 |
Voodoo Lab Micro Vibe
Summary: Looking for that vibey sound? Look no further. The Micro Vibe serves up a range of vibe tone from chimey chorus to thick, soupy psychedelic in nice compact stomp box. Pros: Incredibly versatile vibe that has multiple personalities depending upon where you set the knobs. Cons: A little tricky to set up in your chain, and can be finicky with overdrive pedals, and can make your low-end really boomy (not hard to overcome, though). Price: $149 Street |
I wrote a comparison review between the Micro Vibe and the Fulltone Mini Deja Vibe, two excellent ‘vibe pedals out on the market, but since I recently purchased the Micro Vibe, I thought I’d do a full review because my original evaluation was done in a more controlled environment A/B’ing the two pedals.
First off, this pedal is extremely easy to use. Two knobs control intensity and speed, and toggle switch turns the unit on and off. This pedal is true-bypass as well, so when it’s off, it’s really off – very nice to find in a relatively affordable pedal. To get that psychedelic sound, you set intensity about 4 or 5 o’clock, and the speed anywhere between 11 and 2 o’clock. For a more chorus-like effect, I set both Intensity at 12 o’clock and speed at about 1 o’clock. I’m still playing with it, but so far, so good!
Like the Fulltone, the Micro Vibe boasts a faithful reproduction of the original UniVibe’s circuitry. I’m not much of an electrical guy, so I’ll take their word for it. However, in the previous comparison review, I mentioned that the Micro Vibe has a slightly darker tone than the Mini Deja. To me, it has a rich tone that really brings out the lows – though I found through my latest experimentation that you really have to be careful about your EQ. Too much low-end, and you’ll get a really muddy sound. I found that with both the Mini Deja and the Micro Vibe, but a bit more so with the Micro Vibe. It wasn’t too hard to overcome with a little EQ adjustment, though, so that was just a minor problem. All in all though, the two pedals sounded very similar, giving off that ‘vibe sound that I just love.
What the Fulltone has over the Micro Vibe is a Vibrato mode, that gives you the pulse from the photoresistor without the phase effect. It also costs almost twice as much. For me, I wanted a dedicated ‘vibe pedal with no other accoutrements, and the Micro Vibe serves that up just fine!
One thing that I found really nice with the Micro Vibe was how the pedal’s intensity responded to the input gain from my guitar. Higher gain produced higher levels of intensity. That’s very cool because it’s possible to dial back the intensity of the effect from your guitar.
In any case, here are a couple of sound clips I recorded to demonstrate a bit of the Micro Vibe’s capabilities:
TS-808 plus Micro Vibe:
Micro Vibe with a bit of reverb:
Both clips were played with my Strat and output through a Fender Champion 600.
I did find it a bit challenging placing the Micro Vibe in my signal chain. Placed before my overdrive pedals, it was pretty tough to control, and the resultant pulsing drive wasn’t too pleasing to the ear – though it was correctable with some minor tweaks to the OD pedals. I found that it worked the best (at least so far) at the end of my chain, right before my BBE Sonic Maximizer. It’ll stay there for awhile, then I’ll switch its position to see how it compares.
Here’s an interesting thing that I found that I forgot to mention: The Micro Vibe sounds absolutely horrid with a Fulltone OCD. I really wasn’t expecting that. It probably could be the chip that’s used in the OCD. Whether I put the Micro Vibe in front of the OCD, or after it didn’t matter. The combination was UGLY! But it sounds awesome with Tube Screamer-type pedals like my TS-808 and Bad Monkey.
In conclusion, if you’re looking for that vibey sound, the Voodoo Lab Micro Vibe delivers that in spades, and at a very affordable price!
Guitar Gear 
if you can recall, where is your depth control in the second clip?
i had the danelectro cheapass vibe pedal, and always though it was too subtle… and i hear the voodoo lab pedal is very similar to the dan-o. i’m looking for those super breathy hendrix/trower sounds.
It’s about at about 1:30- 2 o’clock. Note though that the “vibe-ness” is also a function of the speed setting. For the second clip, I used a very slow speed setting, at about 10 o’clock, so it makes the vibe sound much more subtle than it actually is, but there is a definite pulse going on. For a more psychedelic sound, I turn the intensity up to about 4 – 5 o’clock, then set the speed anywhere between 1 and 2 o’clock. You then can get that Hendrix breathy sound.
Howdy, just wanted to add some commentary regarding the OCD and MicroVibe.
I partially agree with your review of the OCD driving, and carrying the ‘vibe, but not totally. I isolated the two pedals, ran it through a Mesa Boogie lonestar on crystal clear to try and figure out why my favorite OD was being so damn ornery with it. What was really annoying was that a Boss BD-2 Blues Driver (although modded) was beautiful with it even with the volume/gain cranked full blast before the ‘vibe. Anyway, i’m rambling…
The OCD has a ‘pretty’ clipping pattern as the gain goes up, like a compressor, as opposed to the rougher pattern of an 808, etc. The ‘vibe uses the wild natural expansion of a typical guitar’s frequency range in tandem with its own pattern to make that famous ‘womp-womp.’ So when driving it with the OCD at lowest gain, as a boost, you will see the ‘vibe shine even more than w/o the OCD. But that’s pointless if you want the OD for a set, right? I finally go around to getting an 18v power supply (Dunlop DC Brick), and now it’s a beautiful combination. The 18v really opens up the frequency range of the bass and treble. Before, running at 9v, the ‘vibe would get shrill even with extreme amp-side EQ adjustment. Now, even with the gain cranked, it would still throb and woosh. Make sure to flip the switch to HP (up).
If you don’t have an 18v supply you can build one with two 9 volt batteries and two 9v cable connectors. Mike from Fulltone has an example of this here (http://www.fulltone.com/18volts.html).
Have fun!
Greg, thanks for stopping by!
I’ve run the OCD at 18 volts since day one (I too have the DC Brick, and love it!). I’ve actually figured out a “sweet-spot” setting to use with OCD and Micro Vibe in concert. As long as both are set to moderate settings, it actually sounds pretty nice. It was when I was trying to use the Micro Vibe in its extreme psychedelic range with drive set past midway on the OCD that sounded ugly. I owe that mostly to not having enough hours behind the combination when I was doing my original review.
Thanks for the tip about the OCD as a clean boost for Micro Vibe. I’m going to try that out!
[…] Review: Voodoo Lab Micro Vibe « Guitar Gear 5 Tone Bones – Gear has stellar performance, value, and quality. This is, Voodoo Lab Micro Vibe. Summary: Looking for that vibey sound? Look no further. The Micro Vibe serves up a range of vibe tone from chimey chorus to thick, […]
I forgot about the best independent review site on the web (Guitar Gear) till a Adam Roszkowiecz dropped off a bunch of pedals to try play with. I am noodling around with the Micro Vibe, a black Russian Small Stone, a weird little Guyatone compressor and some assorted tube screamers. Gonna look around the site to see what you guys have said about these motley little boxes.