http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep00/articles/zoom.htm

A Full Review is at the link.

- Is the general configuration/setup simple? Yes, via PC
- Is the sound or effects editing easy? Yes, via PC
- Is the manual clear and sufficient?... Yes

- Are the effects good, usable and sufficiently realistic? Yes
- With what instruments do you use them? Electric Guitar
- Which are your favorites and/or the ones you hate? Stock lousy, your own, incredible.

The Voodoo Lab Sparkle Drive is an overdrive pedal built on an interesting concept. It is has an 808 Tube Screamer style overdrive circuit to boost the signal, and a "clean" control blends back in clean but "boosted" signal, which is supposed to add back in some of the attack and feel which is lost in a strictly overdriven signal that is under compression. Its very similar to playing through a clean amp and a distorted amp and blending the two sounds together, which has been done by numerous guitarist in search of that mystical tone in their head.

Like every other Voodoo Lab pedal, the Sparkle Drive is 100% analog and hand-wired.It features true bypass switching and comes in a heavy-duty cast aluminum casing with a rugged metal switch. It even has a 5-year warranty.

The Sparkle Drive has 4 knobs, 2 of which really control the thing.

Basically at full blast, this pedal is like a crunchy classic rock overdrive, not a high gain distortion. Rather than scooped or bottom heavy, its more of a thick but midrangey sound thats sonically somewhere around what you would expect from a Tube Screamer 808, which is what it is supposedly based off of anyway.
The name Sparkle Drive is apt here, because being able to blend back in a boosted clean signal to the signal adds a bit of transparency, clarity, and sparkle to the tone, though it does diminish the gain.... which is already only moderate at best. So naturally, my favorite way of using this pedal is wide-open in front of my tube combo already running at slight boost, and then In just adjust the "clean" knob according to my mood.
Typically, I play my Ibanez Ghostrider with Gibson PAF humbuckers and occasionally a Telecaster. This pedal loves both of them and interacts differently with the different styles of pickups. When it comes to hand-wired analog pedals, you really have to try it out with your rig to know how you're gonna like it.

The Micro Vibe is Voodoo Lab recreation of the original Dunlop Univibe from the 60's and 70's that replicated the effect of a rotating speaker cabinet. It was most famously used by artists such as Jimi Hendrix and others as as well. Voodoo Lab has created a fine product here, by offering a pedal that is 100 percent analog and even hand-wired, with true bypass. Pedals like this should make pedal-loving players drool.

The Micro Vibe accepts 9V batteries, and is packaged in a rugged metal casing that embodies simplicity.

It doesn't get simpler than this, The Micro Vibe has two knobs, for "intensity" and "speed". To state the obvious, the "intensity" knob controls the depth or degree of roatary speaker effect, and the "speed" controls the relative speed of the rotating speaker. No manual needed. Plug and play.

If you like psychadelia, or even just classic rock you can appreciate what a rotary effect can do to space out your sound. Well, the Micro Vibe definitely delivers. It can offer you a subtle chorusy tremolo sound, all the way to a deep swirling pulse that is lush, earthy, and organic sounding. Unlike a lot of the hand-wired pedals from the 70's, this one is a bit more predictable; you CAN'T get a bad sound out of this box. It does what its supposed to, and not much else. Playing with the speed dial will give you some eerie sounds, but nothing too crazy. Its just a good all-around tremolo pedal that is quite good at recreating the Univibe sound, which is something even the Univibe reissues don't really do. Voodoo Lab knows what they are doing.
This pedal interacted nicely with my small tube combo and my other floor effects, like placing distortion in front brings out a bit more of the modulation/phaser sound. Add in a delay and it gets spacier, a flanger and it gets downright scary-wierd quick.

The Crossroads pedal from Digitech is like 7 distinct tones in one package. It offers a model of the following distictive Eric Clapton tones: "Sunshine of Your Love", "Crossroads", "Badge", "Layla", "Lay Down Sally", "Layla" (Acoustic), and "Reptile". The controls include a mode selector knob, 2 control knobs that allow you to tweak selected paremeters of the mode presets (like effect intensity or gain), and a level knob.

One interesting feature is the seperate amp and mixer outputs.
One frustrating thing is that the preset volumes of the different "modes" vary so much. It seems like they could have balanced them better, so you don't have to re-adjust them when you switch modes.

Not all of the 7 modes on this pedal are even usable in my opinion, let alone "good". There are a couple that are decent but it seems like Digitech bit off a little more than they could chew. The clean tones are impressive, the distorted tones are a bit bland, and the acoustic mode is just terrible. They should have gone without it. Overall, it lacked a warmth and depth to my ears.

Some effects are quite nice to have; like the rotary effect on the "Badge" model. Some effects are just cheesy, like the chorus effect on "reptile".

Boss's FDR-1 is an amp modeler with reverb and vibrato, based on the Fender 1965-era Deluxe Reverb, which is a coveted tube amp known for its distinctive tone. Apparently BOSS worked with Fender to try and nail the sound of the Deluxe Reverb, which increased my expectations for it.
The FDR-1 is packaged in the standard BOSS stompbox casing, which are always pretty sturdy. It would blend in like a regular stompbox on your pedalboard. It has your standard 1/4" input and output, and ac adapter input.

The controls on the FDR-1 are very similar to the actual amp it seeks to emulate. It has Level, Gain, Treble, Bass, Vibrato and Reverb. Other than to full understand how to tweak the vibrato effect, its very self-explanatory and I didn't even need the manual.

As far as the amp model, it is fairly good. I have played modelers that attempted a Deluxe Reverb sound like Line6 and Digitech. This pedal comes a LOT closer to replicating actual Fender sound than any other modeler I've heard. Its got sparkle, spank, and even grit that get pretty darn close to the real thing, without actually BEING the real thing.

As far as reverb, its good. Probably as good or better as the reverb on many amps people will plug this into. Sadly its not nearly as good as ACTUAL Deluxe Reverb reverb. It starts getting cheesy sounding in the upper range, so getting super drippy reverb like you can from the actual amp is not a reasonable expoectation to have. I still can't fault it much though.

The vibrato is great, very usable, and gives a fairly wide range of tweaking possible. I wasn't disapointed.

I played this stompbox by putting it in front of my low end tube amp; an Epiphone Valve Special. It added a new dimension to the already decent clean sound, so I can't imagine the miracles this pedal could work for a lackluster Solid State amp's clean channel. I was also able to use it to push my tube amp into a bit more grit and sustain. They interacted nicely.

This is an odd little digital unit, it is a combination of two distortion channels, which can be used in tandem or by themselves. It also has a pitch shifter that gave you a range of sounds from deep chorus to single and double octave effects. It could not be edited via computer and being a floor pedal, it is not rackable. There is a single input and dual outputs for stereo applications.

The setup is fairly simple as soon as you figured out how to engage the unit in order to blend the two distortion channels as well as using them independently. Therefore the effects editing was fairly easy. The manual that came with this unit was clear, sufficient and helpful.

The effects on this unit are decent, if not great. I've played a Fender Stratocaster, a Squire Strat and my current Ibanez through this box, and they all sounded fine. The two distortions, while similar in sound, are both usable and sufficiently realistic. YOu can also engage them both and you got a nice thick sounding 70's type overdrive. If you adjusted the pitch shifter for a chorus effect,it sounded nice and smooth with the overdrive/s, perfect and non-invasive in a praise and worship setting. The pitch shifter, along with having some odd sound settings such as a 3rd or 5th above the original note, had some really cool single and double octave effects. These are the facets that I really miss about his unit. (I dropped the unit, and it's pretty much broken and retired.) I also liked the stereo output capability of this unit, which is great for bi-amping. If I had to say anything I don't like about this unit, it's that the input led would start to clip if I turned it up to high, but if I backed it down, sometimes the output volume would not be sufficient on stage.

This is a pure delay pedal. You can also get chorus and slap back echo out of this unit, among other sounds. I believe it is digital and cannot be edited via computer. It is a floor pedal, so it is not rackable. It has two stereo inputs as well as two stereo outputs, great for bi-amping !

There are four knobs: E. level, feedback, delay time and mode. I do not have a manual, because it's used. So if you don't know much about delay, like me, you can play with the pedal for a time and figure out some really cool delay effects on this thing. Switch the mode around, and you get several different effects within one pedal. E. Level is like your volume. Feedback is the amount of delay you get, and delay time is the duration of the delay. Pretty straightforward.

This is one of the best pedal delays in the business. Don't mess around with other delay stomp-boxes, this is the one to get. I put this pedal at the end of my pedal chain. I use the stereo output to bi-amp and the "ping-pong" effect that occurs at certain delay settings is really cool. Reminiscent of Pat Metheny on clean settings, Van Halen on distortion settings. I use 80 millisecond mode to add a little light delay to my solos. Gives it some nice "sustain", but not so much delay that notes start bleeding into each other. AT 300ms, you have a chorus type effect. Pair it with another chorus, and it sounds very lush and full! AT 800 ms, you've got a slap-back delay or echo, perfect for country or bluegrass music. At 2600 ms, you've got some wicked tape delay ! There's even a setting that makes your electric sound like a violin !

This is an equalizer. It can also function as a volume booster, which is great. I believe it is a digital effect. It cannot be edited via computer. It is a floor pedal,so it's not rackable. It has input and output as well as connector for 9v/dc power supply.

The general configuration is your standard 7-band equalizer. I don't know anything about equalizers and setting them for specific applications. This is where the manual/instructions came in. I made it easy to tweak the slider controls and get various tones from the unit. There are 3 sample presets: barb-eq for blues or 70's rock, scooped for metal, and curly Q for God knows what?

This unit provides top notch equalization for under $35. When you stomp on it and engage it's effect, it is almost like you just engaged a sonic maximizer. It makes your tone jump to life and just improves its presence that much more. It also works great as a volume booster for solos. Just slide the level to over 1/2 all the way to full, then stomp on it when you're solo begins! There's nothing I really don't like about the tones from this thing. (Aside from perhaps the "Curly Q" setting, which I'm still not sure what it's for.)