NPD: Voodoo Labs Sparkle Drive... also tried a soul food....

[Andrew Lamprecht]

Picked up a Sparkle Drive Mod today. I owned a Pork Loin for a while and compared the two pedals tonight too. The sparkle drive definitely was a more "green" type overdrive but I liked it because it felt like it fit what I wanted it to do a bit better. For many people I'm sure they would have felt the same about the Pork Loin. These pedals are so good. The clean knob is why I was focused on these 2. It's such a cool feature and one I wish more builders would use. Anyway, too lazy to take a picture and it just looks like all the others.

I also played a soul food for quite a while. It is sweet. I prefer a different sound out of my dirt but I was tempted to buy it being an awesome $60 pedal. The nicest part imo was the tone knob. It was subtle but worked. The whole range was useable and the transition between pickups was nice because with the tone knob down, was just like a presence knob smoothing everything out slightly, and on the higher settings just added a nice chime. Definitely recommended if that's what you are looking for.

 

[CTN]

Re: NPD: Voodoo Labs Sparkle Drive... also tried a soul food....

fun.

when i tried the soul food i didn't like it at all. sounded way too clangy and percussive (not in a good way)

 

[TimmyPage]

Re: NPD: Voodoo Labs Sparkle Drive... also tried a soul food....

fun.

when i tried the soul food i didn't like it at all. sounded way too clangy and percussive (not in a good way)

I've got one, and it sits on my live pedalboard now with my compressor. Its a really heavy volume/gain boost to drive an amp much harder, so I've found that it sounds great in a live setting where you have a tube amp with the tubes already being pushed. It sounds pretty meh and clangy at low volumes.

 

[DankStar]

Re: NPD: Voodoo Labs Sparkle Drive... also tried a soul food....

What's the clean knob all about?

 

[CTN]

Re: NPD: Voodoo Labs Sparkle Drive... also tried a soul food....

I've got one, and it sits on my live pedalboard now with my compressor. Its a really heavy volume/gain boost to drive an amp much harder, so I've found that it sounds great in a live setting where you have a tube amp with the tubes already being pushed. It sounds pretty meh and clangy at low volumes.

yeah...maybe. I dunno, I was expecting lush, smooth overdrive and what I heard was sorta like a slight bit of harsh drive introduced into a LPB-1 kinda circuit. Didn't inspire me at all.

 

[That90'sGuy]

Re: NPD: Voodoo Labs Sparkle Drive... also tried a soul food....

The original Sparkle Drives were great and I'd love to hear the newer Mod version. I know a lot of players that swear by these pedals and being able to blend your clean signal is a huge advantage to them. I'm not surprised to hear the less than stellar reviews of the Soul Food. The Klon thing is not what I thought it would be either.

 

[Andrew Lamprecht]

Re: NPD: Voodoo Labs Sparkle Drive... also tried a soul food....

What's the clean knob all about?

It blends your bypassed tone (clean) with the tone of the overdrive in the pedal. It allows the player to dial in a very clean, shimmering overdrive that is difficult to get with most dirt pedals. This pedal is, in a way, 3 pedals in one. With the clean all the way down it is a straight 808 circuit. With it all the way up it is a straight clean boost and between the extremes you can dial in a light overdrive or mix the clean signal however you want. It's really versatile and sounds great.

 

[Andrew Lamprecht]

Re: NPD: Voodoo Labs Sparkle Drive... also tried a soul food....

yeah...maybe. I dunno, I was expecting lush, smooth overdrive and what I heard was sorta like a slight bit of harsh drive introduced into a LPB-1 kinda circuit. Didn't inspire me at all.

I could see that haha. I was surprised how little it did for your sound in all honesty. I think if you needed that slight push it would work well though. I played it through a Vox AC15 and a Marshall DSL40. Both of the amps were set a bit darker so maybe I didn't notice the harshness as much.

 

[Aceman]

Re: NPD: Voodoo Labs Sparkle Drive... also tried a soul food....

SpRkle drive is awesome

 

[PFDarkside]

Re: NPD: Voodoo Labs Sparkle Drive... also tried a soul food....

I really like the demos on YouTube by VL. He gets a wide variety of tones including a nice EVH.

 

[TimmyPage]

Re: NPD: Voodoo Labs Sparkle Drive... also tried a soul food....

yeah...maybe. I dunno, I was expecting lush, smooth overdrive and what I heard was sorta like a slight bit of harsh drive introduced into a LPB-1 kinda circuit. Didn't inspire me at all.

That's totally fair. It's not really a transparent pedal like a lot of people advertise it as, it's more of an upper midrange/treble boost. It makes your guitars really jangly, and helps push your amp a bit harder, but it all comes down to how hard your amp likes being pushed. The original circuit was designed around vintage fender voiced amps to highlight and push the (subjectively) best elements of them.

Like I said, it lives on my live pedalboard, along with a few other pedals that I either have no use for at practice volume, or that just don't sound that amazing when they aren't at stage volume, and Klones fall into the latter.