Voodoo Lab Sparkle Drive

Sounds like a weak TS-9.

Certainly no sparkle.

The blending of clean and drive tones makes no sense to me. It's like the old Electro harmonix Deluxe Big Muff with this feature or the horrid Fender Blender of the 60's or 70's.

I'm amazed some people like this thing.

I prefer the Boss O/S-2 overdrive/distortion pedal. It sounds great on my solid state and tube amplifiers.

I play from the blues to Heavy Metal.

Guitar Center Salesmen were heralding this pedal as being great so I took one home and tried it.

I don't like the Ibanez TS-9's much either.

I've been playing since 1969.

pretty straight-forward controls, but the options are limitless. You can off course get some nice tube-screamer type sounds, but you can also dial in some distortion sounds that might not be great alone, but can really add something when subtley mixed into the clean signal. For instance, crank the tone all the way up, add a little overdrive and mix it into the clean signal about 25% for a nice treble boost.

nice sounding pedal. true bypass and everything.

see below

This is why I wanted to post this. I bought this pedal second hand and used it for about two years before the switch became intermittent. I wasn't too bummed out since I had no idea how old it was when I bought it and replacing the switch is an easy repair. I emailed Digital Music Corp. to request a new switch (the DPDT stomp button mounts directly on the PC board so you can't replace it with one that doesn't match exactly) but they insisted that I send the pedal to them. I told them that I was pretty sure the 5 year warranty was void at this point and I was quite capable of fixing it myself with the right part, but they insisted and I eventually complied. Eight days later, they fed-exed it back with a new switch installed. They even replaced the two missing screws on the back and put it in a new box. THAT'S what I call service.

The clean control knob really makes it. This is a wonderful overdrive pedal that's also great for someone like me who loves the sound of their amp as it is and wants to add a little something different to the mix with the push of a button. And Voodoo Labs/Digital Music Corp's customer service is simply great.

excellent set up with two amp tones .Dosent really make a bad sound at any setting

Heres where this this kicks all overdrives for the money . It gives you the most crystal clear sparkle on the high end and a super tight low end almost like adding a sonic maximizer with classic pure guitar style uncolored tone . I own a boss gt-6 which is a great unit with a little work on the presets but !!!!! it colores your tone like any other multi effects pedal . I do however not like the overdive amp only settings but it shines when you cut back the gain under half , tone just over half , clean just over half and you get this pure clean sparkleing guitar tone simmalar to the sound I was looking for for Los lonely boys covers . Put this in any current guitar setup and it will add clarity and sparkle to any settup .If your buying this with the hopes of using it as a distortion pedal thought It wont work very well but ad a distorion pedal along with it and you'ii get more than you dreamed possible for the money .

very well built

never delt with them so I cant comment

Ive been playing for about 16 years and I have a very critical ear and spend way to much money good equiptment .I like to spend as much time working on my music as I do my sound .99 percent of the time I would say you get what you pay for but this little box is incredable for the money . If your not a guitar tone purest you will be after you try one of these .I really dont think they should have put a switch on this one because youll never turn it off .

Plug it in ,Turn some knobs ,find your sound ..easy

This pedals from the Ts-9 school of overdrives,its smooth,and sings and very musical and pleasing to the ears.For those who complained that the pedal colors your sound...well OF course it will!Its a refined tubescreamer for goodness sake! The ablity to blend the amount of gain in conjunction with the clean knob is a GREAT feature.
Put the gain on 0 and crank the clean knob and you have a wonderful clean boost pedal.Nice..
As for ratings, NO piece of equiptment gets a 10,none,I feel that there is always room for improvement, but this pedal gets a 8.5

Switch crapped out after 2 yrs,so that is why a low rating, Vlab replaced it free of charge,but I think they should use better quality switches.

They are relativley quick to answer emails or by phone, and fixed my switch rather quickly.

Im a working musician,and fulltime guitar teacher.I play anything thats good music,jazz,rock,funk,fusion,whatever...but back to the sparkledrive ..Basically a great overdrive from the Ts-9 school,its smoother and more musical than a newstock TS-9(unless your have a ts808).I used it in a Buddastringmaster head,BongerShiva head,VHT pitbull 1x12combo,Fender Deville 4x10,and a Peavey classic 30,
The sparkledrive sounded best in the Peavey ,Fender and Bogner and pretty good in the VHT,in the other amp it souned like crap.
Over all it gives a Wonderful tone,verymusical.
RESULTS will CHANGE with the AMP you use it WITH,that is the case with any overdrive,some boutique amps hate pedals!
The blend knob is a great feature,the pedal gets a 8 but with the clean boost ,I rate it a strong 9

Simple to understand and use. You'll need to spend some time with it dialing in the settings that please you most but, who doesn't spend time playing with a new toy anyway???

I am playing a Warmoth 72 Tele Custom creation. Swamp ash body and birdseye maple neck. Fender WRHB in the neck and SD Broadcaster in the bridge. I run through a BOSS TU2 into the Sparkle Drive, Keeley Modded BOSS BD2, Keeley Compressor, BOSS CE5 Chorus and MXR 90 Phaser into a Morley Little Alligator Volume pedal and then a 2000 Fender DRRI with NOS RCA's and a Weber 12.

This pedal is very quiet overall with a little noise on the highest gain settings. The Sparkle Drive is what I have been looking for in an OD for a long time. I can dial in perfect "Keith" tone (clean with hair) and not deal with the extreme midrange hump of a TS9. I can dial in as much clean and as much TS9 like OD as I want for the perfect blend. I love the tone of my rig with the Sparkle Drive added to my pedal board and it's my opinion it's better out of the box then either the modded Keeley TS9 or the modded Keeley BD2. That's saying alot because I think that both the mod's make for great pedals.

Appears to be built like a tank and since I have dialed in my ideal tone, I never trun it off! No stomping means a long life!

Haven't had the need. Hope I don't.

I play mainly classic rock, blues and contemporary christian. The Sparkle Drive is the Holy Grail of OD's in my opinion and I am only sorry it took me so long to get one. I have been playing for 20+ years and have 2 teles, a strat and 2 acoustic electrics. I would replace this pedal immediately if it were ever lost or stolen. Heck, I sold my Keeley modded TS9 just days after getting this thing. The best feature of this pedal is the ability to "blend" back in your clean signal with the OD signal and thus dial in just the right amount to keep that good "clunk" on the strings sound while having some hair of the dog on top. I have been through the usual and the unusal in search of the perfect OD for me. In the Sparkle Drive I finally found it!!

Very Simple

Mature, subtle shades of overdrive all the way to full on TS glory.

The effect of combining the CLEAN knob is not like two amps, because there is not spacial expansion / time delay effect of the sound hitting your ears at slightly different times because you are not the same distance from the two amps.

However, the CLEAN knob will add attack and snap to the front end of a moderately overdriven tone. I like it best when the clean and gain are in the same neighborhood. Keep the CLEAN low for best results. Over doing clean will just wash out the overdrive.



If you like Tubescreamers, but find them a bit mushy, this pedal will give you a bit more chime and crispness to go with the overdrive. Cool.

2 yrs of moderate studio use. no probs.

n/a

To me, this IS my tubescreamer. I just have an extra dial to blend in a clean thing when I want it. Because it doesn't make me play better, it gets an 8

It sounded about the same in all settings. Not extremely inspiring.

Lemme qualify the rating.
If you are looking for a device that would mildly DISTORT your
signal and than mix it with the clean signal and that would be
fairly "trebly" sounding then well Sparkle Drive deserves more.
But if you are looking for OVERDRIVE then it fails miserably.
There is almost NO RESPONCE to dynamics - the dirt is there at
about same level no matter how hard you pick - it simple colorizes
your sound uniformly. That is not how I understand "overdrive" that
is why only 4. Otherwise it seems to be a nice pedal - well built
and quiet - with true bypass. NOT an overdrive though.

No idea - returned it next day - got SIB Varidrive instead.

I heard they are good but I never tried to contact them.

If you are looking for a mild OVERDRIVE then Barber LTD is MUCH
better choice at the same price range (Barber sells for $100 + s/h).
The one thing I dislike about Barber is the certain degree of
midrange hump - however it is much milder case than Tubescreamer
(I hate TS for that very reason). Sparkle Drive does not seem to have
any such midrangeness - but is also FAR LESS interesting addition to
your tone than Barbert LTD.

Lots of complaints from people about having to take the back off to change battery. Jeez..way too many girlie men out there. If it was easy to change then it wouldnt have been made like the tank that it is.....I can't beleive people bitch about this. Smaller knobs would be an improvement as its easy to accidently move one knob while adjusting another. Subtract 1 point for the knobs.

This is by far my favorite pedal it can be subtle and warm, it can be nasty and biting..whatever you want, but you won't get metal out of it....The biggest problem with this pedal is there are too many good sounds to get out of it. Never had an issue with sound quality with it or getting any sort of undesirable sound.I run it in conjunction with a holy grail reverb, fulltone distortion pro, boss blues driver and some wacky overdrive pedal I got from down under....I found that setting the gain on all of them at maybe 1/4-1/3, you can layer your overdrive depending on your needs, so as you hit each pedal you increase your gain either more or less depending on the need.... Took hours of fiddling with it to get all of them right. I also found out how important it is to make sure each pedal is in the proper order as it affects the sound. George L's cables are a must with any foot pedal arrangement so minimize loss of sound quality. I play mostly a variety of tele's thru either a 66 Princeton dimed, or a 57 Gibson GA-20 set about 2/3 of the way up... anything more and the neighbors will shoot me. I nice upgrade to the pedal would be to install 2 switches so that you could have a drive setting and a clean setting. Minus 1 for that.

This thing is built like a truck. No battery access..so who cares? Batteries are a pain in the first place. Use a 9 volt adapter. Judges scorecard say 10.

The footswitch went bad after 2 years so I called them up and they said no problem just send it to us. They didn't even ask for a receipt or proof of purchase. Take that Fender.. Give them the full 10 plus 1.

I've had this pedal for over 2 years and still love it. My opinion hasn't changed from the first day that I got it. If anything, I love it more. I been playing for 20 years give or take, love the blues with an occasional walk into the country, and rock and roll. I think for the money this is the best all around pedal out there. However , I will say its probably not for everyone. I have as I said a fulltone distortion pro that everyone raved about, but I prefer the sparkle drive. I just think the sound quality is better and more flexible. I have decided to buy another so that I can take advantage of the clean aspect of the pedal...run one clean and the other one with the gain about 2/3 up....makes your eyes roll back into your head....If stolen or lost I wouldnt hesititate to by another. Have to give it a 10 in this catagory.

knobs are too close together - not stage friendly . I leave it set in one setting for one very specific great tone with my strat (see below) so not a big problem for me. Manual not necessary.

15 year old clapton strat modified with low output no-name Japanese hand wound pickups >>> carl martin compressor - always on with very subtle amount of compression to mellow out the peak transient stuff >>> old budda phatman with better tubes (raytheon) with gain barely on for bridge pu rhythm crunch tunes >>> TS 10 with Keeley mod - gain off for solo boost >>> sparkle drive >>>Ibanez AD 99 analog delay >>> bad cat cub. I have played 40 years - currently in dance oriented - party cover band ( sixties stuff, rockabilly, RnB, funk, etc) In the past 10 years I have discovered the secret of low output chimey pickups into a class A EL84 amp. I have no use for humbuckers BUT the one tone that I've always wanted is that focused sustain Santana-like, Gary Moore sound - for some songs. I want to cover gigs with one guitar and move fast from song to song - the strat has always been perfect and now I have that focused sustain without dragging another guitar around. Gain full up on sparkle drive - tone rolled bac a bit. "clean" knob turned off. I use position 2 or especially 4 on the strat (out of phase - bridge + mid ) tone all the way off on Strat ( woman tone, I guess) - Voila !!! The sparkle works much better than any other TS clone for this - including high end stuff - the voodoo stays focused and does not get buzzy. The claims on the web site are true. I bought the sparkle to try the clean thing ( 2 amps simulation ) and it's a total gimmick - terrible. BUT I still love this pedal for my own specific tone. By the way my teles don't work as well for this tone - I believe it's because the pickups are too high in output.

switch seems a little flimsy but I have used it quite a bit - no trouble.

don't know

This pedal DOES NOT give what it claims too - the clean knob is a gimmick - you get a very weak non-useful sound. But I got lucky and found my sustain tone with it. I'm very happy with this

Getting good sounds is not a problem, it's trying to decide which one you want to use! Very versatile. I won't go on too much, you can get all the specs from the previous reviews below/above. Based on the Tube Screamer Vintage 808 circuit, but it's like having two amps - clean and dirty and being able to control which is louder. The manual is just a sheet of A4 paper (a bit cheap for Voodoo Lab), but has enough info to get you up and away. Comes with a cool sample CD of all the different Voodoo Lab effects which I enjoyed listening to.

Generally speaking, the OD is classic and not very aggressive - turning it up pass 7 starts to give you the highly squished out compressed effect, which is not my sort of sound. However, the following is...

Setup: PRS Santana SE (like sweet chilli - hot enough to rock it out but sings clearly) through a Trayer Custom Valve 40 (bright & clear tube amp with plently of punch - a purist's dream). I basically have two "default" settings with the pedal. First is for Sunday morning church(!), in which I set it for my amp's clean channel: Gain-7, Tone-5, Clean-3; this gives me a beautiful and well defined tone for overdriven open chord rhythm. When I use this setting on my amp's OD channel, it gives me a nice lead boost tone with compression that is ever so sweet. Second setting is for gigs and "youthy-er" events: Gain-8, Tone-3, Clean-0; I basically use this to overdrive my overdrive ;) Plenty of sustain and retains the punch.

Noise? I haven't any. True bypass, so even if the pedal's power accidently cuts out your (clean) signal still goes through.

Built like a tank. Love the durability. Has a heavy duty metal switch with the big "click" feel. Knobs might move around with a brush of a lead or something, but that's just because my setup is untidy sometimes.

Never dealt with them. Hope I don't have to.

I bought this pedal without even trying it first (they don't stock it locally where I live). Recommendation from a friend and hearing plenty of it was enough to convince me that I had to have this pedal.

I play mainly rock, contemporary Christian and some blues/funk so this pedal fits perfectly. Get this straight - it's NOT A METAL PEDAL, so don't get it if that's what you're after. Been playing for 7 years straight. Also own a Yamaha CPX8 electric/acoustic (flawlessly good), a Yamaha FG-401 acoustic (camp fire guitar), a classical (somewhere under my bed), and Boss Reverb/Delay and Chorus Ensemble pedals (clean as whistles and do their job well).

I love this pedal because it is flexible, maintains purity of the guitar's signal, and is just plain sweet as. It's irreplaceable. If anything, I reckon Voodoo Lab should improve the model by adding flexibilty and "digitising" the controls so you can have preset sounds you can switch between (instead of buying a second, third or forth one!).