Voodoo Lab Sparkle Drive

Simple to get a great sound out of. Solved my love hate relationship with the Tube Screamer. This will be the highest rating I ever gave anything. I'm a stickler.

I can't BELIEVE more people have't caught on to this box. It's got that kick ass TS tone, but with a knob that allows you to keep your pick attack. the Original TS sucks for rythm, and does this wierd compressy thing that steals the edge of your original signal.
It can be used like a top boost to give life to Dark amps. I leave it on most of the time !!!

Had a voodoo vibe for a couple of years (Which is also a great pedal.) never had a relibbility issue..gigged with it ALOT.

I tweaked a lil' pot inside my Voodoo vibe that you aren't suppose to touch. I sent it back to them..they re-adjusted it and mailed it back free of charge. Very cool.

Play Zep, Hendrix,Rock ,Jazz, Blues, playin 20 years. Owned a zillion Pedal Boutique to Boss. This pedal is a Rock n Roll pedal. I prefer pedals that don't have the switch,pots,jacks mounted to the circuit board, I can't remember if Vodoo does this or not.. and dont feel like breakin out a screw driver rite now, But if It aint broke.....

Playin a Tele through it. I use Vintage tube amps. Love this thing.

a breeze to use. if you're familiar with overdrive pedals at any level, this will be simple to use. similar controls to tubscreamer with the added clean boost knob. the manual kinda sucks, but thats probably because they didnt have to write a thesis on how to operate it.

wow, this is where it shines. i have a few modded Keeley pedals, and i know that he mods this, but i still havent sent it off yet! thats how good of a pedal this is. a friend of mine had a keeley tube screamer, and i was blown away at how awesome that sounded. when i was considering buying one for myself, i was hesitant, because i really wanted something with true bypass this time. there was "a sound" that i still wasnt getting from any other pedal thus far. i bought the sparkle drive with the intention of getting it modded, but was taken aback at how rich and perfect the sound already was. its sounds the best with a strat, but its not "guitar specific" like some pedals are. it really sounds great with all my guitars. the really great thing that im just finding out is how great the harmonics are. it does have a midrange focus, but doesnt sound thin. it still has a warm and fat sound. the drive is just right for almost every style. sometimes i do need a tad more gain, but thats only with a few songs here and there. ( i know the keeley mod doubles the gain.). its obviously geared more for bluesy/classic rock/rock players, but you can find a setting for some other styles. the clean blend is fantastic, and really brings out some articulation when playing. you can get a really phenomenal clean shimmering sound with the two mixed together. every overdrive pedal is a little noisy, and this does have a slight hiss with extreme settings, but it sounds quieter than any other overdrive i've ever used. this is by far my favorite overdrive. for being a TS9/TS808 clone, i think it sounds a lot better. i actually hate the tubescreamer. i think it sounds like garbage. but this! this is heavenly! its sonic ambrosia!

it seems really sturdy. havent had any problems. im gigging without a backup, but if it died, i would probably cry

never dealt with them

i've been playing for about 10 years, play a lot of rock music in my church, and have a few keeley pedals. by itself, this is the best pedal i've ever played. im somewhat of an audiophile when it comes to overdrive, so im critical of many pedals, but this is just great. i hope its never lost or stolen. i would go out and by another. this is just a memorable pedal. this is one of those pedals that if you sold it, you'd look back and say, "man, i wish i didnt get rid of that thing!"
like i said before, i think the only thing it could use is maybe a tad bit more gain for the sole reason of playing a couple more songs. this really does inspire you as you play, as cheesy as that sounds. i know people on this site give tens without much thought, but i really do mean it. this is perfect.

Very easy to use others have stated what it is so I wont waste your time

I use a goldtop 56 re-issue with P-90's and a G@L ASAT tele, 335 and a DeArmond MT-77 with a blackface super reverb. Pro player with over 25 years experience have done studio and touring in a roots rock blues format. The reason I purchased was to find a pedal that could complement my sound being a tad oldschool I really never liked distortion boxes or compression, my view was to get the air moving by running your amp hot. Still nothing better than a superreverb on 5 or 6 and a great guitar you get a classic full rich tone. This pedal will achieve some of that at lower volumes and I do like the ability to dirty the sound up when called for. I find it very versitale and has many possiblilties. purcahsed it to replace my Fulltone boost pedal

Have had it for over a year, at times the light will not work and the on off switch sticks a bit also replacing a battery is not as easy as others have stated

no comment have not had to use them

As stated above (gear and styles) I like the pedal and think it is a great value and will solve the problem if your working clubs amp need a nice full round sound at lower volumes

as already stated, just blend amp tone and 808 style overdrive.

no complaints about the tone. i also own fulldrive 2, Analog man silver mod TS9, Xotic BB pre-amp and the sparkle stands up well with them all a great TS808 sound. i play strats into Cornell (dc-developement) class a amps.

Here we go! Dont bother. i loved the sound but sent it back twice within 3 months to have new switches installed. in the end i trashed it. i've also owned a microvibe which again sounded great changed the switch on that 4 times!! and i'm not heavy footed i've had most of my other stomps between 2 and 10 years and they've never gone wrong.

sounds great in manchester (UK) were great and kept replacing the switches for only #5 a time and seemed as frustrated as me apparently they have V.lab stomps sent to them on a weekly basis.

It's a distortion stompbox with a parallel clean boost. Very easy to use if you know what you have.

I've used the Sparkle Drive with my main rig, which is a Koll Custom DL Thinline into a Vibro-King.

This pedal is a mixed bag. On the one hand, the ability to blend a clean tone with the distorted tone gives you a way to get some "hair" on the body of the note without totally flattening the attack. That's a good thing if you believe, as I do, that much of your expressiveness comes out in how you attack each note. This blended clean/distorted trick works really well if your amp is already running hot enough to respond to differences in touch by sounding more distorted as you dig in; the Sparkle Drive works with your amp to fatten up the body of the note while still letting some clean signal through so you can control your amp with your playing dynamics.

But it's the interaction of the Sparkle Drive and a cranked amp this really brings out the magic. You won't get creamy overdrive tones at low amp volumes; without the amp's natural overdrive to smooth things out the Sparkle Drive sounds a bit harsh and fizzy. That's *not* a point against the Sparkle Drive, as far as I'm concerned. It's just a matter of understanding the limitations of the pedal. If you're going to play a stage volumes the Sparkle Drive is a wonderful tool. If you need creamy overdrive and dynamic touch response at conversational levels you should look elsewhere. To be fair, this is true of all "old-school" distortion stomps...

I haven't abused it, and it hasn't broken.

Never had to deal with the company.

I play a variety of music that borrows from rock, folk, classical and jazz. I play mostly fingerstyle and pay a lot of attention to dynamics, voice leading and chord voicing.

I've been playing for almost fourty years - seriously for the past seven.

My main rig is a Koll Custom DL Thinline into a Vibro-King. For effects, I'm particulary hot on the Toadworks Redux and the Blackstone MOSFET Overdrive. I have a few other effects that get hooked up on an as-needed basis.

Honestly, I don't think I *would* replace the Sparkle Drive. It's not bad, but it's not good enough to have a permanent place in my rig. At the moment my wife uses the Sparkle Drive as a clean boost in her bass rig.

That said, I'd still *recommend* the Sparkle Drive to anyone who's already pushing their amp and needs just a bit more oomph to fatten up their lead lines. The idea of mixing the clean sound in parallel is brilliant, and really works well with a pushed amp. The clean attack hits hard to bring out all the dynamic character of the amp, then the distortion fills out the body of the note. It's a winning combination, IMO. But it's not the only way, and I have a different approach to get that kind of response over a much wider range of volumes - everything from coffeehouse to club volumes.

not easy ( because it's a really oustanding pedal ). Seriously - I have owned mine for 3 yrs - steady use in medium sized bars/clubs - I didn't find my "perfect tone" until about six months ago - it was worth the experimenting and being a slow learner - so it loses 2 pts

knobs a little close together - when you turn one knob , you bump into another one. - one more point off

I don't do reviews much but this time I really want to because I have come up with a really cool set-up with this pedal - it only applies to strats into fender boxes. If you play anything else my review is a waste of your time - so skip it.

my setup strat ( EJ model for past year ) >>>>> any good compressor ( subtle amount of compression ) >>>>>> Carl Martin drive/boost
( maybe other hybrids of distortion and OD would work at this place in the chain - OD pedals DON"T work for this plan. - I set the drive level only slightly up and the volume up enough to increase overall volume when engaged >>>>> sparkle drive gain - off ( that's right - all the way turned down counter-clockwise ) tone - all the way rolled off ( yep ) clean - about 10:00 volume - up enough for slight increase when engaged >>>>>>>>> tweed 4 10" bassman re-issue with the tone settings very bright and with hi treble ( presence and treble knobs way up )


WARNING - IF YOU DO THIS YOU WILL LOVE THE BRIDGE PICKUP ON YOUR STRAT. Heres the deal: with the sparkle drive on with the bridge PU in a medium size club I get awesome punch with just the right amount of hair - it sounds FAT!! ( that's right - a fat sounding strat bridge PU - but SWEET fat - not muddy fat like a less paul.
- I use this for rhythm and then add the drive/ boost pedal for solo tone - the secret here is LOW gain settings

NOTE: DO NOT ATTEMPT TO SUBSTITUTE A FULTONE OCD, KEELEY MODDED TS-9, BUDDA PHATMAN, ETC FOR THE SPARKLE DRIVE - IT DOESN'T WORK - YOU NEED THAT CLEAN KNOB.


what's cool is this - I have that wonderful clean strat into tweed 10" speaker swirl sound for a lot of songs - various pick-ups. AND I have an over-the-top killer bridge PU tone when I want it. I sometimes use the sparkle drive with same settings on mid PU or PU
#4 - so I can produce 'out of phase sweet hair' also!

no humbucker bridge PU or other single coils or other overdrives do this - no need for you to experiment - I did all the research for you!!!! ( you're welcome )

3 years of heavy use.

35 yrs playing - last 10 in a fairly busy cover band ( pop-rock - R+B, rockabilly,funk - fun dance stuff )

other gear: a gazillion other overdrive pedals gathering dust.

this is pretty-much a perfect OD pedal for me - once I figured out this set-up.

Despite having four seperate adjustment knobs on it's face the Voodoo Lab Sparkle Drive is pretty darn easy to dial in a good tone.

From left to right the knobs are "gain", "tone", "clean" and, "volume". Most of these features are pretty standard fair for od pedals so the only one that needs a little elberation is the "clean" feature; dial the "clean" knob all the way to the left and the "gain" setting will become more pronounced, all the way to the right will lessen the amount of "gain" presence in the signal and will also enable you to make use of the pedal's "clean boost" feature.


Voodoo Lab's manual is a good overview of the general capabilities of the pedal but unlike some other pedals there isn't any recomended presets so to an extente you are on your own.

The key to success with this pedal is sublty, cranking the gain setting or tone settings to either extreme can make the pedal sound a little harsh but working with in it's broad and very usable mid range settings is very rewarding.

Personally I like setting the gain at about 3 o'clock, the tone at 10 o'clock, the tone anywhere between 10 o'clock to about 5 o'clock and the volume is set just so I get the slightest amount of boost when clicked on. By using the clean knob as opposed to the gain to increase and decrease the amount of dirt in my signal I can get a broad sweep from classic od sounds to "low fi" indy sounds to just enough breakup to add some desired "botique" tone to a clean signal or used in conjunction with the amp's own gain settings.

Got a Les Paul and want to make it sound like you are actually playing a big box jazz guitar? Use the clean knob with a fairly high gain setting but dial the clean knob just so you get a nice break up just as the note begans to decay. Very taisty.

I've tried the Sparkle drive through five amps, an old but hotrodded all tube Fender Princeton, a newer trannie Fender Princeston, Mesa Boogie Mk1, a Fender Super Reverb reissue, and last but not least a Rivera M60 112. Used with any of these amp will give you very nice results even with an amps onboard gain settings. If you dig the kind of gain you can get from a Matchless, Savage, Bad Cat, or Carr then you are right in it's tonal range.

Each amp retained it's tonal characteristics, each guitar did the same; ie, a Strat still sounded like a Strat, a Les Paul still sounded like a Les Paul.

That said, played through the trannie Princeton was pretty awful. No, I shouldn't say that, let me just say it was "uninspired" and go on from there.

For an analog od pedal, even used with tube amps, single coils, and in a room that has fluorescent lights and a crt monitor this pedal is incredibly quite. Awsome.

I also use the Voodoo Labs Analog Chorus. Any one looking to duplicate an old Ibanez TS 1. I recomend using both together if you are trying to get "that" tone. Sure, it's been said that the Voodoo Labs Sparkle Drive is based on the old TS 1 but I don't hear it. To me it's much more useable and flexible, especially with the clean boost and clean blend features.

If you have tried either the Barber LTD or the Toadworks Mr Squishie then you will probably like this pedal. This pedal is is about as flexible as the Barber LTD but has a broader tonal range than the Mr Squishie.

If you are looking for the ultimate high gain, super saturated 500 megaton distortion pedal of ultimate death - this is not for you.

Yes and yes.

It seems, as of now that Voodoo Labs has adressed it's infamous on off switch issue so there shouldn't be any problems.

For rock, blues, jazz, and country this is a very usable pedal. No need to lug around a huge amount of stomp boxes to jam sessions or to recording sessions unless or if these situations require high gain rock tones.

I've tried a good number of offboar stomp boxes including the Barber LTD (awsome but hard to find in stock and in a store) the Toadworks Mr Squishe (great tone, nice compression but you only get that one great tone) the Mesa Boogie V Twin (god's own od pedal- no longer being made and very expensive even used) the reissued Marshall Guv (great for "Marshall" tones, amazing for high gain distortion, not so hot for lighter shadings) and last and least Visual Sound's Jekyll and Hyde Overdrive (shit).

Short of running multiple stomp boxes the Voodoo Lab's is a jack of all trades. If I had to sum it up in three words they would be "subltle", "musical", "flexible". Would I buy this pedal again? Oh, heck yeah. If a Boogie V Twin and a Sparkle Drive were the same price would I have stil bought it over the V Twin? No, I may be an idiot but I'm not a moron.

If this were to be turned into the ultimate od pedal I wish it had two things 1) more saturation for metal players and 2) that it resoponded a little better to increasing the guitar's volume output for it's gain output. Tube amp guys (and gals) you know what I'm talking about, tranny amp people... you don't know what you are missing.

Make no mistake, this is a good chunk of change for a stomp box. I highly recomend that when you check it out that you do several things 1) bring your own guitar espcially something that's hard to distort like a Strat or a Tele, 2) bring your own amp to the dealership, 3) bring any and all other stomp boxes so you can set up your own signal chain so you can hear how the pedal reacts to other effects 4) try the pedal back to back to other stomp boxes within + - $50 of this effect's price range.

What really prompted me to buy the Voodoo Labs over any other is 1) how it worked with the Analog Chorus 2) it's incredibly good "botique" tone.

I all ready was using the Marshall Guv but the Marshall did not, or could not communicate well with the Anolog Chorus. But since the Marshall Guv has a slight chorus to it any way the point is somewhat moot unless I really wanted a grand mal phsycedelic freak out sound.

This is a follow up review, mostly to address the pedal's relability. But, sure, it's easy to use.

Yes, sounds pretty great. See below for more on sound...

As stated elsewhere here, the switch failure is an issue. See below...

Their email kicked me back an auto-reply directing me to call. On the phone they were polite and informed. I got the pedal back from them in 2 weeks, which is pretty good turnaround, though had it broken mid-tour, I guess I'd have to hit up a shop for a back up.

Still, nice and friendly folk, willing to discuss the products.

Just thought I'd lend my thoughts here: Even though the switch went south I still think this overdrive deserves a good rating, the clean blend goes a long way and makes it a great tool, for overdrive and clean boost and the best is in between. After mine went bad I initially lost faith and tried literally around a dozen other pedals to replace it, and none got me just what I wanted. I settled on a DOD, surprisingly, called a Juice box, which is remarkably nicer than I'd thought DOD pedals to be. But when I got the Sparkle Drive back in the mail and threw it in my rig I was really pleased with how great of a fit it is. I've tried almost everything (TS, boutique, fulltone, etc) and there's nice alternatives out there, mostly on the expensive end, but nothing I tried was quite as right, the Sparkle Drive is the one I like best. Easy to dial up just the right amount of drive and clean to sound great. The best thing is that it's not changing your guitar tone or eq when engaged. It's very smooth and easy to get all the extra grit I need.

I called them when I got mine back to ask about the potential for future switch problems, and they said it's unlikely that it will go bad again. Obviously it's hard to trust something that's gone bad in the past, but I believe they're aware and invested in their product's reliability at this point. Lucky for them I'm so sold on the sound and function. Hope they keep an eye on quality, reliability is very important.

The Bottom Line is:
I tried to replace this while waiting for repair and couldn't find anything as good for what it does. I hope the company is bankable and that the repair holds true, because if it fails again I will have to let it go. But right now, it's fixed and reliable, and I'm very happy to have it back.

Recommended.

read on.....

great...read on.....

You guessed it...FAULTY SWITCH!!! bummer

good ,theyre replacing the switch,but like the other reviewer said,why should i have to pay the shipping on a brand new pedal??

The other reviewers pretty much sumed it up,great subtle overdrive.If this happens again though,Im ditchin this one...

Easy to dial in a variety of sounds. Every knob is clearly labeled so twist away until you get what you are after. One page Manual which descibes the knob functions. One complaint is I hate needing a screwdriver and removing 4 screws just to change the battery. Minus -1 for that.

Running in the effects chain through a Traynor or V-Series tube amp straight into the amp input. I play a Texas Special Strat or a Gibson Les Paul. I prefer the pedal on the amps dirty channel for a solo boost. This pedal delivers exactly what I was after. The Tone is perfect and the boost is right on. I love/hate this pedal!

Here is where the love-hate realtionship begins. The first two Sparkle Drives I received were both faulty. Switch problems right out of the box. I am now on my third one in a month. Luckily this one seems to be ok. Normally I would say screw it after this many malfunctions and find something else, but the testimony here is that I like this pedal so much that I'm willing to deal with the problems!

I did speak to Voodoo Labs on the phone and they were more than happy to fix it for free. But rather than be out the "to them" freight charge I opted to return both units back to Musicians Friend for a replacement. Each time MF issued a call tag for the defective unit and picked up the freight expense. Kudos to MF. I give Voodoo Labs a 5 rating here because if a brand new pedal arrives that is faulty out of the box I think the customer shouldn't be responsible for ANY freight charge!

I have been playing Rock, Blues, and Praise music for 22 years. The VL Sparkle Drive is an amazing pedal...when it works. I have to recommend it even though there are issues with it. It sounds that good!