>>> Sparkle Face Research Project <<<

[analoghog]

My review of the Sparkle Face.

My fuzz preferences generally run toward a Fuzz Face BC108 sound, An OC71 driven Tone Bender type Fuzz, or a NKT213 Burns-Baldwin Buzzaround. I tend not to like a gated, wooly, heavy fuzz sounds.

My favorite BJFE Fuzz's are the Folk Fuzz and the Candy Apple Fuzz.

For my platform I used a strat into a marshall plexi, into a 4 x 12 cab.

Pedals compared too were a BJFE CAF, PPF, FF, DAM Super Bee, DAM Model AA ( FZ1A ), Jerms MK1, Jerm Italian Si Tone Bender.

My Initial Impressions were that this thing sounded HUGE! What a wall of sound this pedal can make. This pedal brings a Big bottom end ! (It's round and tight.) Tonally it's well balanced. It has Great clarity and it is very Hi-Fi sounding, all while being dead quiet when at rest. Very impressive ! Not to leave out the visual aspects, I love the paint scheme on this one !!! The controls are very impressive as well ! The volume and fuzz knobs work well together in giving great control over their whole range, but the saturation knob is awesome ! That knob can turn your cleaner fuzz sound into a wooly ToneBender with a twist. Full on to the left is nice and clean while full on to the right is a thick, wooly beast ! Their are so many sounds in this little box !

In my comparison to the above pedals it only compared directly to only one, maybe two of those. I found that the Jerms MK1, the DAM Super Bee, Model AA, BJFE PPF, and the FF were in a different fuzz territory. I found that this Sparkle Face compared to the Jerm's Italian Si ToneBender and more so with the CAF directly. It sounded like a improved version of the CAF. The CAF was a little more edgy and grindy while the Sparkle Face had a more smoothed out, cleaner, clearer sound while having the same overall tone and response as the CAF.

To my ears this pedal seems more like a distortion pedal than a fuzz pedal. The mid to full ranges have a very big, heavy tone to it, which is not a bad thing and desired by some, but just not me. I did prefer to keep it in low gain ranges. Furthermore, Fuzz to me has to have some edgy, grindy, grittiness to it, especially on the bottom end, and this did not have any grit or grind to it. To me this is a fantastic distortion pedal. If distortion was the goal, than I would leave it alone, but for a pedal called Sparkle Face I was hoping for more of a BC108 Fuzz Face sound somewhere inside those three knobs and I could never find it. I found the Sparkle Face to be tonally more in the ToneBender camp than the Fuzz Face camp. I would LOVE to try this circuit with some different/Fuzz Face friendly transistors in it !!! Bjorn, Please let me know if this is possible !

Thank you to Bjorn and Donner for the opportunity !

M.

[zhivago]

Great review!

Due to a cock-up with the delivery company (Parcelforce, although I call it "Parcelfarce"), mine is now at our local post office for me to pick up, so it will be this weekend at the earliest before I can play it a bit and post some thoughts.

Stay tuned.

[ak47]

Haha!! .. Parcelfarce .. well.. absence makes the heart grow stronger.. or is it abscess makes the fart go honda.. no matter.. it is in your hands shortly Zhivago

It is really cool to read these reviews guys and I have to say that the collective knowledge base you all have regarding fuzz makes for an interesting platform for your thoughts about the Sparkle Face!

Analoghog, you raised a couple of features that makes this pedal such a keeper for me.. firstly, the clarity and zero noise floor is fantastic as Rockeroo also pointed out. Secondly and most interestingly; the distortion!! This is why I love it.. from a clean up that has that 'jangle' through to an edgy rock distortion and on into fat & wooly fuzz all under the one volume knob on my guitar! To access a usable distortion in this way is a bit of a revelation for me because I totally love the 'electric' feel and raunch of the distortion that is acheived. Aah.. back to those sounds I heard on 70's radio actually, the more time I spend with it the more I dig the 'danger' factor of this type of distortion.. I hear what you are saying when placing it in the tonebender camp but I tried it next to Björn's take on a bender and woah.. apples & oranges! the benders are getting ready to go and I think the broader perspective about fuzz that we should now try to take is going become more and more apparent as this research progresses! We are in for quite a ride!

What Rockeroo experienced regarding the ability to balance the girth and responsiveness of the output made a lot of sense to me.. running direct into a DR103 always gives me a very solid canvas for checking how controls interact with each other and this is why I agree with your point about the stock tonality of the pedal.. I do not feel a need to have more EQ tweaking when running my Hiwatts.. then again, the tone stack on those old amps is pretty hard to beat.. how do people feel about this with any other amps?

Duaner58, what was up when you stacked with your Klon klone? Interesting to read that you also experienced the 'girth' factor.. again, this is something that makes for a more usable product imo

[ak47]

[zhivago]

:mrgreen:

soon!!

I am picking up the parcel first thing tomorrow morning, so I should have something this weekend.

I am in the process of looking for a new home too, so I'll be out and about viewing apartments for most of Saturday, but I will definitely post something by Sunday!

stay tuned!

[ak47]

Ahh.. that happy feeling that makes one smile..

Good luck with the house hunting.. I'm sure you will find something with that extra bit of sparkle..

[zhivago]

Ahh.. that happy feeling that makes one smile..

Good luck with the house hunting.. I'm sure you will find something with that extra bit of sparkle..

Hehehe!! Thank you very much

Off to the post office now!

[zhivago]

What have we here?



What a paint job!! It matches my Dinosaur Jr album!!!







Already played a bit with a battery in it...initial thoughts is that I like it very much...gonna stick it on my board next to see how it plays with the rest of my pedals...expect more later today.

Off to have some fun!

[zhivago]

Ok, this pedal is great!

My initial impressions...

First of all, let me thank Bjorn and Donner for allowing me to be a part of this research project. It has been fun reading all the different thoughts and experiences in this thread. Fuzz for me has always been a sensitive issue. I have always found that there's that little "something" that made me flip flop to the next one. To the extend of being fuzz-less for long periods of my guitar-playing life.

I don't say this lightly..fuzz has broken my heart way too many times. But like a junkie, I come back for more

Up to this point, my favourite fuzz ever is probably the CAF Ge that I had from Bearfoot. I toyed with the idea of getting a BJFE version of it to compare (which is of course silicone), and around that time this project started, so I thought I'd hold fire and check this Sparkle Face first.

I opened up the box and a lovely (and unexpected) paint job greeted me. I expected a silver sparkle finish for some reason, so I grinned to myself when I saw my new fuzz in all its glory. The sparkle paint job looks great. Top marks there. I quickly stuck a battery in before committing to putting it on my board. My initial impressions were good, so on to my Pedaltrain it went.

The Sparkle Fuzz's controls are not 100% gradual. A lot of the magic happens in the last 3/4 of the fuzz knob. I find that with most fuzz pedals, so no surprise there. Before that, the pedal is actually quite low-gain, which yields some great usable sounds. I found myself playing 'Brown Sugar' instantly. A great tone indeed, and at that low level of fuzz, also very manageable from the volume knob, or by varying the pick attack, which is usually my preferred approach.

I kept myself from instantly maxing out everything and worked my way up with the knobs. Being aware of BJFE's famous knob interactivity I kept experimenting and twisting the dials in both directions at times. For a great part of the journey up to the maximum amount of fuzz, I have to agree with everyone else, this pedal sounds like a great overdrive/distortion pedal. The harmonic content and string separation are up there with the best of them

Impressed, I carried onto the promised land of MAXIMUM FUZZ!

The last bit of travel on the Fuzz knob is where things get hairy quickly and effectively. It is a great place to be. The fuzz is touch sensitive, and by varying pick attack you get different shades of, well, sonic violence. The only kind of violence I find acceptable

There is enough fuzz to cover most applications. BJFE pedals are USABLE, and that is one of the main reasons I like them. I spend my time nowadays playing along to records, and coping loads of vintage tones is easy with this pedal, and in fact with my other BJFE boxes as well.

This brings us to the 'Saturation' knob..."what is this?" you ask...well, it reminds me a bit of the Nature knob on other popular BJFE effects...towards the left it makes the pedal more like a distortion effect...towards the right we go into chewy, big-bottom fuzz. It is great. The main change happens in the last 3/4 of the knob travel going towards the right. I actually laughed out loud when I hit the 'sweet spot' area. Some great tones there indeed.

The last thing I wanted to try, was to see how it would work as a boost in the low fuzz settings. I set all knobs at noon, and slammed the front end of my Model H 4K...WOW! That brought the MH to the next level! Excellent high gain saturated tones with more low-end than what my silver Klon Centaur gives me when goosing the MH.

The case was not the same for my Honey Bee though...the extra gain it provided was nice, but nothing compared to the Klon pushing the Bee...that lands me straight into Neil Young 'Cowgirl In The Sand' territory, and a fine territory it is!

So overall, what did I like about it?..well, it is usable, it works for chords and leads...it has great harmonic context and it is so, so musical in that great 'British sounding' way...it is hard not to play 'Foxy Lady' when you plug in. the EQ of it is spot on...I didn't find myself wanting an EQ knob (which was a fear of mine pre-trying this out). the pedal has awesome low end to it

What did I find lacking? Well, we could always use a bit more fuzz, I guess...but to be honest with you, I think it is about right as it is...I am not entirely sure what I would do with more fuzz indeed

A tone knob could be good for people with darker set-ups..I personally though found it to be spot on with my Matchless Lightning, which is a bright amp as it is.

I look forward to some more fuzz experiments...if the Tonebender one comes out, I'd like to A/B the two.

As it stands, the Sparkle Face stays on my board so I can live with it for longer and explore it more. I think the CAF is still different enough to warrant having one, so I might still get one, but the space on my Pedaltrain Jr is precious, so only time will tell what the last fuzz standing will be.

For now though, the Sparkle Fuzz stays alongside the rest of my pedals.

I shot a video earlier and will upload it later today.

Gear used:
1956 Les Paul Custom
1961 Fender Jazzmaster
2013 Matchless Lightning 1x12

Again, thank you Bjorn and Donner for the opportunity. I look forward to more experiments!

all the best in fuzz!

[zhivago]

A few more photos