Voodoo Lab Sparkle Drive

I found this at a pawn shop today like new for $39. Didn't buy it, went home and read about it online. Rushed bach to buy it! Watched a YouTube video showing the ease of use- It's basically a TS808 with a blender knob (Clean) which lets you pan between the TS808 op amp (a JRC4558D, like the old Tube Screamers) and a clean boost sound which has it's own different op amp. Simple.

With the single-coils on my 2007 Reissue Gibson Melody Maker, the pedal gives you sounds like SRV or many other classic Strat sounds. I'm no longer considering pickup replacement for clean or dirty sounds. I've got the best of both worlds.

I had bought one of those Vox AC50CP2 hotrods with the EL34 tubes because it was vintage-vibe-cool-looking and they had 60% off blemished items at Musician's Friend Clearance Center ($191 plus tax for a 50-watt, 2x12 Vox with dual reverb controls and EL34 Ruby Tubes!), but I couldn't quite get a really decent sound out of it- UNTIL NOW.

I set up the clean channel of the Vox like an old single-channel amp, with the Sparkle Drive for gain boost and the amp came alive! It growls nicely when you hit it hard, and sings sweet when you lighten up your touch. WOW!! I can hardly Believe it, it sounds so cool.

Blending the clean sound in gives you a hugely expanded palette of timbres to choose from. I remember reading years ago where SRV said he knew it sounded crazy, but he could get better clean sounds with his Tube Screamer ON than when it was OFF. This will do that. You can get a Tube Screamer, but it won't have the Clean blend knob or True Bypass. This pedal DOES.

I don't know about reliability yet, we'll see- It works great so far.

I haven't dealt with the manufacturer, but they offer a 5-year warranty, so they must be willing to stand behind their product.

I'm basing this on the fact that I paid $39 for it. It's well over a $100 new. I still think it's an incredibly good pedal all the way around. I don't know how it reacts with humbucking pickups, but if you play a Tele or Strat, I think you will LOVE the sounds you can get with this. Listen to the YouTube demos, then rush out to get YOURS..!

very straightforward, simply dial in the tone you want

Very nice overdirve; no heavy distortion here, but also almost no background noise as well

3 - Switch broke after 1 year, gain pot failed after 6 weeks...

I also find it very annoying that you have to unscrew it to change the battery - this seems to be either a skimp on production cost in a fairly expensive pedal, or a cheap ploy to sell a transformer. Even my cheap DOD pedals have a decent battery door...

I too, dealt with a rep that must have been the same the "Josh" character, and he was an *incredibly* condescending jerk. Eventually it was fixed, but it took a month. As a result, I'll never buy anything from VooDoo Labs again. They are Evil.

Blues and experimental rock/ambient

15 years - G&L, Danelectro, Marshall JTM, Digitech 2101 LE, Victoria 5112; Moog ringmod, many stompboxes, Pignose...

It's a nice sounding pedal that seems very well made, but isn't nearly as reliable as its appearance would make it seem.

No

Nice sound - when it works

Customer service was the *absolute worst* I've ever experienced.

4 knobs, 1 in, 1 out, & a foot switch. . .

Excellent. I only wish it had some kind of A/B thing like a Jeckell/Hyde so you could bump the clean or overdrive or both.

Like many others, the foot switch went out after a couple of years.

5 year warranty. They were a little slow in getting it done, but fixed it for free even though I broke one of the pots (and confessed) while trying to fix it myself. I was very pleased. This is the kind of company I want to do business with. #@$@ happens, what counts in this world is how you deal with it when it does.

Play blues & rock in cover bands for almost 30 years. Have an assortment of guitars, Strats, Teles, Gibson SG & 335, Yairi & Guild acoustics, etc. Play mostly thru Fender tube amps. At $140, it's not the cheapest stompbox out there but it's worth the money IMHO.

i've owned this pedal for 6 hours.. been playing with it for about 2 hours at most. the switch is acting up.. muting the signal completely when trying to turn the effect on or off. and i'm not stomping hard.. or wearing shoes. completely. effing. useless.

we'll see.. i've emailed them. and i'll happily report back if it gets sorted quickly and efficiently. but this serves as a warning for any people looking to buy this pedal in the meantime.

essentially, buy this pedal knowing the switch will bug out and need replacing.

Relatively simple to use. 4 knobs etc. no doubt there are numerous other reviews to further simplify the dial in.

First, let me say I am a non professional but enjoy better gear and tone. I find my playing enjoyable and fulfilling. I am fortunate enough to have a good amount of gear but my main steady set up is as follows; Bassman Ltd, with a line out to a blackface Vibro-King, then using external speaker line into a Gibson Super Goldtone half stack bottom (2-12s an 2-10inch Celestions. Stomps now consist of a Fulltone Fulldrive, Fulltone Deja-Vibe and for a little extra depth, a Danecho. I play a Gibson 57 RI Goldtop LP with Burstbuckers, Gibson 56 RI Goldtop LP with P90s and a 62 RI Fiesta Red Strat with Customshop 69s. The tone of this setup is nothing short of the voices of Angles with serious attitude and I DO mean attitude. My main pedal (the reason for the review) USED to be a Sparkle Drive. More on that below. Remember the sound rating is for the Sparkle Drive, not my rig.

3 or so years into non pro use, the gain circuit began to fail and sent the pedal in for service. Not the end of the world, **** happens. Hence the 6

Heres where it gets ugly. Receptionist at VooDoo was very polite and accommodating.
I send the pedal back with a clear explanation of the issue. After the obligatory 3 week wait, I am told the "vacations, busy, we will get to it barrage of BS" I finally get the pedal back. circuit is apparently repaired but the volume control is ineffective from 0 to 4, then the climb. This is clearly not the way it worked and I call back VooDoo and request it be returned and properly repaired or replaced, which they agree to do. Thats great, thanks a lot. But to my surprise and customer reward, the "Head tech," Josh decides that I have a perception problem and I am obviously wrong as this is the way the pedal always worked for the last 3 years and cannot understand why I am not happy. After a lengthy and now rudely guided conversation by Josh, he clearly gave in, just to shut me up by agreeing to make an internal "adjustment" this one time. I feel they rude treatment is unjust and not professional. I have been playing a long time, have good gear and preeminent in my professional life. I do not applicate being treated like a fool by some self appointed "genius" who`s previous employment was most likely sucking the farts out of bus seats. Josh, you must learn that what goes around, comes around.

While the Sparkle Drive Pedal served its purpose in its day and got acceptable tone and vibe, the lesson learned here is 2 fold. Lesson 1; The absolutely rude and insulting treatment was enough for me to sacrifice whatever benefit the Sparkle Drive brought into my enjoyment and yank it on principle and feel completely justified to share with the musical community my "delightful" customer experience. Lesson 2; Yanking the pedal gave me the opportunity to audition and acquire the true upgrade to perhaps the best of the best in class, being the Fulltone Mosfet FullDrive. Honestly, if I remove Josh`s suckass attitude out of the equation, the Fulltome is without question a superior pedal, well worth the few extra dollars. In a perverse kind of way, I thank you Josh for guiding me to better tone with the FullDrive. Hence the 3
VooDoo, Give that Josh a raise as he really earned it this time.

Very Easy! Four Knobs... Volume, Gain, Mix (Clean and Dirty Signals), and Tone.

This is a great TS808 clone with the added benefits of a Tru Bybass and a Clean Level to mix a clean signal back in with the distorted signal. Very dynamic with picking nuances. Sounds like a part of you gain stage on your tube amplifier. Works best with EL84 and El34 power tubed amps. Very Quite when engaged.

So far so good! But I have heard that the switch can go if you pound it too much!

I play blues rock. Playing for about 25 years. My signal chain is Fender Strat with Fralin Blues Specials, Voodoo Labs Sparkle Drive, MXR - Phase 90 - Dyna Comp - Classic 108 Fuzz, Boss Tremolo - Dynamic Wah, Maxon AD-9 analog delay, Korg Pitchblack tuner, into a Peavey Classic 30 combo w/ Celestion Vintage 30.

This is the only TS808 clone I will ever play!

Simple enough even for guitar players to figure out! Pretty bare bones. Less is more.

Fantastic. First, keep in mind, what it *is*, and what it *isn't*. It's a TS-808 clone, with an added clean boost feature / mix. It's an overdrive pedal, NOT a distortion pedal. If you've got big hair, pointy guitars, and spandex leg warmers, this may not be the pedal for you. It's also just plain not going to sound very good at bedroom levels - its forte is in pushing an overdriven tube amp. I've owned original 808s, snot green TS-9s, reissues, modded reissues, and for me, this is the best so far. The TS changes the sound so much that the "blend" control is so useful, even out the loss of bass and the infamous "mid hump" in the TS. With the blend control, this offers all the sounds of an '808, with far more flexibilty *and* true bypass, in lieu of buffering. For me it's a great improvement on the original. Sold an original 808, kept the SD. 'nuff said.

Heard problems about the footswitch. Assume this was on earlier models, no problems with mine so far.

Haven't dealt with them.

Overall, I think this one really deserves a "10". I've had original TS, reissues, and a plethora of other manufacturers' takes on the basic circuit - this is my personal favorite. Whether it's a '66 Super Reverb, a Tweed Bassman, or a Marshall (I'm fond of the Blockhead '63 Split Front and THD Plexi, myself), to paraphrase SRV, "use big strings, turn it up, and floor it".

This is an update to my previous review. See "Reliability" section.

See "Reliability" section.

The switch is starting to go bad......as feared, after reading many reviews. I bought my SD used from an eBay auction, so i saved some money; but not knowing what it went through prior to me, i knew i was taking a risk.

I e-mailed Voodoo Lab about it, and i got an encouraging response, which said i can ship it to them for a free fix (i pay one-way shipping.) If/when the switch goes completely, i'll take them up on this offer.

See my 1st (recent) review. Everything i said there still stands; but now that the switch has become an issue, my rating goes down.

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.

Easy to use, to be sure, but I've noticed that what they say in their marketing lit is very true--the difference in sound and repsonse between different guits and amps is pronounced, to say the least. Otherwise, all you have to do is understand what it is doing, understand the 4 knobs, and understand that the tone knob only effects gain, not clean.

I am not an uber-purist. Or rather, I am, but I'm not geeky or particularly knowledgable about amps and pedals. I've now used it with 3 guitars (Strat+, a FrankenTele with standard pups, and a Les Paul Special from the 70s or 80s, with 2 P90s. And into 2 amps: a Mesa/Boogie Studio .22+ (1x12") and a circa '70s Bassman head through 1x12" Cab with a celestion on some flavor.

The bassman breaks up beautifully at very low volumes on its own (begins as low as 2 1/2 depedning on how hot the incoming signal is). So The Saprkle Drive tends to send the bassman into pretty rich and gritty territotry even if I'm running it entirely on clean boost. Not a bad sound, mind you, but if you're main reason for wanting the Sparkle Drive is as a boost pedal to add presence, volume, and a touch of grit to a fundamentally clean sound, I think you'll be happier using it with an amp like my Mesa/Boogie, an amp that is not BORN on the verge of breaking up.

With the Boogie I experienced the full range of the Sparkle Drive, and I was very impressed. It cleans up nicely, adds a very pleasant boost, dial in moderate grit to your liking. It especially likes the lower output pickups on my strat, and that's good news. Again, even if dortier territory, it sound very good, but for me it's allure is that you can get good crisp and very present clean-ish tones out of it.

And, as they advertise, it respond extremely well to attack dynamics. That might be the most pleasing thing about it.

I've only had it two weeks and haven't gigged with yet (very soon) but I'm pleased as punch with this so far.

No occasion to judge reliability yet. Read about issues with switch mechanism. We'll see.

I play quirky original pop rock along the Elvis Costello/XTC-to-Tom Waits spectrum. I'm the "tricky bits" guitarist in my present band Good vintage tones are desirable. I've been playing for more than 30 years, but what does that matter?

I wish I had compared it to the Fulltone Full Drive 2. That's really the only other one I was interested in.

This is a good sounding boost/drive pedal. In the right rig, it produces an excellent clean boost, and its distortion is very playable. For the densest, darkest distortions, you'd probably want to look elsewhere.

It takes a little fidling, but you can get quite a great bit of sounds out of this. I have to switch the tone out for singles/hbs, which has the upside of having convinced me to not be lazy and actually switch between two of my good guitars (Gretsch Duo Jet and Am. Strat) instead of using my less good coil split-equipped guitar (Dean EVO-FTX).

I actually own and use two of them. Typically i run one as a dark, ratty distortion (Gain - 60%, Tone - 40%, Clean - 35%, Vol - 50%) that makes a great blues sound esp. on a neck pickup on my Strat or archtop (Gretsch Tennesse Rose). The second i use *primarily* as a solo boost (Gain - 100%, Tone - 65%, Clean - 80%, Vol - 40%) on top of other distortion pedals. There's just so many things that you can do with it. These two pedals replaced my Boss Blues Driver and my Tube Screamer.

Never had a problem.

Never deal with em

Great match for any style of music except lo-fi or traditional jazz. I wouldn't use it as a *primary* distortion box outside of blues or bluesy rock, but it makes one hell of a solo pedal in any context.

I've been playing for 14 years and professionally for 8. I run:
Gretsch Tennessee Rose / Fender Strat (American) / Gretsch Duo Jet / Dean EVO --> Ernie Ball Vol. --> Cry Baby --> VoxWah --> MXR Phaser --> --> Line6 Liquaflange --> EHX Polychorus --> Q-Tron --> Danelectro Blue Paisley --> EHX Big Muff --> Line6 Crunchtone --> Line6 Dr Distorto --> SPARLKE DRIVE 1 --> SPARKLE DRIVE 2 --> Vox AC30 TB / Peavey Delta Blues ==> Line6 DL4 ==> Line6 Verbzilla ==> amps ==> SM57s

Out of all that, if i had to have one pedal it would be the DL4; but if i could get two the second would be the Sparkler.

It's pretty easy to use, and the controls are self explanatory. There's a range of good sounds, but most of the dialing in for me has been trying to replicate a particular sound since we play covers. No hard work, just a bit of trial and error. The overdrive is just that; an overdrive, meaning no extreme, "thunking" gain for uber metal, but for me, the Sparkle Drive's range of sounds is extremely useful when a full-out distortion is too much. I get compliments on my sound when using this pedal.

I've had luck getting great sounds from this unit. I use it with a Les Paul standard (through a modified Marshall JCM 600 combo), so the bottom dropping out isn't really an issue like it seems to be for other reviewers. I use it when the Marshall's gain (which I leave almost pegged all the time) is too much. It provides a nice, musical-sounding overdrive with plenty of presence with the "clean" control down. Lots of note clarity for chords. As you turn the "clean" up, it takes away the growl to varying degrees, but in a different way than just turning the gain down...it's hard to describe. It can sometimes sound dry, so I sometimes use a compressor and a bit reverb with it.
When I first bought this unit, I put it away for a while after fiddling with it, and then "rediscovered" it again after a year. Now it's part of my permanent effects board.

I had a problem with the switch when I began using the unit in my pedal board; it would cut my signal to half when switching it on or off, so the guitar sounded weak (keep in mind that bought this pedal about six years ago, so I'm sure they've worked out some bugs). But it was intermittent and it took a while to figure out that it wasn't a patch cord, which can be the cause of the same problem sometimes. See "Customer Support."

Once I was resonable sure that the drive was causing my signal problem, I contacted VooDoo Lab, and Adam got back to me on the same day. He gave me a reference number, and I sent the unit back. They fixed it promptly, and since then, I haven't had any trouble with it. Also, it's important to mention that he didn't ask when the unit was purchased, if it was abused (it wasn't), or any warranty information, which was really cool.

Like I stated above, I play modern rock covers, and the pedal is necessary tool for our set list every gig. I've been playing for about 27 years now, and have used lots of effect units from various manufacturers.
I primarily used two Les Pauls ('89 standard and '91 custom) to gig with, but I also have a Strat ("Highway 1") with a Warmoth replacement neck ( I don't dig fender stock necks), and a Tele. I play through a Marshall JCM 600 combo (now discontinued), which has been modified (half switch added, local amp whiz John Nau added some chime and sparkle to clean channel sound).
Pedal board consists of: VOX wah, Sparkle Drive, Analog Man Compressor & overdrive unit, H2O Liquid Chorus/delay unit, Boss graphic EQ...

Not really hard. 4 knobs, all easy to understand.

One word: Fantastic!

I use it with a gibson les paul studio, to a chain of effects to a fender blues junior amp.

This pedal is simply amazing. You can do so many things with it: turn the clean knob all the way up, it will simply boost your volume - sweet feature. Really useful if for example, you play a clean accompaniment, and then you have a solo, on a clean sound too. You put the clean knob all the way up, turn the volume as up as you like, and with a single switch you're in a solo mode.
This pedal can also be used as a pure overdrive, with the clean all the way down. The tone knob is the most versitale I ever heard. It sounds like an old tube screamer. It sounds even better when used on an already saturated tube amp (let's say - volume at half way) BUT - you can mix a bit of clean, to have an overdrive with a bit of clean. With the gain at half way and some clean (let's say, 9' o clock), it's perfect for solos with a bluesy tone, like pink floyd's "shine on you crazy diamond". Much better than the classic Boss Blues Driver (I used to own one of these. Sold it when I bought this pedal). It can also give you a great half-clean half-drive tone, sounds like you're using two amps at once, one clean and one saturated. And that's only a bit of what you can do with it.

It's not noisy at all, it is true by pass, no volume drop (Well, unless you set the volume knob at the wrong position) - simply perfect.

Well, a lot of people complain about the switches, but they (Voodoo Lab) fixed it on the newer editions, and it is working fine. I have this pedal for a few month now, and I have their analog chorus for a year, none of them ever had any problem. I giged with it with no backup many times.

Just beware, I wouldn't have bought this pedal second handed, because of the problems with older units.

never really dealt with them. I did send them an email about their new Wah once and they asked me.

Fantastic pedal, sounds great, versitile, everything I need.

Controls work well, they do what you'd expect. It's not rocket science, but it did take me a bit of fiddling to find useful sounds.

It took me a while to find useful sounds. The problem I have with it is that the clean sound is pretty flat but the more gain you dial in the thinner the bass gets. This actually works well for the neck pickup because it can have a bit too much bass anyhow, but I don't care for it on the bridge pickup. When you start introducing more gain it has a midrange bump and the bottom drops out just like a Tube Screamer. Not my cup of tea. Used as a clean boost with a bit of hair on it though, this pedal sounds great IMO. Anybody who's a fan of the Tube Screamer should love this pedal.

Well, the switch on mine went bad after about a week of light use, big surprise. I hadn't sent in my warranty card, but I contacted Voodoo Lab anyhow. Much to my surprise they issued me an RMA, no questions asked. My pedal was repaired free of charge and returned quickly. I've had switches go bad on numerous pedals, some very expensive ones too. This is unacceptable to me. If these companies want us to continue to spend $100~$200 on a metal box with $15 worth of parts inside they'd better put some quality switches in there, come on!

I've only had the one dealing with Voodoo Lab and it was a positive one. The fact that I hadn't mailed in my warranty card wasn't an issue and my pedal was repaired and returned quickly.

The failing switches seem to be common with the Voodoo Lab pedals. When I spoke to the VL rep on the phone I was told that they are using a different, better switch now. I hope that's true. Voodoo Lab makes some cool stuff, but if it can't be relied on there's no reason not to try somebody else's product. To me, what makes the Sparkle Drive unique is the clean blend control. If it didn't have that it would be just another TS clone. It's a nice sounding pedal, too bad about the switch.

Very easy to use and well thought out pedal.I love the blend knob!

This is a wonderful sounding pedal. It has a great blend function. As a clean boost this pedal can't be beat, the fact that it also has an OverDrive built in makes it a must-have pedal!

Now here is the MAJOR problem with this pedal(all VooDoo Lab pedals), the switches will(I don't mean might) go out on you. I have three VL pedals and they all have bad switches. I've sent them in to VL for repairs and they did it for free, but guess what? within a month I had the same problem with all three pedals again. Horrible, stay away!

I would have given them a 8 because they fixed them for free, but the problem wasn't really fixed. After they fixed them once they ignored all my e-mails after that. Horrible customer Service, stay away!

Great great pedal, when it worked.

This pedal has a rare combination: Extremely versitaile, yet exteremly easy to use. A volume, gain, tone and the clean blender. Nothing more.

My setup is: Gibson Les Paul Studio--->T-Rex Compnova--->Sparkle Drive--->T-Rex Mudhoney--> Voodoo Lab Analog Chorus--->T-Rex Replica-->Fender Blues Junior Amp.

The sound quality of this unit is fantasic!

With clean all the way up, you get the clean sound of the amp. Turn it down a bit, you got a great clean with a hint of drive. at 12 of clock, a very smooth half-drive half-clean sound. At zero, great tube-like overdrive. The tone knob is the most versitale I ever heard.

Gave it only 9, because the overdrive could have been fatter, but this can be easily fixed with the blues junior "fat" switch.

No problem so far. Build like a tank.

Never dealt with them.

Overall great clean blender, sounds fantastic! great overdrive too. Wish the drive would be fatter, though.

I'd say it's very easy to get a good sound out of it.

Greco strat -77/Fralin VH neck pu w baseplate - Fulltone Clyde - Sparkle Drive - Fulltone '69 - AMZ Booster - modded/"blackfaced" Fender Concert -83 top - THD 2X12 cab

A little bit noice whith full gain and my drivechannel on high gain, nothing to mention.

Sound quality is awesome. Perfect combination of texture and coloring. I plugged it in whith every knob at 12 o'clock, and they are still that way...

Before I heard it I had a little doubt over the "layereffect", but the clean and overdrive blends perfectly.

Whith everything set at 12:

On the clean channel I get what I missed on the Fulldrive 2:s FM mode I sold a while ago: The sparkle and feel and edge and bite. Tonal coloring about the same.

On the dirtchannel I get raw crunch, clear, but yet whith bite. I hear every note. When I increase gain and blend I get a more searing leadtone whith some harmonics. But I don't use it whits that setting.

I'ts a 808, you can't miss that.

Havent used so long, only a cuouple of months at gigs and rehearsals. I't has the stompswitch attached directly at the board inside, which, have I understood, could be problematic if you should have to repair it. On the other hand, it comes whith a 5 year warranty...

I play in two cover bands, thats covers the most: Rock, soul, pop, disco, funk, from the '60s to nowadays...

I've been playing guitar for 30 years

Would by it again, I'm thinkin about bying another one, and get it modded by Keeley, using it after this one. The "blendingthing" realy made it happen for me. No more mud, only beatyful tone, which I can adjust after taste. Very versatile.

This baby made me think realy serious about getting a Barber Tone Press.

This one came after many OD pedals, example given: BJF Baby Blue, Fulltone OCD, Fulldrive 2 and Distortion Pro. This one I keep.

For the price, its a fantastic value

very easy to use. Blend control is gradual and tapers well. Not suddenly one way or the other.

I saw a lot of reviews that seemed to be guys running them into cleaner amps and commenting on not a ton of gain available. I run mine into a 70's 2203 Marshall usually running the preamp at about 12-2 O'Clock, using Gibsons. It has a perfect push on top of the Marshall. I can definitely play metal with this pedal and the Marshall together. Into a Twin or DRRI, probably not. I love the blend control. Tuned to A440 I only use the clean boost but if I tune down, usually to C#, being able to blend in some of the OD circuit is great for getting some top end snap back. I use the "808" side as an EQ basically.
Overall the pedal as many have said, is quite natural sounding and doesn't obscure the guitar. When boosting I still hear a LP into a Marshall just ballsier and more sustain.

It has True Bypass....a must. I hate using pedals without it now.

It also worked great on Bass as the blend helps you keep the low end together.

It worked solid for over 2 years and has recently had some issues with the switch. Sometimes when turned off the bypassed signal is weak. I would recommend a backup if your sound is designed around this pedal. I have used it live and in the studio many times over those 2+ years so it was really used if you know what I mean.

Here's where it really counts. I have never experienced a better customer support experience than with Voodoo Lab. They return emails very fast and have hooked me up in the past with cables for my Pedal Power and are also going to take care of me on the Sparkledrive's switch, pronto. No muss, no fuss.
It's a given things will go wrong and things will fail. What really matters is how are you taken care of when this happens. Voodoo Lab is obviously all about complete customer support. Make a great product and back it up like it was your own.

I play bluesy hard rock and metal from AC/DC and NWOBHM stuff to COC and BLS. This pedal is great for these with an already driving tube amp. For older Metallica and other similar type stuff I would use a more distortion orientated pedal.
Been playing for 22 years. I also have a Dunlop Dimebag wah, Boss Hyper Fuzz, Line 6 DL4, Boss DS-1, DOD 250, Boss CS-3 and Boss TU-2 tuner. Main guitar is an '83 Gibson Black LP Custom with a Burny Japanese copy as backup.

I also use their Pedal Power (first series), GCX Audio Switcher and the ground control. All work top notch.

I compared it to the MXR Zakk Wylde OD and MXR Distortion + and a few "boutique" choices that GC had. I picked it because it was true bypass and priced better than the other "boutique" choices (also sounded better). The ZW-44 did sound great. In it's own way as good as the Sparkledrive but not better.
If it were lost or stolen I would try another pedal, only for variety, knowing I could always return to the Sparkledrive as a tried and true choice.

If your looking for a better tubescreamer but with a kickin' clean boost as an option that has a well tapered blend feature then this is a stand out choice. I'll give it an 8 instead of a 10 as the switch should have lasted longer but if not for the excellent customer support it would have been a 6. Great company and product.

Pretty straightforward. It's an Overdrive pedal, nothing here to tax the brain too much. Mine's the stock model, with four knobs: gain, volume, tone, and clean. The only issue is the balance between Gain and Cean, which is the whole selling point of the pedal.

When the Gain is fully engaged, the Clean is overridden, and vice-versa. With Gain turned right DOWN, you have a Clean Boost pedal. The tone control only affects the Gain, not the Clean.

The manual explains all of this, and includes some soundclips on a CD.

Voodoo Labs admit quite openly that this is basically an original 808 Tubescreamer, but with a twist, in the form of its 'clean blend'. The Sparkle Drive doesn't give spectacular gain, but it will take you further than the (admittedly very good) Keith Richards sound the reviews spoke of. It takes you into dirty Classic Rock territory as well: Van Halen /AC-DC/ Gary Moore, if you want to go there. But anyone looking for an extreme killer distortion/ hooligan death-metal device has got the wrong box here.

As a gain pedal, it is pretty damn good. A nice, full, throaty overdrive; tight, but not too compressed. I'm playing it mostly through a small Mesa-Boogie combo, and occasionally a Fender Twin. At rehearsal and small gig volumes, I prefer it to the gain channel on the Boogie. Some overdrive pedals make your sound very thin and compress the hell out of it. This sounds broader somehow, more valve-y and authentic-sounding. Likewise, it is quite transparent and *drives* the signal, without colouring it. My Boogie still sounds like a Boogies, my Twin sounds like a Twin. This pedal does what it should and creates a righteous, overdriven amp tone, not the sound of a gnat in a jam-jar that has just flown into your speaker cabs.

The Clean blend is a good idea. You can go all the way from a mildly overdriven pop/country-rock sound, to full-on growly rock, as mentioned above. This innovation helps keep it more articulate sounding, and also more realistic. There seems to be something about turning UP the clean as opposed to just turning DOWN the gain.

I use a combination of single coil and humbuckered guitars and it seems to cope well with both. On cleaner settings, the single coils shine, as you would expect, but using a 335, for example gives you lots of sustain.

I hear some of the available mods will give you more dirt, which I guess would make it more versatile.

I play varied stuff: blues, rock, country, jazz; rootsy kind of music. I'm not looking to emulate any one particular artist.

Only had the pedal about a week, so I would hope to use it w/o backup. Very sturdy casing, but there seems to be an issue with this type of switch - people claim that they crap out eventually. I guess manufacturers use them to distinguish their product from the ubiquitous Boss design, which seems to have it about perfect.

Brand new pedal, never dealt with the company. There was a form to send back within ten days, giving a 5-year warranty, which sounded fair. Living in the UK, you always pray for good service, as it is a drag to have to deal trans-Atlantic.

I have played guitar over 20 years now and used a whole bunch of overdrives: Boss, Marshall, Ibanez, etc, etc. This is up there with the best of them, if not the best. The Fulltone Fulldrive is supposedly the Holy Grail of overdrives, but based only on the soundclips I have heard, the Sparkle Drive seems to be well in the neighbourhood.

I chose it because I was intrigued, basically, and thought intuitively that it would suit my sound. So far, I am not disappointed. Not a vast amount of gain, to repeat, but very rich, tubey, and authentic-sounding. The Clean blend is a simple but valuable feature.

I am being generous and rating it 9, which is really 8.75. It *is* expensive for what is only an overdrive pedal. Just one switch, no different modes or settings. It's not like a modeller, with patches and bells and whistles, or a rig that makes your cappucino and gets your email. I got a slight discount, but ??100 or more full retail is a lot. Why gear in the UK costs so damn much is anyone's guess, I suppose we're all too polite to say anything about being consistently ripped off.

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!

It's easy to dail in the tone you are looking for. After playing around for my first 20 minutes with this pedal, I was able to find 2 or three nice settings with some simple knob turning.

My guitar of choice is a G&L hollow ASAT (Tele style) with dual humbuckers installed. I feed the signal through a 120watt Crate Vintage club head on top of a 2x12 loaded with a Vintage 30 and an Eminence Legend.<br>
I mostly set the clean fairly low and the gain up around 2 or 3 o'clock. My tone setting is set around 1-3 o'clock. This gives me a great hot 'n balanced attack that reminds me of a Keith Richards, Joe Perry, or Tom Petty rhythmn sound.<br>
The response is very even. The clean boost really helps the treble sing and to bring out each note when playing individual strings. When compared to a TS9 TS808 (which I sold after being pushed off of my pedal board by the Sparkle Drive) the bass response is fatter and the mids less harsh. It's quieter too. Same goes for the Boss DS or OD pedals (a couple of my buddies on more of a budget play these) You can't beat the high quality analog circuitry of this pedal.

No issues at all after a couple years of use. The switch and knobs still operate like new, and the durable case seems to be very resistant to wear.

Never had to deal with customer support. The packaging and simple manual is nice and their website is sensible and useful. Judging by that, I would guess that their customer support is rather adept as well.

I play all types of rock music from classic to more modern, but mostly rock in the style of the Ramones, the Jam, or U2. Sometimes I play Beatles, Stones, and Zeppelin style rock. I mainly play bass, but I record some rhythmn guitar tracks as well. This pedal is versatile enough to work quite well for pretty much anything I play that requires a bit of a harder edge or requires more of a hard rock vibe. It can do both very well. I haven't done too much experimentation with a straight clean boost and less dirt, but it works very well at doing what I require it to do.<br>
I would [i]highly[/i] recommend this pedal to anybody who might be considering an Ibanez or Boss pedal. The price is higher, but the sacrifice in dollars is really made up for in quality and depth of tone.

It's very easy to use its just got so many possibilities in terms of setting. Not at all an "all knobs on 11" type pedal just cuz' thats not its thing, but also engaging the clean all the way will make it into a clean boost only.

I have to rate this a 10. Silly it seems but i've been without an amp for quite a while and just was reading these reviews and remembering how much fun this thing is. It definately has a tube screamer sound but idk, it's hard for me to just call it a "clone screamer." When i had amps i had a Marshall DSL 1x12 combo and a little 10 watt crate practice amp. I'd say that overdrive at about 3o'clock and clean at about 9-11o'clock was my favorite setting, i liked its tube screamer sound with the clean added in to add some bite, like real complexity to the sound.
My cousin (old enough to be my uncle with kids my age) happened to score an amp off an old lady. It was broken as far as she knew, and he didnt and doesnt really know amps (counrty music guy all acoustic) so he bought it off her for 100 bucks. Its only problem was the power cord needed to be replaced: IT WAS A VINTAGE BLACKFACE FENDER SUPER REVERB!!! He lent it to my dad to play around with a bit and when i plugged the sparkle drive into that bad boy GOOD LORD! Instant SRV i kid you not lol! My dad played with it more than i did when i did this, he even liked using it for country and kicking it in for quick little solo runs when he and my cousin and their band (all related) played out... borrowing it for days at a time and once in a while forgetting it at my cousin or uncle's houses...
Oh btw almost forgot a word on guitars:
Fender Jag-Stang with stock neck and Seymour JB, sounded good nice rock feel throught the DSL and was the first way id experienced "Stevie" in my kitchen with my dad and the Super LOL(i was the biggest nirvana fan at the time)
Washburn Bt8: stock: marshall: again a good sound with humbuckers driving it tho this guitar still needs to be fixed as the bridge cuts out.
Cousin's American Strat: Super:WOW! read above! this was awesome, for me it was damn near religious lol.
I played all these guitars with the pedal through the crate too, it did its thing well enough at bedroom levels but it shined with just a little more push from the louder amps.

Well i can't really give an opinion here. I never gigged with it tho my dad did and it held up well. I'd heard bad things about the switches even when i bought it but its been without batteries in the bottom of a milk crate collecting dust for quite a lil while unfortunately.

Never dealt with them.

Man i loved this thing. I play rock of all sorts and i love the blues. For a blues style this thing is killer, and my dad even liked it for his country. For rock or harder rock (i liked bands like Nirvana, Foo Fighters and a bunch o' punk guys at the time tho havin a country guitar playin dad my tastes were always broad)its good for a mellow sort of feel. I've been playing about 10 years now, and i have a bunch or crunch pedals. I have a Hot cake, a Rat, a Sustain punch creamy dreamer and they are all just different animals. As i said i've been between amps for quite a little while. At one point i stopped playin little shows with my friends and since they all had one amp or another (most louder than my little Marshall dsl even if i loved that thing) i figured what the hell i need money for my student loan i'll sell it and just use ev1 elses amp. The crate was my sister's boyfriend's who became her ex-boyfriend: bye bye practice amp. And the Super Reverb as never mine to begin with tho i had more than my fun with it.
And that brings me to the big point and the reason i wanted to "Gush" on this pedal after having it for so long: FUN. Playing with this pedal was so much fun wish i had an amp just so i could break it out again. It has alot of range and the mix of sound is pretty wide, tho its not a do-all pedal like the hotcake which can go unbelievable clean boost-crunch-distortion-raging wall of fuzz. And this thing, i dunno how to say it. It doesnt make your gear sound like your gear, it makes it sound like your gear played through THIS pedal, tho thats kinda any 808 Tube screamer in my experience.
anyway to me this pedal was alot of fun and i recommend it to any1 looking for a ts808 ts9ish sound, or just lookin for a "Stevie" sound. LOL! Cyall later

Pretty straight forward- level,tone,drive,clean--the clean option is a nice idea but it should have it's own tone control.

You can get good sounds out of this pedal but when compared to my TS-10 and Boss OD-1 it sounds ordinary. It has a very hard, uncompressed solid state sound to it. I have two Warmoth guitars(Strat w/Van Zandts,semi-hollow tele w/Fralin P-90&PRS McCarty humbucker)I play through a modified 66 Fender Bassman head/Peavy classic 4x10 w/mojotones A/B'd with a modded Peavy classic 30/Mesa 2x12 w/greenbacks. Effects go Sparkle Drive-TS10-Deluxe Memory Man-Moogerfooger Low Pass Filter-Maxon AD999 delay-Boss DD-6-Digitech Digiverb.I am not using my OD-1 because it needs a new switch. What really seems to help the Sparkle Drive for me is running it after my TS-10. However this takes away the clarity of the TS-10, so I have no choice but to put before the TS-10. I set the clean at 9o'clock,Drive at 10o'clock and use it as little as possible.

No problems yet but I don't use it much-I've read many reviews where people have problems w/ the switch. I plan to sell it when my OD-1 is fixed.

I play alot of different styles of music-blues,jazz fusion,funk,prog-rock,prog-metal,celtic folk rock,etc.I play out regularly and record alot at home. This pedal acually sounds better when I'm recording at low to medium levels at home w/ a smaller amp. With my live setup I find myself wearing out the switch on my TS-10 and I miss my OD-1 dearly. When I bought this pedal I tried it through a Mesa Nomad,a Vibrolux and a Traynor and it sounded pretty good so maybe it just doesnt like my setup. I just think there are much better pedals out there for the price. TS-10w/JRC4558-$30 used.Boss OD-1w/JRC4558-$60 used. These are over 15 years old and I've only encountered one malfunction w/them.Acording to the reviews it seems the Crackle Drive only lasts for about 6 months before you have to replace the switch after moderate use. You can mod it but that would put the overall price around $200-not worth it in my opinion. If you you have that much $ to spend on a OD pedal get a Durham Sex Drive or 3 or 4 used TS-10s-not that the TS-10 is a great pedal but even the ones w/ the cheaper op amp chips have a more natural tube like tone than this pedal.

very easy to use..i found my "sweet spot" and have marked the setting.

I have a number of good OD pedals incluning TS808/TS9/Analogman and Keeley modded ts9/fulltone etc and this is as good as any. Its real strength is the clean boost which sounds extremely sweet and you can dial in just enough dirt to juice it up without losing jangle and ..well sparkle in fact!..the tubescreamer style dirt is good and in same league as the other pedals mentioned above.cleans up beautifully on turning down.used with cornford hurricane and BF deluxe and super reverbs.

well main reason for writing is to confirm the switch problem but also how well voodoo lab help out...I bought this used and have no idea how old it is and i told them so..despite this they were very helpfull and mailed me a replacement switch all the way to England..HOWEVER ,...ive now had the replacement switch go wrong as well ...and i dont mistreat them honest!..fitting the switch is a DIY job if you are careful but you need to carefully destroy the old switch so you can desolder its six contacts from the board so you are not going to do this in the pub,in the dark,between sets,after 3 pints of lager while chatting up the drummers girlfriend [nb bad idea anyway...drummers like hitting things!]

see above ..best service ive ever had..mind you the most times ive ever needed to contact a manufacturer.

This is an excelent pedal which is as good as any pedal of its type that ive come across.Its great for that singing sparkly just breaking up tone and works really well with a nice clean valve/tube amp.cleans up well and has something unique with that lovely clean sound to blend with the dirt.Guitar player magazine I think gave this an editors pick and they were right!..However there is clearly an issue with the switches breaking at regular intervals for some reason ..pedal is good enough to have a spare and replace the switch every so often...Id definately replace it if stolen..essential.

4 knobs...come on now.

this pedal is fantastic. if you have a blackface setup, this is it. i've done the whole maxon, ts808, sd-1...the whole gamut. this and the original marshall bluesbreaker and maybe the visual sound pedals are my favorites. it has a little less mid hump than a 808 and a bit more fidelity to the gain. this pedal sounds great low gain, boost or dimed out. I almost want two...but i use a cheaper pedal for the boost.

i have some quality gear and this is it...very good pedal.

Because of the massive versatility and array of tones on offer you may find yourself twiddling the wrong knob to find a rare and fresh sound, though getting a basic crunch or overdrive is pretty simple.

I'm using an Gibson SG standard and a Fender Blues Junior.
It produces anything from a clean boost to a rock crunch. Each note on my guitar seems to cut through. The pedal sounds a lot like a BOSS OD-1 (which is a quality overdrive), though the sparkle drive has more sounds on offer with it having a tone knob and clean knob. Also this pedal is true bypass and it works 100% great.

Built like a block of iron.

I hear VOODOO LAB are great with customer support though I haven't needed it.

I got it off Ebay for a bargain price though if it were lost I would by one new straight away, full price. It's a fantastic overdrive with millions of tones on offer and the true bypass makes it all the better. I recommend getting one if you are looking for a lifetime overdrive.

I've reviewed this pedal before, love it, read down for what I've been wanting to add...

Great, a little smooth for some tastes maybe, but that also depends on your amp and guitar....

so here's where I just wanted to add a new note...I'd had the pedal for about a year and a half or so, and the engage switch started wigging out...the "on" light would flare up, but my sound would just vanish...if you jiggled it, eventually it would come back on, but clearly I had the same basic faulty switch problem that everybody has had...bummer, but read on....

....so I called them, very friendly guy immediately answers the phone, I never registered this thing, they have no history on me or when I bought, and there going to do the repair and send it back to me for free....super helpful and nice. this is really important, because no matter how well your gear is built, and the sparkle drive is built as well as anyof them, the excrement is going to hit the appliance periodicly and your going to need it fixed...voodoo labs is the most helpful company i've ever interacted with. highly recommend their gear.

jazz, noisy fusion, indie rock, etc......for six years or so.
would def. buy it again.

Plug in and turn the knobs,You wont find a bad sound here

Ive been seaching for the ULTIMATE boost for solos,THIS IS IT!I have a Mesa Dual Rectifier ,Marshall TSL 2000,and 50watt JCM 800.This pedal KILLS on the Boogie.Adds great sustain without changing the sound of the amp.Very subtle,transparent and makes notes "jump" out of the cabinet.Ive tried many OD and boost pedals but this sounds the best by far.With the TSL its a little noisey,but still great.On the 800,which is a lower gain amp,it sounds good but ,like other reviewers stated,this isnt gonna change a lower gain amp into a screaming metal amp.But if your a metal player with a great high gain amp and an ear for great tone,this pedal will take solos "over the top"

seems tough enough,but I always seem to have problems with these type of switches,we'll see...

N/A ,havent had to deal with them

My only negative comment is that the knobs are close together and have a "loose" feel,they could easily be moved with your foot during a gig,havent giged with it yet,so I'll have to see..I own or have owned a Boss od-3,Boss super od,Ibanez ts-9,Boss graphic eq,Boss blues driver,Dunlop zakk wylde,dod yngwie,MXR micro amp,marshall guvner,proco Rat,and others and if you lookin to just give your amp a natural sounding "boost",this pedal is the best ive tried.

very easy. set your gain and tone then blend in clean or (articulation) as I think it should be called.

setup as follows.
gibson sg standard
sparkle drive
fulltone clyde deluxe
boss dd-6
boss ce-2
boss tu-2
eh holy grail
Orange rocker 30.

I prefer the sound of my dirty channel on my amp by itself. I use the sparkle drive to bring out my effects more. My amp is really stripped down and doesn't have a loop. because of this the Wah especially doens't sound as good by itself without the overdrive in front of it. I was using a tone sucking stock boss super-overdrive which actually sounded great with the wah, but nothing else. Anyway, long story short this pedal if more than i had hoped for. I find that i'm leaving in on all the time. it really breathes extra clarity and complex harmonics into your sound. sometimes i use it on my dirty channel to push me into the zakk wylde range. I'm glad I got this instead of the fulltone I was looking at. double the price.

Only had it for a couple of days now. seems solid. high quality parts throughout.

I've dealt with these guys once before. Awesome. I needed some different cables for my pedal power 2. they called me back within 5 minutes and sent me the stuff i needed for free. couldn't ask for more. Much better than Fulltone.

exactly what i was looking for.

n/a

n/a

n/a

I submitted a review about a year and a half ago. I love the Sparkle Drive and use it primarily as a boost/light overdrive. I got the Keeley mod which perhaps gave the sound a little bit more gain and articulation, but IMHO it didn't change the sound as drastically as some reviewers said.
Anyway, the main reason I'm writing is because I'm mighty impressed with their customer service. The footswitch became faulty (intermittent) after about a year. I called Voodoo Lab and left a voicemail message - they called back in about 15 minutes. I sent the pedal in, and as it was still under warranty, they replaced the switch for free and got it back to me within a couple of weeks.
Unfortunately, the switch went again after a few months. No, I don't weigh 300 lbs. or abuse it!!! I called Voodoo Lab earlier today and again they got back to me in 15 minutes. Even though the unit is no longer under warranty, they are still going to fix it for free!!! As I have had terrible customer service experiences with other companies (Zoom and Steinberg immediately come to mind), it gives me hope in humanity when a company actually cares about it's customers.
I hope no one takes this as a knock against the quality of the footswitches that Voodoo Lab uses. I haven't read the hundred or so reviews so I don't know if this an issue, but shit does wear down and break in this here universe. Point is, they are going to fix it for free, and I didn't have to wait 2 or 4 weeks (or never) for a response and deal with any attitudes. Thanx Voodoo Dudes!!!!!

4 knobs which are easy to use. Ever use a Tubescreamer? same circut.

I use a fender strat or moded epi SG into a behringer GMX 212 set to a good clean sound or overdriven Marshall sound. in addition i have other pedals which suck tone or i thought they did. turns out it was the amount of cabble i use.
got this for about 50 bucks off a sale price. dont remember the amount but it was under 100. this thing has my tone in it. well no it doesn't but the clean blend is agod send to me because with the gain i'm looking for but the articulations and stuff i use in my playing i often had to sacrifice one or the other. Not any more. Now to the amp thing it doesn't sound like 2 amps although you can get a decent Keef sound with it. I have about 4 amps one of them being a vintage reverborocket.
overdriving the reverborocket and using the clean of the Behringer i tested the sound. the pedal just doesn't have that delay you get with 2 amps. but since i'm not looking for that i was looking for more articulations in a tubescreamer type pedal (which is why i have th BD-2 the trebly frequency lets more shine through than a TS9 just sayin). if you dont like the clean function the best reason to buy this pedal is that it has the same circut as an 808 but is made from higher quality parts than the current Ibanez reissue. all in all it sounds amazing in my rig and lets my tone shine through so i dont have to fight a pedal while playing.

well since i got a once in a lifetime deal on this and a small clone (bringing the total up to about $130) i guess i have to use it without backup being as i cant afford another an dont want another. it seems well made and sturdy and think about it if i can gig heavily with a plastic Dano pedal i think a metal encased pedal realy ought to stand up to the rigors. but it's to soon to tell

I play alot of things and i dont feel like going into it again. been playing abou 10 years come september and have always been able to get my tone out of most setups. What i like about my current setup ,which is mainly my favorite pedals, is that i dont have to fight through a pedal for my tone. what i disliked about my previous sources of dirt is that they all sounded like pedals and were a bit to muddy had to fight for my tone to get through. Well then i'm giving this a 9 because what ever i dont have to think about is a good thing.

very basic pedal

been playing for 15 years, and now we perform in a punk/psychobilly band, and our set up goes like so: either gretsch 6119 w/tv joneses, rickenbacker 330/6 with bigsby, or dearmond jazzbox with dearmotrons into that pedal, memory man, and a tuner into either a vox ac15 reissue, peavey classic 30 or an ampeg reverborocket, usually 2 amps! the sound is great! since were a big fan of layering guitar parts as george harrison did on certain beatles/solo recordings, we know how cool they could sound. with a good dirt amp, this pedal is a great boost for solos and all, since our mix is very very dense. it consists of a drummer, upright bassist and rhythm guitarist (using a les paul thru marshall combo) and a skitzofrenic singer. since our sound HAS to be very mid-rangey to have its voice heard in this mix, this pedal does a good job of getting it like so. we know its not common for a rockabilly guitarist to use pedals like so, but we like the sound we get from this.

voodoo labs builds em like rocks! we gig either with this one, or an ibanez turbo tube screamer

never dealt with them, but if necessary, we hear that they are good!

this pedal is a good match for rockabilly/psychobilly! no noe else uses it, cause theyre afraid of stubbing their toes on the pedals or something! weve been playing for 15 years, and own tons of kick ass gear! if lost,m wed definately get this or a reverend drive train, since we used to have that, and it is one hell of a pedal as well. the best feature is the blend knob, since layering sounds cool! we wish it had 2 separate outputs, so the signal could be switched between 2 amps. it definately helps us make the music, since its uncomplicated, and gets great tone!

All knobs are self explanitory. Just a little tricky when blending drive & clean boost.

Using a Aerodyne strat with a all tube handwired(from original specs)Fender Princeton amp treble and bass no mid w/reverb & tremolo . Very basic!!. The unit is a tad noisy with drive past 12 O'clock but nothing major. The effect nails pure vintage amps on 11 and the clean boost really gets rid of any muddy sound you would typically get from a tube amp cranked and not elevated. I love the sound out of this box because I had many overdrives and distortions in my time!

Totally built to last. No backup needed.

Never had to deal with company and hope never to.

I mainly play a lot of bluesy jazz. It fits perfectly for what i do. I have been playing for 25 years and owned alot of guitars,amps,and effects. I love the fact that it does not color your sound unless you turn clean all off and put drive all up. Just enough crackle to rock out on.

Pretty straight forward. Gain, Tone, Blend, and Volume. The only thing that takes a little getting used to is the blend feature which is really the beauty of this pedal.

Set up is: Anderson or Melancon thru Boss tuner-Boss DD3 delay- Dunlop Wah-VooDoo Lab Microvibe-Sparkle Drive. The pedal is only noisey when the volume is cranked up all the way and the blend is all the way down, so obviously it's going to hiss a little. Again, the beauty of this pedal is all the in between sounds like Keith Richards, SRV, and Hendrix which are acheived via the blend option.

So here's where it goes south. I've had this pedal for over 2 years now and in that time, I've had to send it back to the factory twice. It's a problem you read about a lot here; you hit the switch to turn it on and the volume drops almost completely out. The worst part is that it's intermittent. So come solo time, here you go for the gusto, and WHAM! NOTHING THERE! The folks at Voodoo Lab are very nice and accomodating. Both times I sent it back they say the couldn't make the pedal malfunction, so they replaced the switch. It started happening again about 4 months ago, so I called them and John was very professional and sent me some switches. I cannot gig without a backup (HBE Power Screamer) because it is a frightening feeling not knowing when this thing's going to act up. So why do I keep it? It really is the best sounding pedal I've ever owned! I absolutely love it.

Very nice people. Very easy to contact and they react pretty quickly. I wish they were a little more pro-active and deal with the switch problem they have. They seem to be in denial about it, but I have a Microvibe that had the exact same problem, and I have a friend w/a Sparkle Drive with the exact same problem. But I cannot complain about how they've helped me when the pedal malfunctioned.

I've been playing 20 years. I play classic rock and contemporary Christian. This is just a great pedal for any style of music. If it were lost, I'd buy another in a second! This is my desert island pedal. I just wish I could use it without worrying about it going out on me. There really is no comparison to this pedal, no one on the market has anything this hip (again, blend control).

It's a pedal, use your foot!

Very classic in character, like a screamer overdrive or the zillion other screamer imitators, so if you're not shooting for THAT sound you may be disappointed, but in 9 out of 10 cases I'd bet that if you're looking into the sparkle drive then you know that's the case and that IS what you want.

For me, I needed a straight-up overdrive that cleaned up and responded to dynamics. It's not really amp-like in my opinion, but the drive is really biting and clear, which is what I wanted, and the "CLEAN" blend makes it a really cool and fun to customize beyond the standard overdrive tone. I looked at a lot, lot, lot of overdrives when shopping, mostly because there are so dang many, and though there are some really cool things available most anything better or cooler is more expensive, or MUCH more expensive even.

I wanted something basic and I did not want to spend a lot, but I couldn't get excited about picking up a TS or generic clone or Boss version. Despite what brochures or young ears may swear to, a lot of the cheap overdrives out there do not clean up for that NATURAL sound. I don't want to sound old or snobby (like other reviews online can be), but trust me if you know what I mean you know it's important to say this pedal has the goods on the clear but JUST a bit hairy spectrum. This gets it and does a nasty, funky, cool clean thing as well.

Speaking of the "CLEAN" blend, NOTE: it does not sound like you may imagine, so you know. I used to have a funky set up with one guitar split to a clean and dirty signal before hitting the recording board, and this doesn't imitate that the way I thought. It's just more control over the tone, which is good, AND a ready-to-go clean boost, if needed. With one of my old guitars the output is dreadfully thin, and when I use that guitar I beef it up by turning the sparkle drive all the way clean. Saves me from buying a dedicated clean boost, which as much of a pedal hog I am, I just don't need enough to add to an already crowded pedal board. This does the job for those special cases, though. Nice!

I could give it a ten, but come on, it's an overdrive, not a mystical music box that will absolutely change your world. I'm not obsessive about overdrive tone the way I used to be and the way many, many players can be. It's a well-beaten path, no need for reinventing the wheel here. Just give me the perfect thing for getting that classic taste of drive in the right song. The sparkle drive delivers.

9 is very good.

Yeah no problems, and true bypass!

I don't or haven't tried them.

I play guitar, this thing does what I need and more.

I love the CLEAN blend and wish all pedals or pedal makers were into creative additions like that. Like many musicians I get bored, bring on the innovation!

But speaking of random desires, I tend to tweak a lot, so added functions would be nice additions, perhaps, I would add a bass EQ and maybe another, stacked distortion circuit, kinda like the FD2 overdrive, but for half the price I'm quite happy with it. Then again, put it with an EQ pedal and big MUFF like me and you'll have a lot of possiblities, I promise.

Again, I can't just give it a 10, but a 9 means it's does what it does with excellence, though, really, no more, no less. Hard not to love!

No problems here, although learning to blend the clean signal with the gain signal to your preference may take some practice.

I play through fender tube amps with a prs custom 22.

True bypass is a good thing.

Pedal is quiet. I don't know that it could be quieter.

This a fairly excellent sounding pedal; really lovely overdrive sound, and you can retain more attack (via the clean signal) than you can with your average tube screamer style peadal.

I've had some switch problems as well--seems like everyone has. they're not a big deal, but they should fix this.

will probably get the switch replaced soon.

I play various experimental forms of rock and jazz, lots of noisy stuff--I like the varieties of tone and feedback I can get with this baby--I can use her just for boost and let my amp do the overdriving, or I can use the big, overdrive tone from the pedal. Preserves the character of my guitar nicely as well.

Easy to operate. Every knob does something.

This pedal is the perfect match for my plexi. Its pretty much a tube screamer without the clean boost. The plexi is already dirty and i use this pedal to push it over the edge.

Try maxing out the drive, tone and volume knobs which will give you a nasty trebly sound then, set the clean to around halfway. Run this into a plexi(ish) type of amp and this pedal is the shit! You get the boost of the clean to overdrive the preamp and then you can dial in how much 'screamer' you want via the clean dial. Here is where they get the 'sparkle' from.

The options are endless.

Dont get it if you dont like tube screamers!

Ive used it solidly almost daily for 5 months at home, rehearsals and gigs with absolutely no problems.

I expect no problems.

Never dealt with them on this.

This is an extremely useful pedal for my use with my plexi to push the front end and add a little bit of tube screamer to the mix without muddying up the tone.

Forget about it being stolen. Im actually buying another one soon to 'cascade' with even more tonal options.

The clean dial is this pedals selling point and it is perfect for driving a tube amp that is already slightly dirty.

The people dogging this pedal probably dont realise that it IS a good pedal but it just doesnt do what they wanted it to. Dont get it if you hate tube screamers.

Does what it say's on the tin. Add's both sparkle and drive.

It disapoints me when people confuse there requirements with what a unit can provide. Guitarists who don't like this pedal most likely want it to do something it does'nt.
It's great for
'Making any amp's clean and slightly overdriven sound better'

It's bad for
'Metal, thrash, shred etc'

If your looking for a pedal that boosts clean sounds (good for country, blues) and also has the bad bit's of the original tube screamer removed, this is it. I love the simple lightly distorted cristal sound. If you have listened to classic electric blues, country and rock you will spot the value of this pedal.

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In the UK this pedal is expensive. You could score one cheaper on ebay. It is however similar in price to the Ibanez Tube Screamer re-issues and half the price of boutique units.
It's much better than my original tube screamer due to the clean boost and a better mid range. I find the mid's of the TS808 a bit cloudy but it is a classic unit and this highlights the quality of the Voodoo.

No firmware ... :) No need manuel.
it's 100 % analogic, 4 knobs : drive tone clean volume. Nothing complicated.

The worst thing with this pedal is that i have to bend over to turn the knob, which is pretty normal for a pedal "on the floor".

light overdrive; light clean; tone around 10 or 11 o'clock and enough volume whatever setting i obtain a warm pretty good jazz sound.

drive at 12; no clean; tone 1 o'clock with a volume not too high : i can play with the clean in order to sweep away a little of dirt and i obtain a SRV hendrix and good crunchy light od tube sound which is very good.

drive at max, I play around with tht tone knob : volume low ... i got a good OD for rythm "kick ass" when the amp is clean warm when tone is low, with lot of volume and the tone pushed to the right the amp change is color and get really nasty if you have already a light od from the amp. That rocks.

After all of it ...

I put after the sparkle drive a classic distortion : with the clean at the max : WOW ..... here i am .. blowing like a hurricane ... if you know what i mean ....
so same config with drive instead of clean in the setting ... and again ...WOW ... lot of dynamics ... lot of compresion for the solo and it's natural .... nothing to worry about it.

This pedal rocks .... Check this out ...

no noise you don't want to hear when you record or something like that .... and the sound is really dynamic and warn (not like the podxt which put you in cold non natural sound even if that's do a good job, it's damn far of the real thing)

all what is in it is high quality features ... film resistors, capacitors polystuffidon'tknow, JRC4558whatever, etc ....

A true bypass .... Who does that really ? ibanez .... no no no i have to buy a mod or a A/B pedal to get back my clean sound ... GRRRR ... i don't to be stiggy but damn ....

i open it !!!! i didn't see any excessive wire which increase the lost of the ... it's tight ... eventhe battery plug actually is ot made with crap it's a damn robust plastich which is'nt gonna die in your hand after years O_O

129 $ : LOL are you kidding me ? why is it so cheap .. and it's made in U.S.A ??????

I plug it just after the guitar ... and i need an another one for serial plug : i need it :)

hmm hmmm ....

the pedal is well built so there is no matter calling them ...

... I would like a sticker ?

I play everything and nothing !

Good'sic to crap'sic.

I would like a twin sparkle drive something damn killing.

ONE is not enough :)

I use the sparke drive with mainly a 57' reissue Strat, a Vox AC30 and/or an 80's JC-120. My effects chain consists of a Dyna Comp>Sparkle Drive> Fuzz Face clone> Ibanez CS9 Chorus> Maxon Ad-900 delay.
I'm a bit confused by some of the negative comments regarding this unit. To me, first and foremost it is a TS-808 clone, with an added clean boost that can be mixed in to taste. Now a few words about each of these seperately: The OD circuit is an accurate reproduction of the 808 Tubescreamer circuit, warts and all. If the TS sound is not your thing, there is no sense in buying the Sparkle Drive. That said, as far as TS9's and 808's go, the Sparkle Drive sounds as good if not better than the best of the originals. Imagine replacing all the cheap caps and resistors in a 808 with high quality components and the resulting improvement in clarity (read -less muffled) and noise ratio. Also, it seems the taper of the pots is more smooth and gradual, as well the tone knob having a bit more usefullness as opposed to the original. Enough said.
The Clean boost is wonderful. Your original tone, just louder with the "hardness and stiffness" many otherwise excellent clean boosts have.
Blending the two sides gives a little more character the one side or the other, but for the most parts I use one side or the other.

So far so good. I think they stand behind thier products.

Two classic effects in one makes this a great value. High quality components, low noise and true bypass. The TS-9/808 sound has become a staple of classic rock and blues. Forget the hype of how it's transparent or sounds just like your amp- it doesn't. It completely colors you tone and sounds like a Tube Screamer- learn to love it. The Sparkle drive is a Great TS-808 plus added blendable Clean Boost. Enjoy.

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.

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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!).

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.

Easy as a Tube Screamer with one added control.

I use SG's and strats through a Rivera made Fender Concert and a Fender Blues Jr.

This is basically a TS-9 tube screamer with true bypass and an added control to dial in a blend of pure clean sound. It is fantastic. You can add just enough to bring some definition and clarity to the tone, which is already excellent.

In my opinion, this is the single best overdrive pedal ever made. What a fantastic idea. I cannot believe that no one had ever though about this before. The added clean control brigs a deep, big clarity to the distortion sound. It reminds me of Stevie Ray Vaughan a lot. Of course there are many ways to use the pedal. But the bottom line is that if you have a great guitar and great amp, and you are tired of overdrive pedals that mask the sound of your guitar, then THIS is your pedal.

Keep in mind there is NOT a lot of gain on board. It is very much an overdrive, NOT a distortion box. Compared to my Maxon Tubescreamer (with true bypass), the Sparkle drive sounded ALMOST identical when using just the overdrive side. The SD has a bit more low end and warmth though. Compared to my vintage Boss SD-1, the Sparkle has a bit less gain and crunch, but much more low end in the overdrive side. And as soon as you kick that clean side in there, the sound fattens up AMAZINGLY well. Provided of course, that you have a good fat clean sound to begin with. This is the type of pedal for people who have great tone to begin with, becasue it doesn't mask your tone.

I'll say it again: this is quite possibly the best overdrive box ever made. Forget about the Tube Screamer. This is the pedal. Man I love this box.

It looks like it was engineered great like all Voodoo Lab stuff. These guys are at the top of the game right now. Get their stuff while we are in the "golden age" of it. Mark my words.

I dalled them once about something completely different (a Micro Vibe...another great pedal) and they were REALLY nice at chatty. Very sweet and warm. Ane they know their shit too.

This pedal is great. If you want more gain which I can understand people wanting (this pedal has EXACTLY the same amount as a Tube Screamer, and a little less than a Boss SD-1 Super overdrive), Keely Electronics does a mod that boosts the gain. Sounds interesting. I was thinking of getting a second Sparkle Drive for a higher gain thing and keeping one more vintage. That's how good this pedal is. I'd buy two.

my only gripe is that the knobs are hard to adjust in the middle of a song and they are very easily moved if it is accidently bumped. the battery is a pain to get to, but i usually wall-wart it anyhow. otherwise, its my favorite & most used pedal

my usual setup is: american strat-sparkle drive-marshall BB2(sometimes)-RI super reverb. I like it simple & uncluttered. occasionally, i use a les paul loaded with duncan '59s but with this setup the strat sounds better IMO. anyway, the sparkle drive gives many different sounds depending on how its set. i like to adjust it so the notes sound clean but when they sustain they get a smooth overdrive as they decay. its perfect for the music i play.(blues & stuff like that). this pedal pretty much gives the super reverb that "edgy" SRV type tone, yet still manages to let the real tone of the guitar and amp come through. when i play through this pedal i usually just set it, kick it on & forget it. true bypass when its off is a nice plus. very transparent.

its built strong but the switch is mounted directly on the PC board. i'm pretty easy on my gear so no big deal to me but i've heard of problems with this from others. its USA made & all analog so in my book it gets huge points. i never worry about whether or not this thing is gonna work. i've had it almost a year & never a problem.

never dealt but voodoo lab has a cool website with soundbytes for their products

overall this pedal kicks ass. totally gives me the sound i need. i also plug it into smaller tube amps when i'm practicing at home & it still delivers the "edgy" type sound. i used to have a behringer solid state & with that amp it sounded a bit different.(still good) i could here the "two amps in one" description that voodoo lab gives, but when its driving a tube amp it takes the natural breakup of the amp and basically enhances it. another nice feature is when the drive is down & clean is up its a completely transparent boost pedal. i personally think its a little on the pricey side but it does do a great job. still, under $100 would've been nice. (this costs about $130 new).

This pedal is just like a tube screamer with the extra clean setting.If you turn the clean all the way down,it works like an original tube screamer.You get a boost with varying amounts of gain depending on how you set it.You also lose some bass,just like a ts.The cool thing aout this pedal, is that if you turn the tone and gain knobs all the way down and the clean to between 2&3 o'clock and the level to the amoont of boost you want,you get a real nice clean boost without losing any bass.There are also lots of settings in between to play with as well.

Sounds good.If you like the original tube screamer you'll love plus you get other options.

Bought it used, for around $60 at Guitar Center, used. Every once in a while they let a good deal slip through.

4 knobs. Simple. Mixing the clean & overdriven sounds is nothing more than listening for what you like..

I use this with a variety of setups. American Dlx fat strat, Roland Cube 100 (what a tank) at rehearsal and Line6 60/100 amp for gigs (forget the model) with a 90watt EV.

The best thing about this pedal is the way it works in series with other overdrive pedals, like a TS9, a Blues Devil, an orange Fulldrive, all of which I use depending on whatever.

With two overdrives in series, the Sparkle Drive adds the edge to a clean rhythm or pushes the overdrive over the top when the 2nd is kicked on. I set the Sparkle Drive at one level, the other overdrive for slightly more, or slightly less, depending on whatever. The two pedals give me four possibilities. off/off. off/on. on/off. and on/on. Each its own sound.

The SD is quiet.

I do blues mostly, and some classic rock / southern rock stuff. I want to hear the guitar's own tone, not just distortion. The SD is a great pedal for that.

On its own, it's not really a "lead" pedal. It's a little thin. And with the gain higher up, it becomes a little harsh. This pedal is at its best used in moderation.

Where was my sound going? It was cutting out now and then, then coming back. Cables? Power? Nope. Just last weekend I figured out what somebody else did here. The footswitch has a "problem." Haven't had a chance to look at it yet. I saw another Voodoo Labs pedal for sale on eBAY today that had replaced the "crap" footswitch with a good one. That might be the next step. I like the pedal. It looks indestructible, but it seems not to be. And the footswitch, if it's the problem (it is, 99% sure), has self-destructed because I'm easy on stuff. The pedal sits on an SKB pedal board and gets no abuse.

Haven't called them.

Might replace it, or I might try some other pedal, depending on whatever came along.

This thing makes my Twin Reverb sceam. "that's a good thing". The sounds are easy to get set the way you like.The manual is just a single piece of paper explaining very little.But then there is very little to explain.Simple is good!

Sound quality is good-great depending more on which amp-guitar setup you are using.The Fender Ultra with lace sensors is thick sounding with this.
The Reverand Slingshot Custom's P-90's are thick as well. The Telly is a little lighter but that's understandable. The Gibby's humbuckers are into superdrive with this pedal. In short it works well with any of the above .I have tried for years to get by with no pedals because the darn things just sounded fizzy to me. This unit doesn't. It will give you a boost either clean or with additional grit. Grit is the key word here. You can always hear your guitar notes just with a little more flavor.This is true whether you're a tube hound or a solid state kind of guy.

It seems to be solid. Most of my stuff through the years has held up so I must be fairly easy on it. With it being a fairly subtle device I could probably just keep on going without it as I am used to just plugging in straight anyway.

Never had a word to say to them as of now.It works!.

I play a little of everything. Light Rock, Some blues. Older country. Whatever. It will give me the grit I like without the LOUD volume.That's a definite plus.
I've been playing for 30 years off and on and I own too much gear!Mainly using this through a Fender Twin Reverb-Mesa Boogie Subway Rocket-Fender Vibrochamp or a Princeton Chorus." If it were swiped I'd probably check out a Reverend Drivetrain II. Chances are I'd be used to the Sparkledrive by then and would replace it.
I love the way it let's my "limited" lead stuff come out clear with just a little grit to it. I'd like to see the knobs recessed for their own safety. I like being able to add the clean boost into the overdrive.That's the reason I gave it a go in the first place.
I didn't like the other stuff I tried. Too numerous to mention over the years.
I would like just a little more gain but I'd probably use too much then.Better leave it alone.
Oh yeah! My wife said it sounded much cleaner than my main amps overdrive. Said it was a lot clearer.That's gotta be a first around here.I've only used it for a couple of weeks but if the sound's there it's there!This one stays here!

Very easy to use. I love it. It does exactly what I want it to do.

Great sound. Doesn't color my sound too much. I use two channel amps. I like the rhythm sound clean and use the overdrive of the amp for solos. Sometimes I need a little dirt on my clean sound. This is where the Sparkle Drive comes in. I use it to dirty up my clean sound without adding volume or color. I use other pedals for dirtier rhythm.

I've only had it for 5 months, but I haven't had any problems.

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it is really super simple.Turn the clean up for a nice boost that will add some some punch to your sound. Turn the gain up for... well... gain. COOL PART COMING UP IN SOUND QUALITY
V V V

I have a Epihone les paul and a custom strat going to > danelectro cpmpressor > original crybaby > Sparkle drive > boss metalzone > Dod chorus> danelectro pscho flange> Marshall AVT50. Overall if you are looking for a cool overdrive that sounds really really nice and smooth and gives you punchy sustaining solos, go with the Ibanez tube screamer. It is a little bit better than the sparkle drive. BUT... If you want a pedal that not every single person has, one where you can mix the gain and clean (you can hear both sounds seperate from each other it is GREAT for adding a little snap to your solos.) Don't get me wrong it stills sounds really warm, really vintage, but the tube screamer just has a little something extra. If you wondering why I didn't get the tube screamer, its because is didn't react well with my amps overdrive. You have to hear this clean gain mixing. Its awsome!!!! This pedal has silent switching, and true bypass. I am pretty sure its analog too. GO TO GUITAR CENTER TRY THEM!!!!!!!! AND THEN WHEN THE COUNTER GUYS AINT LOOKIN' STUFF THEM BOTH IN YOU PANTS AND WALK CASUALLY OUT OF THE STORE.

seems super solid

This pedal won't give you metal if your looking for that.
Try the tube screamer as well.

The pedal is very simple to use. Plug n play.

I use it as a pre-amp to hit the front end of my Marshall DSL201 combo or Marshall stack, or Fender Super Reverb. It sounds great in front of any of them. It opens up your sound, making the amp more harmonic and responsive to your playing. I think it is the easiest pre-amp out there, turn down the overdrive and turn up the clean output for the clean boost you want to get the strat singing or the Les Paul crankin'.

The mail order company sent it with the wrong power adaptor and it fried it. Not Voodoo Labs fault. The mail order company sent me another one with the correct adaptor and its great.

Never spoke to Voodoo about the power supply issue, it wasnt'their fault.

Works great, sounds great, easy to use. Everyone uses a pre-amp to hit a tube amp to get better tone. Get a Sparkle Drive and live.

This Pedal Rules! for specs and sound samples go to musictoyz.com

I use this pedal in front of a fender pro reverb and a G&L Legacy and this is te sound I've been looking for, ths will give you SRV, Hendrix, trower and much much more, You can dial in a clean sound with the distortion, it's like playing through two amps, simply the best pedal I've ever heard,I traded in a Fulltone for this puppy w/ no regrets

Just got it, don't know

?

I've been playing for 40 years plus and been through every piece of gear out there, some I wish i never got rid of & could find again.Been through all the Amp modeling gear, line six, Tech 21, johnson etc.and it's gonna be a long time before they come even close to a good tube amp with a good stomp box. I've bought the Voodoo Labs sparkle drive, super fuzz and analog chorus and they are "BAR NON" he best sounding pedals I have ever heard, and guess what, they are
inexpensive considering the price for value ratio
traded a fulltone which sounded good, but for my tastes the Vodoo Labs rules, if these pedels were lost or stolen, I would instantly replace them after I hunted down the dirty rotten scoundrels who stold
them and....well,i don't want to think about losig them.
Cheers!

Fairly easy to use and straight-forward. Not a whole lot of a learning curve. It's really up to your basic taste and setting the knobs to your preferences.

At first, I really liked this pedal. But after using it a while, I just found it to be too overbearing. I can't put my finger on it, but something seemed a little artificial about this pedal. I know, I know, all effects pedals are, in a sense, artifical colors of your guitar and amp's tone. But rather than providing a realistic overdriven sound, I got this overwhelmingly bassy signal on top of my drive signal. I also found the controls to be just a little too sensitive for my tastes. Too much of an adjustment from the clean control and that's all you heard. It's almost like one sound was trying to drown out the other and in a sense, they compete with one another which, in my opinion, becomes kind of annoying. I know I sound like I'm beating this pedal up, but that's why this website is here.

Overall, the sound quality was good and I got some good sounds from it, but consistently I wasn't very happy with it.

Had some problems with signal strength. One tap of the switch and I got a pretty beefy sound, the next tap of the switch (all settings the same) I'd get the distorted sound, but at a much lower volume. I'm sure that was just a single isolated problem with my pedal, but it still popped questions into my head about its long-term reliability.

Flip side is the pedal is in a very sturdy steel housing and seems to be built for abuse.

Never had to deal with them. It looks like some people reviewing other Voodoo Lab products have had some problems with their service. Nonetheless, I cannot comment on this.

Play many types, but love to play old rock, blues and country. This pedal does a pretty decent job of fitting those styles, but overall, this just wasn't the pedal for me. I happen to feel like the little Guyatone OD-2 has a better more natural sound than this, but again, that is just my opinion. I ended up selling my Sparkle Drive for the Fulltone Fulldrive2 and have never looked back.

All I can really advise on this is to be sure you A/B this pedal with as many overdrive pedals as you can. Don't get me wrong. This is a nice pedal with some unique features. You may decide it's the best overdrive in the world as we know it. I just think you need to really sample the pedal yourself and not get it based on the way the pedal sounds with professional demoing the unit in a professional studio. (I say this because I did that) Get your hands dirty with it, play will ALL of the settings and then see if you like the sound. If you like it after that, then good for you and you'll be happy for years to come. Unlike the Fulldrive, which is worth every bit of $170.00, this pedal competes sonically with pedals that are good, but don't cost nearly as much.

Pretty intuitive. It's easy to get a good sound out of almost any setting.

For warm overdrive sounds for a guitar, this thing rocks. However, I accidentally stumbled on the most useful setting for myself anyway that any folk/ acoustic musician can appreciate. I play electric violin, which is a fun instrument, but can still be subject to the limits of piezo pickups. However, this setting allows you to get that grit that happens on an acoustic instrument when you really dig in to it that piezos, IMHO, have failed to capture. I have all controls except tone at 12 o'clock, and tone can be adjusted to taste. I have mine set to give me a little bit of boost as well, and so this setting basically gives me the sound of stepping up to the mic and digging in. It's so nice to be able to blend in the clean sound with the driven sound to whatever suits your needs. Plus it's quite responsive to playing dynamics, so you could use this setting for something fingerpicked and then into something that needed more bite.

Oh yeah, the other stuff. Umm.... I'm using the pedal through this rig: Violin --> Samson airline wireless --> Ibanez F7 Fuzz --> Dimebag Darryll Wah --> Sparkle Drive --> Boss PS-5 Super Shifter --> Boss DD-5 delay --> Zoom 504 (the old one) --> L.R.Baggs Para-Acoustic DI --> board/ PA. It's unnoticably quiet both off and on.

It's only farted out on me once, and that was due to it's AC power cord coming unplugged from the Pedal Power box. Fortunately, due to its true bypass, I didn't have to panic about taking by whole pedalboard apart then and there.

The one time I've emailed them about one of their products, I stressed it was a non-priority question and they still got back to me in about 2 days. Quite helpful.

I play celtic rock. I've pretty much been playing all my life. This is a good match for being able to step up and play a nice sounding solo. If it were misplaced, I'd get another without question. I don't think there's one quality about it I dislike. It's definitely inspiring.

Couldn't be easier. Didn't bother with the "manual"!

61 strat & epiphone explorer with line6 pod2.0 & Fender Deluxe amp are the tools at hand. I keep it on all the time with lotsa clean and 1/2 overdrive and have had very good results. I find that when you hit a good clean pod patch and then add some dirt to it, well..the sound gets "thin". Adding the sparkle drive keeps the clean and the bottom there and you lose that airy, uh...shit sound. Quite nice now.

dunno. had it a week.

i hope not to have to find out

mostly play blues based rock. i'd like to say "white hot r'nr' that'll tear the top of your head off" but i'm not that good. i think of this pedal as an "enhancer". there isn't much overdrive which is good. turning the clean setting down with the drive up gives me the aforementioned shit sound. i don't think anyone will be disappointed with this box. funny though, i STILL don't soung like Gary Moore!!

This is a fun low to medium gain overdrive pedal that allows you to blend back the clean signal to add clarity and definition to your overdrive tones. If you appreciate clean tones and occasionally require bluesy, medium grind overdrive, you should check one out.
It's kind of small, light and the dials are really close to each other, but that's not really an issue unless you constantly fiddle with your dials. Just dial-up the grind, blend back some clean signal and go.

I've always liked the natural overdrive of tube amps and still do. But this pedal allows you to really dial-in the amount of grind you want, then you simply blend back the clean signal for the desired amount of definition you need. Nice and neat. The overdrive is evenly compressed and gritty - perfect for blues, roots, rock & surf.
You can also use it as a nice clean boost for low-wattage tube amps. It really pushes the front end there's just enough compression to make boosted clean tones ring. This unit has a respectable true bypass which is reasonably transparent, but, to my ears, I detect a slight high end roll-off. The tone control only affects the overdriven signal but offers a wide range of compensation for both single coil and humbucker guitars. I play tele's, strats and humbucker guitars through
a 1x10 Mesa Subway Blues and a Fender Hot Rod DeVille 4x10 with George
L cables. Occasionally I'll throw a Line6 DL4 in the signal chain.

Had it about a year and a half. Works fine.

Nice website. Never had to contact them for anything though.

Been playing for 30+ years. Enjoy playing a wide variety of styles with a wide variety of musicians. Over the years, I've reduced the amount of effects I use and mostly rely on my hands, good cords and high quality tubes for my "tone". I don't usually prefer pedals, but this little guy has the goods. It's a keeper.

Not much to it; 4 knobs & a switch. Other reviews have covered in detail how the various parameters interact. I've had the Sparkle Drive for about a week, and have only used it on one gig. I give this pedal a glowing review for sound quality. The physical design is my only beef. If it were designed sloping upwards, like many pedals are, it would be easier to turn on and off. It's also a bit on the small side, making the knobs quite close to the switch. I'm a lead vocalist, and find it a bit tricky to aim and hit the exact spot to activate the effect while singing. Also, the switch itself has about 1/2 an inch of 'play' in it before it is activated. Maybe the switches on other high end pedals like Fulltone's are the same in this regard, not sure. Anyway, that's my only criticism. If you're strictly a guitar player, it should pose no problem. And I'm sure I'll get used to it and improve my aim over time.

I'm primarily a rhythm player. My main live rig consists of various Telecasters (all retrofitted with Fender Texas Special pickups) and Les Paul Juniors, a couple of pedals used sparingly- an early Boss phaser, and a Danelectro Dan Echo (hardly botique, but still my favorite-sounding echo pedal), run into a either a Fender tweed Blues Deluxe or a 1965 Bassman head turned up to about 8, through a THD Hot Plate, then into a Mesa Boogie 4x12 cab. So the tone, as you would expect, is sort of a raggedy Keith Richards type of thing. The Sparkle Drive instantly sounded awesome as soon as I plugged it in, with everything set at 12 o'clock. It provides a very natural-feeling compression on both chords and solos. A few other HC reviews for the pedal noted it as being a bit harsh in the high end, but I found it to be very warm throughout the spectrum, and my setup can be borderline brittle at the best of times, depending on the room. Now my problem is that I'm actually considering getting another one- keeping one on a low-gain setting all of the time for rhythm work, because it tightens everything up so nicely, and a second one for boosting solos. Obviously this is not a modern high-gain pedal, but I'm sure you'd get very nice results using it in front of something like a Boogie, Soldano, etc. just to push your tone over the edge a bit more. Guitar hero stuff like SRV, Clapton, etc. is not really my cup of tea, but clearly this pedal could nail those kind of TS-808 blues tones if that's what you're after. I've also tried this pedal with my baritone guitar, and it sounds great- instant Los Lobos.

I was very surprised how light this pedal was- less than half the weight of a Boss or Dano pedal. Apparently the casing is aluminum. It appears to be very solid though. I don't rely on pedals for my tone, so I'd never bring a back-up for any pedal. If something were to cause me grief in a live situation, I'd just yank it out of the signal path and forget about it. And in my opinion, part of spending the extra dough on a pro-quality pedal like this one, is the peace of mind that it won't fall apart under normal gigging conditions.

Can't say. Judging from their literature and website, they seem to be an approachable bunch of folks.

Aside from my slight criticisms of the physical design, this truly is the pedal I've been looking for for years. I've tried just about every overdrive on the market, and the voicing and gain structure of this one (plus the blend control- genius!) is perfect for rock & roll. The effect is subtle, but it just has a way of tightening everything up in a very musical way. I've tried compression pedals, and always hated them, but this adds a gorgeous, smooth & nicely compressed overdrive to the signal. Kind of like adding a high-end vintage outboard compressor to a track in a mix session- evreything just suddenly sounds GOOD. I'm really looking forward to using this pedal heavily both live and in the studio.

No problems here. Very user friendly

My setup is usually an Anderson Hollow T Classic w/ 3 single coils (phenominal guitar) into: vox wah, stage tuner, sparkle drive, fulldrive 2, distortion pro, line 6 delay - into either a pro verb. or a classic 30. This pedal sounds great for what it does. THIS IS NOT A HEAVY OVERDRIVE PEDAL. This pedal is so beautifully unique I can't believe there aren't copies of it everywhere. For so long I have looked for a light overdrive where you can still hear the clean signal of the guitar. In fact, on some recordings I have played on I will record a clean track and then overlay the exact same part with a slightly overdriven TS9/Fulldrive sound. This is a great mix of the two. You can mix exactly how much clean and how much dirty you want together. It sounds like you're playing out of two amps. Very cool for atmospheric-organic type stuff.

Looks great. Built well.

Never dealt with them.

I play all sorts of different stuff. This is a great pedal for what it does. Very ujique, and again, not a high gain type of thing, but very cool and exactly what I wanted.

4 knobs. Pretty basic. Found a few great tones after a couple minutes of fiddling with it.

Setup is a Fender Mexi-Tele or Fender Voodoo Strat into the Sparkle->DanEcho->Voodoo Analog Chorus->Fender Twin Reverb reissue. It sounds great, from a light overdrive all the way up to a full driven crunch. The clean boost can make things pretty funky as well.

Only used in practice thus far, but I think it could take a fair amount of live abuse.

Haven't needed it yet.

I love this pedal!! I've been playing for about 16 years and I'd probably choose this over my friend's Tube Screamer. If Sparkle were stolen I would definitely replace it. I love the tonal variations one can get with some simple knob twisting. A great pedal!

The exact features have already been covered in previous reviews, so I'd just like to add a bit about my experience with the pedal. It's extremely easy to use; very intuitive. I got great tones straight away. It takes quite a bit of knob-twirling to chance a sound radically, so stage use is essentially limited to set-and-forget; no changing tones on-the-fly. You might say, "well, duh...," but I found the clean(ish) boost sound so agreeable I wanted the effect on all the time, not just for the overdrive. Pity I don't have the cash to spring for 2 units.

The sound can range from a very transparent clean boost to a mild overdrive. Not for metal-types, or infinite-sustainers, but perfect for those looking for a more organic tube-like warmth. The gain/clean blend can be dialed to give you a just-breaking-around-the-edges Keith Richards-type vibe, or a wide-open amp sound. A mixed gain/clean gives your chords a nice chunk.

So far so good, about a year out, but I'd expect that of any pedal in this price range. Certainly solidly-built, as noted before.

Overall, a great find. If you like the Tube Screamer, you'll most likely enjoy this one, and probably find it a little more versatile. (I seem to remember the TS being a little hotter, but it's been a few years) It sounds great with my Strat and my Ric 330, running into either a 70's Bassman head or a Peavey Classic 30 (a great little amp - yeah, yeah, I used to hate Peavey, too.) I'd replace it in a heartbeat. Good for any manner of roots-rockin'.

It's very easy to use. The fact that the labels for the controls appear above the knobs rather than below them hasn't confused me yet. ;)
The manual is literally a joke - it's half a side of one sheet of grainy xeroxed paper - but you really don't need it.
As far as power goes, you do need to unscrew the bottom off the case to change the battery. It does have a power jack & will work off the current BOSS adapter or something similar.

If you like the Tube Screamer/overdrive type sound, you'll probably like this pedal as it sounds an awful lot like a TS-808. The "Clean" control is great - you can blend in some "straight" signal with the overdriven signal to simulate the sound of double-tracked guitars. Very cool. If you turn the "Clean" all the way up, the overdrive drops out & you just get a bit of a volume and presence boost. It's not noiseless, but is pretty quiet as overdrive pedals go. It doesn't tone suck when bypassed. The level boost is substantial, unity gain occurs at just under the 9 o'clock position, so use caution the first time you fire it up lest you blow out your speakers or eardrums...

It seems to be built pretty well...

It's hard to reach them. I never received a response to the e-mails I've sent, but then again that might not be their fault.

Cool concept, great pedal. If you're after the Tube Screamer kind of sound, the price is fair.

Very easy, nothing out of this world.

Setup is - Fender american Strat with DiMarzio Virtual vintage into
DOD 250Compressor/Spkldrive/voodolabBosstone/wah/etc.../.../Fender De'Ville212
Not noisy at all, love the warmth the sound radiates. One improtant feature - thye sound of this pedal cuts thru the sound of the band.
Mine is 7 people band with 2 guitars&2keyboards and thats LOUD, but I hear the padal anywhere on stage&in the room we rehearse.

It's good.

never had a reason to deal with'em

super

It took me about a half hour to figure out that the best use for this pedal for me would be as a booster.

I have a Vox Valvetronix amp 60 watt amp, various fx, and Ibanez 7 string (magenta crush) and a Jackson Dinky (with the sustainiac which is killer).
The all out fuzz on this thing is ok - not great but not bad. I use it as a booster which has become very useful to me. If the fuzz/dry control is turned all the way to clean, there seems to be a little coloration but not enough to make me upset. My boss where I teach guitar tried it; he's quite the conservative purist when it comes to tone and he loved how it added grit and presence to his 59 Fender Bassman. There are probably boosters out there that are a bit more transparent but I don't feel the need to seek them out. The Sparkle Drive has become an integral part of my rig.

No problems yet - seems sturdily built.

Called once - don't even remeber why - but whoever I spoke with was friendly enough.

I play alot of different styles (not necessarily well) but my favorite stuff is 70's progressive. This pedal increases the flexability of my rig, sounds great and is built well. Definitely worth the money to me

Functions are simple, but the addition of the clean knob takes some tweaking to find the desired sound. Also the knobs are put too close to each other and the screws to change the battery are not easy like in most other pedals.

At first I was disappointed because it sounded not as smooth as my TS9/808 and has clearly less gain/drive, which was even less when blending in the clean function. However, after playing it for a year (at home and occasionally at blues sessions), I like it more and more. The lack of smoothness actually goes together with much better difinition and responsiveness to high frequencies giving it a cutting and singing edge, if desired. The tone knob full CCW removes the edge/definition to a more TS-smoothness.
The clean boost only is very good and transparent. Yet there is a audible difference when switching the clean-only on and off with drive full down, but different, not necessarily bad sounding.
The gain up and clean down gives the classic TS sound, including loss of lows, compression and mid-hump, but with crispier highs and more definition (or cutting edge if you want). VL claims they have the TS sound using the 4558 chip, but: ?.....upgraded other components such as using high pricicion metal resistors and modern polyester film capacitators....? (From manual sheet). Like in a TS, the lows get lost. Here the clean can be dialed in. It reduced the gain but, though not sounding as two amps, a layering is audible which gives it a certain ?spacyness? which I like. It is like jumpering the channels on my two channel fender.
The tone knob works fine. It has a broad range like the TS, but above 2 o?clock I barely use it as it gets too trebly. It would be nice if the range of the tone knob was shifted towards the CCW side, more close to the TS tonal range, but its not an big issue for me.
I play a ?75 tele custom through either a fender ?76 sf princeton (with PI-mod and weber C10Q) or a ?64 bf fender tremolux trough a open cab with 2x12 ?74 celstions G12H?s, with an upgraded OT in the tremolux. Both amps have a great, but clean sound, so for overdrive/disttortion I have to rely mainly on pedals (fulltone soulbender > TS9/808 w/true bypass > sparkle drive, that?s all).
I think these HC reviews are generally very helpful, but sometimes I miss a clear description of the guitars/amps used and, more important, the sound levels played at. I think this is very important because a overdrive can sound almost fuzzlike at bedroom volume but can loose its drive when playing at gigging levels through a almost clean tube amp like I do. Putting a TS9/808 and the sparkle drive in series solves the problem, but lows get lost even more and the sound is overcompressed with a huge mid-hump. Also, I agree with a previous review that at gigging levels, it is very hard to hear the difference between a TS and a sparkle drive, while at bedroom volume, there?s a clean difference with the sparkle more articulate (or harsh) and the TS more warm (or muddy).

I rather use a soulbender for the leads instead of the TS and the sparkle drive in series in this case as it retains the lows and has a much more balaced response (and more gain), and I reserve the sparkle drive for clean boost and/or overdrive. A previous review complained that Jeff Beck?s ?rock my plimsoul? sound is not possible with the sparkle drive. I don?t see how you can arrive at that with the sparkle drive. IMO you need a tonebender (clone) or overdriven amp with tone contrals turned backwards and magic fingers. You can not blame the sparkle drive for not delivering that particular sound.
Still I wished the sparkle drive had more gain without sacrificing its pefect clean/low overdrive charcteristics.

Seems to be very well made. Plastic plugs should be metal and the rubber pad is crap. But no big issues for me. Don?t keep it plugged in not even overnight! Next morning the battery will be empy.

Never dealt with them

Can be harsh sounding if your setup is less than good. Invest in good tube amp plus guitar if you want to hear the sparkle drive?s potential.
For me this pedal is a very subtle effect, especially since my ears get ?bigger? with the years. I?am playing jazz for almost 25 years so I think I can say what the search for great tone is. However, blues/rock on stage is not my main experience, so read this review accordingly. Apart from jazz, I like: Neil Young; The Who, Bowie, CSN&Y, Gatemouth Brown, Buddy Guy, Hendrix, (Jeff) Beck, The Presidents; just to name a few (& I dislike disco/synthy; my God, did I suffer in the 70's and 80's!!!).
Overall, I?d pick the sparkle drive over my TS9/808 for the reasons outlined above. Still the TS is a great pedal, much better than the Boss, DOD etc. ones I played. No experiejnce with other TS-clones, or high-end overdrives (Fulldrive, Klon etc.), but I?m happy now: Great pedal for the money; it is definetely a keeper for me!