Voodoo Lab Sparkle Drive

The Sparkle Drive sounds great when turned on. But I found a huge difference in sound between guitar>amp and guitar>SparkleDriveOff>amp. The Sparkle Drive sucked all the bass out of my tone when in the signal chain and turned off as compared to not in the signal chain at all. This is a huge problem. Maybe this is why several people have mentioned that they leave it on all the time! I don't have this problem with my Barber Direct Drive, my Reverend Drivetrain II or my Fulltone Distortion Pro.

I recommend that you check this before buying a Sparkle Drive. You may be as disappointed as I was. It's great when on and sucks tone when off.

This is my favorite pedal that I have ever owned. In fact, it is hard to get it to sound bad. It is actually two pedals in one, giving you a warm overdrive or a crisp clean boost or a mixture of both. How cool is that?

I am very hard on the sound quality of any pedal, because this is where the rubber meets the road. The Sparkle Drive delivers perfectly everything that it boasts it will do. If you are looking for a loud, fuzzy, overbearing sound this is not the pedal for you. However, if what you want is the perfect blusey sound with a kick you need to check this little black box out. I don't think you can go wrong.
My gear in order is a variety of guitars into a Ernie Ball VP jr., Crybaby, Sparkle Drive, Fulltone '69, TS9, Boss DS1, and a EH Small Clone into a Mesa Boogie Rocket 440 and a Ampeg Reverberocket.
The only reason I still have the TS9 is for a different od sound. The one thing I have found about the Sparkle Drive is that one isn't enough. It has too many good sounds to use them all!!!

No problems.

I have been playing contemporary christian music for the better part of 20 years, as well as doodling around with rock, country, and blues for the same amount of time. The Sparkle Drive sounds very much like The Ibanez 808 and the TS9 but with more range. I would replace it without a doubt should something happen to it. It has been a spark to my music; so much so I think my wife is jelous.

Very easy

Gibson 336 > CryBaby>Sparkle drive Tech21 Trademark 60 miked SM58 to PA.

I've been playing 30 years and have cut down my rig from Mesa Boogie/ Fender Twin etc. to something I can carry easily and also maintain with no valve cost.

Instantly impressed with the SD have it set at 12oclock/3/3/11-12

Get very good Larry Carlton/Robben ford tasty blues sound. The Tech21 has a great 'Twin' sound but can't get a good OD from the lead channel (good but to Marshall'ish for my needs). Sounds great, I would imagine sounds amazing through a valve amp. I occasionally use hired gear so this is a must have unit!

Don't know as yet.

Don't know as yet.

Excellent for blues, very more-ish sound. Expensive, but I've spent a heck of a lot of cash in the past... quality gear though.

Not too simple, but on the other hand it's MUCH easier than setting up a MIDI patch. The only thing that throws a wrench into the equation is the 'clean' knob. But about an hour's worth of fiddling and tweaking gets you farmiliar with it's use.
The manual is literally a green sheet of paper describing what it does, what it's supposed to emulate, and gives a brief description of what the knobs do. but honestly no one forks out this much on a pedal if they're just starting out so i see no need to get big manuals like boss.

It's everything i wanted and more for an overdrive pedal.
I use a '71 Fender Twin Reverb (non-master, for those who care) a Fender Strat and an Epi Sheraton. i usually use it un conjunction with a Vox wah pedal (works beautifully before and after the wah, takes some time to adjust however.) Once in a while i'll use my octavia if i'm in the mood for some hendrix.
There's very little noise except with gain set high with a single coil (which should be expected), no clicks when it turns on which i like because i've had problems with other pedals doing this. It packs a lot of boost and i like how you can blend the clean back in to get some bass back in. but my amp is bassy as it is, so i really don't mind the loss.
The tone knob bugs me a little bit. i don't like how it doesn't affect the clean signal. It still sounds great however. no qualms with sound quality here.

It's reliable, i own a voodoo lab proctavia as well never had problems with either. one thing i don't really like is how the pedals go through batteries quite quickly (even when i'm dumb enough to leave my leads connected). They aren't like Zvex pedals, but i'd expect better battery life. i guess next on my shopping list is a power supply then.
I would use it at a gig without a backup. mainly because i can't afford a backup, but i'm none too concerned, it's fairly solid. but i can't really be certain as i've yet to christen it at a gig.

never dealt with them via phone. but they did return my emails quickly.

For the styles i play it suits me perfectly. when used with humbuckers this gets HEAVY (like led zeppelin, or cream). with single coils it's exactly the kind of boost i like to have for playing stuff like freddie king, eric clapton or SRV. It also works amazingly well using 'woman tone'. the only word to describe it is smooth using woman tone. but it's downright gritty and loud with single coils. I really like this pedal. If it were stoled i would hunt the thieves down and shove 22 frets up their asses.
I did try this out with a TS-9 reissue and this thing beat the pants off of it. but i suppose it would be about even with an original. I like how voodoo lab boxes fit together easily, but you need fairly short cords to connect them (vertical inputs) so my yorkville leads stick up like a mcdonald's "M" in white.
Great pedal... worth every penny.

Very straight forward once you get the 'clean' blend concept.

I had Robert Keeley, check him out under effects, modify this pedal. He change a couple of things allowing the bass freq to remain when the pedal is engaged. I noticed that when I engaged the pedal i lost some bass freq in my tone, no longer the case. Also he expanded the range of gain. It's got a ton more gain on tap now, more along the fulldrive range.

Both Voodoo labs and Keeley built this like a tank.

Great.

If i lost this pedal I'd buy another one and have Robert Keeley mod it. It's the only pedal i use all of the time.

A bit complex because of the clean/overdrive blend thing, but once you get the hang of it it sounds great.

This overdrive is in a class by itself. You can hear your guitar and then add gain to it. Dial as much or as little of your clean sound into it as you want. Nice. Talk about flexible.

In my board I have a Sparkle Drive and a 2003 Custom Shop Fulldrive 2 (the one with 3 modes). I have to tell you; although the Fulldrive is a bit more gainy.......meaty maybe?.......the Sparkle Drive is the one I end up using more often. When you kick it on your playing is boosted, more assertive and powerful, more ballsy,.....with 100% clarity. The Fulldrive simply does not approach what this thing does well. The Fulldrive is a GREAT pedal with much more gain on tap, but totaly different. There is more coloring with the Fulldrive. The Sparkle Drive is in a class by itself, really.

Seems perfect. No issues whatsoever.

Called them up once to have another effect repaired. They fixed it and picked up the tab to send it back to me. Nice!

I can't imagine not having this pedal now that I have it. I have been looking for an overdrive box like this for years. If you need an overdrive that is Tubescreamer in nature, but a more flexible, modern take on it, you may like this a lot. If you are a Heavy Metal kid that wants his Ibanez guitar through the Line 6 amp to retain no remnants of original sound and take on a hellish wall of indiscriminate, noisy, generic and nuance assasinating crunch, well......you may be bummed with this pedal. This won't cover up all the sloppy two-hand tapping and anemic tone from the basswood body.

If you have a great guitar, great tube amp, good technique and musical ideas, this pedal will allow you to have overdrive that does not turn your sound to sludge. You can hear every note. Makes ya wanna practice.....

Actually, it is pretty tuff. Becuase you gotta decide what kind of sound you want. But no body sed music was easy to play. So, you gotta bend over and twist the knobs and think -- do I want a clean drive or do I want some sweet punch, or how about that overdrive saturation? Also it is weird cuz if you have the clean knob up high - you get no tone control, but if you have the distortion up high, with the gain - then the tone works like a real miracle.

This pedal sounds fantastic. IT GOT THE PUNCH. I don't know about you boys, but this is a damn nice sounding overdrive. I use it as a boost, almost like a preamp - I use a Keeley Compressor after it and a Carl Martin Compressor before it - and then an Ernie Ball Volume after that my signal sees a Roger Mayer Fuzz (sounds better boosted by the Sparkle Drive) some pitch shift, Mooger Ring Mod. then into an Electric Mistress, Turbo Rat, Ibanez CH-505 chorus (best chorus) and finally an MXR Blue Box.

Anyway - the Sparkle Drive is a great pedal for punchy boost, clean drive and SRV style 808 texas lickin.' I mostly play a G&L ASAT Classic and a Guild Starfire-90, and the pedal sounds great with both - I like to use the gain side for the ASAT and the clean boost with the Guild - I really like the sound of the Sparkle Drive - it has a sweet punch that doesn't overtake your guitar's natural ride but isn't afraid to boost your signal all the way to goodville. Where is goodville you ask? It is that place where you know where your feedback is, you trust it, you ride it, you set up a dwelling on it, you get to know its family and sometime you wrap yourself underneath its sleeping bag of squeal. I am sure this makes some people angry, that I am not talking about the pedal alone.

So, I have played the pedal alone and it delivers a great bite of overdrive, not to much, not to little - and it adds to the percussivity of your guitar's electric sound.

I bought this pedal used, and it plays great. I understand it. I would buy another if it broke or went kapoot.

Who cares? I am just glad that there are companies making pedals. I don't need their support - they need mine!!! AND YOURS!! BUY GUITAR PEDALS!!!!! FOR THE SAKE OF GOODNESS!!!

Overall I think this pedal is perfect as a clean boost, and a TS-808 styled distortion. I like the idea of having the 'clean' knob in order to find the perfect balance between overdrive and natural signal - but I am that kind of player. I like to hear my fingers interact with the fretboard, this pedal is also great as a pre-amp, as in, you can use it to boost other fuzz pedals and overdrives to add sustain, bite and clarity. I would recommend this pedal to anyone who uses fuzz... just add this pedal before your favorite fuzz and take a listen to the difference. Fuzzier. This pedal is like a ripe banana to a starving man.

Very easy to use and the knobs do not get moved too easily on stage. GAIN, TONE, CLEAN, VOLUME. Just plug it in and choose whether you want a super clean boost or some sort of dirty tone with the gain and clean knob (the clean knob is actually a mix knob between distortion and clean). The tone knob is very helpful as well. I use this pedal for two different jobs, clean boost as well as distortion. It runs on a 9 volt battery or a power supply. I am a pro bassist and have been playing for over twenty years. The only reason for the "Nine" rating in this category is that you have to unscrew the bottom plate to replace the battery. If you are not going to use an adapter this could be a hassle when you don't have time to unscrew four screws. Although the battery seems to last quite a long time.

I usually wait for at least six months to rate an effect or instrument. This way I'm not rating something on the heels of expectations or "new toy" syndrome. I am a professional bassist and tour about 6 months of the year. Mostly jazz and fusion gigs but I've done my share of pop and Rock tours. I have owned and used this pedal for one year. This thing is very clean. I have a couple different setups that I use. I run my basses into either an EBS classic preamp or Alembic preamp. that goes into a Crown K2 power amp and two bagend 4x10 cabinets (one with the horn). Sometimes I use my Walter Woods amp that is 1200 watts with those same cabinets or with a bag end 1x15 with horn. the preamp on the walter woods is super clean and flat sounding. When I play straight ahead jazz that's great but for the rock and fusion gigs the SPARKLE DRIVE really gives it some variation. The bag end cabs are full frequency (20hz to 20khz) so when I say that this pedal is clean it really is! I hear any kind of hiss from my horn. I also use other effect pedals or no effect pedals depending on the gig. Line six delay, boss octaver, ernie ball volume, and various wahs and choruses. I replaced a "Fulltone Bass Drive" with this pedal. The "Sparkle Drive" is so much better. The clean boost is really clean with no loss of highs or lows, the "Bass Drive" lost a considerable amount of highs and some lows at all settings even though FULLTONE advertises the BASSDRIVE as a boost that does not alter your tone. As far as distortion this kills the BASSDRIVE as well. I could never get the BASSDRIVE to sound good. The distortions would make my bass muddy and indistinct especially when I would solo over any changes and the clean boost is horrible. The SPARKLE has a blend knob so you can always have your original tone along with the distortion. I cannot stress how important this is for bass players! Also the amount of extra volume the SPARKLE puts out is incredible. At nine o'clock the volume knob seems to be unity gain so you can really crank this thing to drive tube amps or for volume boost. In an emergency you could probably run straight into a power amp and drive it well. I must also say that this pedal has a certain "MOJO" with it. Those of you that have had a lot of different pedals or any kind of gear know what I'm talking about. It sounds good just being in the signal chain. All settings seem to work great and are usable. It also is true bypass so when it's off it is not in the signal chain at all, in fact if the batteries fail you can still play with it off. If you are looking for a high gain distortion unit this is not for you. This is for either clean boost or distortions similar to SVT's and other tube amps.

It's built like a tank and I've had zero problems with it. I do not have a backup for it but I'm sure a new one could be located quickly if this one went down.

I have called Voodoo lab once to ask about their power supply and they were very helpful and answered the phone within 5 rings.

I have tried many boost/distortion pedals, this seems to be the best pedal I have found for bass distortion and boost. It is audiophile quality and is much cheaper in price than the boutique pedals that I have found not to be audiophile quality. The only other pedal that I like that also has "MOJO" is the Klon Centaur. It does not have a blend knob (called clean on the SPARKLE DRIVE) and goes through batteries before a 90 minute set is over but it is another great pedal for bass but twice the money. The BASSDRIVE is a waste of time and is the epitome of the worst in the Boutique pedal mystique. If this pedal was lost I would certainly buy another.

Very easy to use if you have experience with overdrive pedals,and the one page leaflet explains what you can expect the pedal to do on each particular setting. I use a Fender Strat. and the posiions 2 and 5 really sing with this pedal, truly transparent, the drive is there but so is the sound of your favourite instrument and amp. If you don't like the sound of them to begin with...look for another pedal!

My set-up is Fender Strat-modified crybaby-voodoolab microvibe-sparkledrive-JD sessionmaster- Dan echo-Hiwatt DR103+ marshall 4x12" with greenbacks. With this setup I can get a great Hendrixy blues/rock sound.

I have used the Voodoolab microvibe for over one year, and have had no problem with it at all, these effects are very well made and I do not forsee any problems.

Never contacted them for customer support.

For the Hendrixy vibe this will get you in the ballpark, with a Strat and clean amp, I can't wait to try it with a plexi.I have been playing 32 years and am a stickler for tone, but tone being subjective, this pedal might not boil everybodies egg!If it was lost or stolen I would replace it straight away,I love the fact that although it is mid biased, and as such, I think more suited to single coils, your guitar and amp soun are compimented rather than masked.My only gripe is that the footswitch is to close to the controls, and as I sing as well, it can be a bit tricky onstage to hit the button without stompin my size 10's on the controls. Overall I find it is very articulate, in that you van play faster licks without the notes gurging into a mess.I was after a good drive pedal, and rejected pedals by Carl Martin,Jacques, Roger Mayer and Fulltone as to my ears they did not deliver the goods.

This is an addition to the review I submitted below. I have had a chance to try the pedal out in two different bands gigging.

Sometimes it can be a little tricky to get the perfect blend of the overdrive, it's tone control, and the clean layer. But once you do, it's magic.

In the last review I compared it to my Maxon re-issue TS-9 Tube Screamer (with true bypass and original JRC4558D chip) and I said it sounded basically the same, but a bit warmer.

After playing two gigs with both pedals, have to amend that:

The Sparkle Drive in it's distortion side is NOTICEABLEY warmer, bigger, clearer and with more definition than the Tube Screamer.

The basic characteristic sound of the chip, and the WAY the pedal breaks up is similar. It is the same TYPE of distortion, due to that chip. But the Tube Screamer is more muddy and undefined in the midrange, and definitely weaker in the bass. A bit "fuzzier" too. Don't get me wrong, it still a GREAT pedal (Maxon did a GREAT job of reissue-ing it and making it BETTER than the original Ibanez by adding True Bypass). But side by side with the Sparkle.......no contest.

The midrange is a key element here. The Tube Screamer has a pronounced midrange "hump". Everyone knows this and it is well documented everywhere on the internet. It makes for a very FAT lead sound. But sometimes it can sound a bit.......congested. A little on the muddy side making you want to turn the tone control up, which works to add clarity, but at the same time loses bass. And you did not fix the problem of lack of clarity in the midrange. You merely added treble so that everything "sounds" more defined.

The Sparkle Drive 100% fixed this problem. In spades. Without the clean control added at ALL, the distortion sound is very fat, with a well defined bottom, extremely muscular midrange that is perfectly clear, defined and not exaggerated, and as much top end as you'd like to add with the tone control. Bigger, clearer more full bodied and MUCH more defined than the Tube Screamer, but with the same warm character and basic personality. I imagine it is similar to what Analog Man's "Silver Mod" is like, but I have never tried that, so I am talking through my ass (but that's the way Analog Mike describes it on his website).

And this is ALL WITHOUT the clean "layer" added. Amazing.

Now to the clean control. As you turn up the clean, the distortion layer gets lower. It's not just that the clean gets louder, but as you dial in the clean, you notice as the distortion goes more and more into the background until you don't even hear it anymore. So an ability to blend these two "channels" and then set the right output becomes more complex than the average distortion pedal. Some people may not be able to get the right balance right away and may get a bit frustrated. Experimentation is the key here.

Now take the distortion I described above and the add just a touch of the clean "underneath" the sound, and it is a thing of beauty. Crunchy, clear ballsy and amazing. I stand by what I said in the earlier review. Even MORE now. This is the single best distortion box I have ever used. I LOVE it. Of course this is just the way I use it. You can very easily just boost the clean and put a bit of "hair" or "grind" around the edges ala Stevie Ray. That works too. But this thing is definitely capable of some serious crunch as well. I can't imagine a better overdrive pedal. I just got a second one and it sounds even better than the 1st one Wow. (I notice REALLY subtle stuff most people wouldn't even hear).

I use it into my Fenders and it is bad ass. This thing into a slightly crunchy 70's Marshall would KILL (because of the definition it has - isn't that what a Marshall is all about?). I almost want to keep this thing a secret (I'm not kidding), but I'm so psyched I have to share. I'll regret this someday......

Construction is ABSOLUTELY top notch. These guys are great. The pots feel smooth (not cheap like many pedals). And the pedals are light. Much lighter than a Boss pedal for instance which adds up when you are lugging around a big effects board.

The True Bypass switches seem fine. Sometimes there is a BIT of a click (not always...just every now and then), but come on people. Do you prefer the reliable Boss style FET "silent switching".......that sucks all of your tone? Reliable, yes. Good sounding, no. Or how about the same idea as Boss but in a cheap switch that WILL break...like the Ibanez switches? The WORST! I'll take a slight click any day and keep my tone, thank you.

Very nice people. I haven't needed support (I called them once to ask about a Micro Vibe), but the guys are friendly, talkative, knowledable, and seem to genuinely love guitar effects and great tone. A very welcome thing if you ask me.

A beautiful, beautiful pedal. It makes me smile. It makes me say "damn that sounds good". It makes me wanna write a review on Harmony Central. :-)

A true classic. No doubt about it. For the money you cannot beat it.