pretty impressed. However, before I even bought this pedal, I had already planned on sending it to Keeley Electronics (www.robertkeeley.com) for modding. I posted a review of the modded pedal under the ???Keeley Sparkle Drive Mod??? section in The Effects Database.

***This is my PRE-MOD review.*** :)

I was searching for a pedal to let me add just a little crunch to my tone, NOT ???melt your face off, start your hair on fire??? distortion. For me, the Sparkle Drive did the job beautifully, but you can also get a much crunchier overdrive as well if you like and can actually get pretty edgy. The combination of the GAIN and CLEAN knobs is pretty sweet... The GAIN knob lets you adjust the amount of overdrive and then you can blend in as much or as little overdrive to your tone as you like with the CLEAN knob. The TONE knob does a great job as well, letting you adjust the overdrive from more smooth (counter-clockwise) to a sharper-edged tone that has more high end sizzle.

The Sparkle Drive had the crunchiness I was looking for while keeping the characteristics of my individual basses. They didn???t sound like the same bass... I???ve played four basses through it (Fender Jazz 4, Warmoth Gecko 5, Modulus Quantum 5 and a Peavey Cirrus 6) and they all keep their original tones, which is definitely cool.

My only minor complaint is that the low end frequencies are a little weaker than I???d like. Being a bass player, I definitely notice the low end weakness when the Sparkle Drive is on, but it???s not a big enough problem to warrant taking it off my pedalboard. Like I said, for me it was a minor issue and was less evident when I played a guitar (a Schecter Gryphon LE) through this pedal.

The Sparkle Drive seems like quite a solid pedal. The only thing I worry about is the footswitch itself, which seems a little weak when compared to almost all the other pedals I own, but I haven???t had any problems yet.

Haven???t needed to deal with Voodoo Labs yet.

The Sparkle Drive is a great pedal and I really like the way it sounds. It???s got a great gritty crunch and the harmonics/overtones are just enough to really add some great flavor. I???ll give it an 8 because of the low-end weakness, but like I said, it???s not a major problem.

Pretty easy unit to use. I found that it has a very favorable midrange that was useful cutting through the rest of the band; usually I play in a trio format or quartet(add keyboard player).

Very versatile pedal in the sense of using it as a multi-purpose jack of all trades pedal. I've used it as a regular overdrive, distortion, clean boost, and even boosting my delay volumes to make swells louder and tweaking the grit of the delays. It's a quiet pedal and when used with a loud amp, I could get a nice midrange and cool feedback to happen between my strats and tube amps.

I've used this mainly with 3 different strats all loaded w/ various Dimarzio Virtual Vintage pickups going through either Amp setup 1: Fender Prosonic combo, used on clean channel. Amp setup 2: Marshall 1987x Head. Amp setup 3: Fender 1963 Deluxe amp. Amp setup 4: strictly for bedroom practce, a Roland Micro Cube amp.

This pedal sounded great and works well on all of my amps and in conjunction with other overdrives too, and could get a nice SRV vibe goin on (it helps if you have heavy strings, I usually play 11-58's in standard tuning). Cool for funk and country as well, and had no problems w/ classic rock stuff. The clean knob is very helpful in getting unusual chord voicings to have more definition in the intervals that you play, when playing distorted. I rarely do obvious chordal voicings, so this helps a lot. This is not a metal high gain-scooped mids pedal, though you can get it modded to add more gain, but if you already play in a band chances are you won't need it and you could use another overdrive/distortion pedal to cover that ground and everything in between. I've messed with this pedal for close to 2 yrs and I feel you kind of have to for an honest representation of how it's goin to vibe w/ your gear.

Seems very sturdy and the switch was perfect.

Never had to deal w/ them.

I've been playing for over 25 yrs, playing a crossbreed of rock/jazz/blues/pop that is technical along the lines of progressive and also enjoy doin singer/songwriter stuff that requires sparse creativity. This is terrific value in doin various styles and getting a multitude of tones. If it were stolen, I'd probably buy another.

If you can't use a sparkledrive....you probably wouldn't last a day in the real world.

Didn't believe there was an original 4558D in there, so the first thing I did when I took it home was opened it up...and I'll be..a REAL ORIGINAL 4558D, not the chinese one used in the Re-issue808...YES, THERE IS A DIFFERENCE!

Great! I was skeptical of this thing because its "boutique" status and its bargain price, and even more confused when I picked it up because the aluminum case is very light!

I tried it out through a Fender Blues deluxe, with a Lace Sensor equipped A.S. Strat. Normally I don't care for Lace pickups, but they always sound the same; so they are a good reference point. Lots of presence, and a moderate amount of gain, the clean blend is a fantastic feature. Moved onto something more similar to what I play; a 62 re-issue...sold.

I use this as a clean boost into a Fulldrive II 10th ann. Mosfet.
I wanted another one of those for the comp-cut function, but this not only provides the clean boosted sound I want, but also another; different overdrive...
The comp-cut on the fulldrive is fantastic...but not something I really planned on using alot since I can't flip that switch and re-set my overdrive in the middle of a song! I love the variety of outragously good sounds you can get out that box though, OD wise, it blows the sparkle drive outta the water...just couldn't use the comp cut with the overdrive..as you can with the sparkle drive.....so now the sparkle drive replaces 1/3 of the fulltone. Has its own little place for a sparkley neat overdrive too.

True Bypass, and Malaysian 4558D's....something Ibanez needs to learn about, gettin beat at there OWN GAME, FOR LESS MONEY...should be ashamed of themselves!!

From what I've read the issues have been resolved, I use mine as a clean boost, so I'm not even worried about the switch failing.

For the money, I don't think you can do any better.
For (2x+)more money the Fulldrive offers alot more gain and flexability, but you can only use one sound at a time. This offers up a better tone out of my strat before it hits the fulldrive...without spending a fortune!

For the price, I'd repalce it the next day, if your tubesceamer breaks, don't bother fixing it, find one of these!

I was one of the first here to review this pedal, no doubt it is a great sounding pedal. The problem is you cant depend on it. I've had it for five years now and the switch has failed twice. Voodoo Labs always fix it quickly and for free, but why cant they just put a decent switch in? It cant be that expensive of a part. You never know at a gig whats going to happen when you step on the thing! Will it work, or not? Anybody's guess. Read the reviews on their other pedals, tons of peope have had the same issue.

They are very responsive. But why have great support, and products that break all the time? To keep their support people in a job I guess.

I probably wouldnt buy it again. If you are planning on making it a permanent part of your sound and leave it on all the time, then I guess the switch is not a huge issue. However if you plan to kick it in as a boost, like I do, then plan on a crapshoot every time you step on it.

It's extremely to use and the knobs all work as labeled.

Sound quality is great. I've tried alot of them and this one is the best. It sounds so good I now own 2. I replaced a Zinky True Grit and a tube screamer with these. When in use it's very transparent and open. Not squashed or fuzzy. Makes your fingers light and springy on the fretboard, I literally play better with it because it's so responsive and sounds so good. As mentioned here before, the blend knob is the key to dialing up an overdrive to taste. My Chain is Les Paul Standards>EB Volume Pedal>Vox Wah>(2)Sparkle Drives>DL4>Matchless Clubman 35.

Like other people here, my switch on my first one failed too. The guy at Voodoo Lab was great, I sent it in and had it back in less than 2 weeks. I've had mediocre gear that failed and I was pissed because not only did it fail, but it didn't sound that good to begin with....(think DL4) But this damn thing sounds so good, even though it failed, I bought another one!

the guy I spoke with was great and the follow thru was excellent. I'd highly recommend this pedal the company. No product is perfect, but as long as they make a sincere effort to make things right, I'd never fault them.

Top shelf pedal and company. This pedal is a true bargain sleeper. I actually like it better than my friends Klon. Better snatch up a couple as I can see these being worth something down the road.