Sparkle Drive Mod Overdrive Pedal Review

Always on

My wife bought this for me for my birthday because she liked the name and the graphics. At first I was like, what the heck is this? but after plugged it in and messed with the knobs, I realized that it was completely indispensable. This is the only pedal on my board that is pretty much always on. It makes your clean tone super punchy, adding only the amount of dirt you want. I've… read more also found that it makes a less-than-great amp sound way better. If you favor cleaner guitar tones, this pedal is absolutely wonderful. It also works great as a boost for soloing on a distorted channel.

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Love this thing

The clean blend knob is the kind of thing you didn't know you needed but can never go back to not having. All drive pedals should have this knob. Awesome drive pedal. Love the sound.

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Just Right

Believe it or not, I bought this a couple of years ago for an acoustic unplugged thing we were doing. It worked out nicely for copying Nirvana’s Unplugged album tones and getting that hard-to-find acoustic crunch. It saw a lot of use that summer in the local brewpubs. I recommend it as an effective acoustic guitar stomp-box. Actually, because of the clean mix, it’s one of… read more the only drive pedals that won’t destroy your acoustic tone. The acoustic project ended when our singer left for an established tribute act and the pedal got stored. Fast forward 18 months or so and I just picked up a Twin Reverb Tone Master from Carson at Sweetwater. I bought the Twin for the clean tones and didn’t want to just drop a tube screamer in the front end and call it a day. I wanted something more subtle. I wanted clean but with a little more sustain and just a touch of dirt. I remembered the VL Sparkle Drive Mod, dug it out and threw it on the front of my small pedal board. Within a minute or two I was able to dial up the perfect, full, semi clean, crunchy sparkly overdrive tone I had in my head. I matched the volumes, set the tone and that was it. You can barely tell when it kicks in but when it dies, it’s good! I have every Tube Screamer, Fulltone OCD, EH Fuzz, Muff Pi and yellow Boss overdrive ever made. I can tell you, without hesitation, the Sparkle Drive is different but in a very good way. It totally deserves to be in the ranks of the best p, most used overdrives made.

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Goose Bump Good!

The "Clean" blend feature is what this pedal is all about. It is truly amazing. Why don't other dirt boxes have this feature? High quality pedal, solidly built, look better in person than in the pics. Sounds amazing!

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The Missing Link

This is the most versatile overdrive I"ve ever played. I play mostly on Sunday mornings and have always struggled to get the right amount of dirt without drowning out my cleans. This pedal solves that problem. It"s super responsive to volume adjustments as well. I highly recommend this pedal for anybody playing any style. It"s amazing and easy on the wallet.

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