spark amp

[cybermgk]

And they tend to be a little bass-heavy be default... though that could be my hearing.
They really do sound good for guitar given they are a full-range speaker.
Trogly's review sounded like crap, but he stuck his mic right in front of the port

A lot of people find them that way. But, that is on purpose I think. Such small speakers can often lack bass AND, it is also meant to sound good for the backing tracks, music etc. etc. So, the presets sound bass heavy. Just dial em back a little OR use acoustic foam in the bass ports.

 

[pshupe]

Thought I would post this here. I just ordered a Positive Grid - Spark on November 11th at 7:30am. You will see the reason for the time very soon. I had been looking at them for quite some time and viewed most of the reviews on Youtube and followed the fiasco that was delivery from the initial run. I decided to order it and thought if I got it by Christmas that would be fine, as I would be telling my wife that is what she bought me.

I actually found this on Amazon.ca because I am in Canada. None of the stores seemed to stock them here, probably because they are selling well directly from positive grid so why sell wholesale? So anyway I ordered a couple of things on Amazon and had some notifications that things would be arriving soon. One in particular from UPS. I thought this to be strange as I have never had anything from Amazon delivered by UPS in the past. It was supposed to arrive today, this phantom UPS delivery. I thought there was no way it was the spar as it hadn't even been 2 1/2 days since I ordered it.

Oddly enough it actually was the Spark. I ordered as noted and about 51 hrs later it was delivered to my door. I guess with all of the delivery problems they have had in the past they wanted to ensure people got them fast. It was actually even cheaper than if I had purchased from the US at their sale price.

I thought this was worth sharing.

Regards Peter.

 

[cybermgk]

Thought I would post this here. I just ordered a Positive Grid - Spark on November 11th at 7:30am. You will see the reason for the time very soon. I had been looking at them for quite some time and viewed most of the reviews on Youtube and followed the fiasco that was delivery from the initial run. I decided to order it and thought if I got it by Christmas that would be fine, as I would be telling my wife that is what she bought me.

I actually found this on Amazon.ca because I am in Canada. None of the stores seemed to stock them here, probably because they are selling well directly from positive grid so why sell wholesale? So anyway I ordered a couple of things on Amazon and had some notifications that things would be arriving soon. One in particular from UPS. I thought this to be strange as I have never had anything from Amazon delivered by UPS in the past. It was supposed to arrive today, this phantom UPS delivery. I thought there was no way it was the spar as it hadn't even been 2 1/2 days since I ordered it.

Oddly enough it actually was the Spark. I ordered as noted and about 51 hrs later it was delivered to my door. I guess with all of the delivery problems they have had in the past they wanted to ensure people got them fast. It was actually even cheaper than if I had purchased from the US at their sale price.

I thought this was worth sharing.

Regards Peter.

One of the biggest issues they had in shipping was their model. They shipped from regional distribution centers. The more orders for that 'region' the more backed up they got. So, even if Canad region distro center has units. the one in California for the US, did't, and US buyers waited. Ditto for Europe, etc.

 

[jkes01]

And they tend to be a little bass-heavy be default... though that could be my hearing.
They really do sound good for guitar given they are a full-range speaker.
Trogly's review sounded like crap, but he stuck his mic right in front of the port

Self proclaimed expert.

 

[pshupe]

One of the biggest issues they had in shipping was their model. They shipped from regional distribution centers. The more orders for that 'region' the more backed up they got. So, even if Canad region distro center has units. the one in California for the US, did't, and US buyers waited. Ditto for Europe, etc.

That makes sense as I did not pay duties or taxes, so clearly this unit was inside the country and had the applicable taxes built into the cost in the Amazon.ca listing. I think Positive Grid have intentionally paid extra for shipping because of the problems they had with shipping prior. UPS is an expensive way to ship anything anywhere. In my area Amazon usually uses Intelcom, which is kind of like the Uber of shipping. I've had guys show up in a beat up car that clearly was not affiliated with a shipping company. They usually deliver many dozens of parcels a day.

Cheers Peter.

 

[Lungo]

Spark is at my local FedEx facility scheduled to deliver today. My order was placed last week on Wednesday. Not sure what to expect for $250 but I hope to be surprised.

 

[cybermgk]

Spark is at my local FedEx facility scheduled to deliver today. My order was placed last week on Wednesday. Not sure what to expect for $250 but I hope to be surprised.

Just be prepared for possible hum, if your house current is dirty, aand you use the stock Power supply. I ordered a grounded supply at the same time as my Spark, and just used that from the get go, to make sure that never happened.

 

[jkes01]

Submitting a support request for the power supply is pretty easy. Waiting for it to arrive is not.

Hopefully new orders will automatically get the grounded power supply.

 

[Lungo]

Spark arrived today. I'll have to watch some tutorials and read user manual info to figure some of this stuff out. Here are my first impressions after playing around with it for about an hour:

Installing the app and connecting to the amp was a piece of cake.

Scrolling through the available amps and changing settings was easy. Although I couldn't figure out if there were other pedals available and if so how you switch them out.

Tone cloud has a bunch of patches. Couldn't figure out how to save them as presets for quick access and tweak the settings. Are you able to view what pedals are used? Amp settings?

Almost all the Metal patches suck.

I never knew so many people were so in love with noise gate.

The jam along backtrack plays at low volume and I couldn't figure out how to change it. Same for when I played something from my iTunes library.

I thought I could pick anything from my iTunes and play it and play along but that didn't seem to be the case. First song I picked didn't play. The app displayed a list of other songs that were available. Not sure what I'm doing wrong. All I wanted to do was play a song that I know how to play and play along with it.

Overall it's quite a bargain for the price. I would have been in hog heaven with something like this 35 years ago.

 

[cybermgk]

Scrolling through the available amps and changing settings was easy. Although I couldn't figure out if there were other pedals available and if so how you switch them out.

K. switching on or off a pedal, or effect on a preset is done in the App only. In the App, if you select/touch a particular pedal or effect pedal, and touch the pedal stomp switch, it will turn that on, or off, The little light on the image goes on or off, and the pedal lifts above the signal path at the top and darkens if off. It stays in line and is 'lit' if on.

The Spark does not allow for a complicated signal path. You can have or not have (by being off) a Noise gate into a Compressor into a drive pedal before the amp. You can have or not (again bt being off) a modulation effect into a delay into a reverb in the loop. EVERY preset will have one of each of these with an Amp. You either turn them on or off.

You can change any one pedal.. Double tap on any pedal image, or the Amp image in the signal chain at the top. This will change the image from a single pedal, or amp, below to a selection list of all the options for that particular spot in the chain, i.e. all the different drive pedals, or amp. Simply select what you want. Once in this selection mode, it will stay there for each spot on the signal path. I.E. you double tap the drive pedal, get selection of drive pedals. Then click on Comp pedal in signal chain at top, and it;s the COmp selections. That is until you tap the minimize carrot at the top of the selection list, on any list.

Tone cloud has a bunch of patches. Couldn't figure out how to save them as presets for quick access and tweak the settings. Are you able to view what pedals are used? Amp settings?

Depends.on what you want. Okay, in Tone cloud you select a preset, the play button on left switches to a pause, and you can hear it on your spark. There are 2 ovals. The white one allows you to flag it as a favorite (favorite tab in tone cloud tabs at top shows all your selected favorites. The red oval, allows you to download it to your spark app. It gives a pop up tat allows you to give it a name, and what category to store it in (Confusing is they are the same categories or tabs in Spark App as tone cloud..

Now, when you get out of tonecloud, and in Spark App, you will find it in whatever cat/tab you saved it to. You can also see the signal chain and mess with it.

IF you want to store it to one of the hardware locations (selectible on the amp itself with the knob). you load it in spark amp, and hit the 3 dot icon, top right. THAT allows you to save any tweaks you did to your spark app location (Overwrite), to a new location in Spark Ap (Save as New} or to one of those limited Hardware spots (save to Hardware Preset). You would also use this if you want to tweak existing Hardware saved presets and save changes.,

Almost all the Metal patches suck.

Agreed. Not a limitation of the amp, just the presets. It CAN do good metal tones

I never knew so many people were so in love with noise gate.

All the default presets, in hardware and app have it on. Most people just tweak those and store em into tonecloud..

The jam along backtrack plays at low volume and I couldn't figure out how to change it. Same for when I played something from my iTunes library.

Adjust with the little headphone aux volume knob. Also, adjusting the volume on the phone or Tab (Android devices, work, no habla Apple stuff) affects volume as well,.

I thought I could pick anything from my iTunes and play it and play along but that didn't seem to be the case. First song I picked didn't play. The app displayed a list of other songs that were available. Not sure what I'm doing wrong. All I wanted to do was play a song that I know how to play and play along with it.

Can't speak on this. Check out the Spark Amp forum for more info.

Overall it's quite a bargain for the price. I would have been in hog heaven with something like this 35 years ago.

Agreed

 

[Lungo]

K. switching on or off a pedal, or effect on a preset is done in the App only. In the App, if you select/touch a particular pedal or effect pedal, and touch the pedal stomp switch, it will turn that on, or off, The little light on the image goes on or off, and the pedal lifts above the signal path at the top and darkens if off. It stays in line and is 'lit' if on.

The Spark does not allow for a complicated signal path. You can have or not have (by being off) a Noise gate into a Compressor into a drive pedal before the amp. You can have or not (again bt being off) a modulation effect into a delay into a reverb in the loop. EVERY preset will have one of each of these with an Amp. You either turn them on or off.

You can change any one pedal.. Double tap on any pedal image, or the Amp image in the signal chain at the top. This will change the image from a single pedal, or amp, below to a selection list of all the options for that particular spot in the chain, i.e. all the different drive pedals, or amp. Simply select what you want. Once in this selection mode, it will stay there for each spot on the signal path. I.E. you double tap the drive pedal, get selection of drive pedals. Then click on Comp pedal in signal chain at top, and it;s the COmp selections. That is until you tap the minimize carrot at the top of the selection list, on any list.



Depends.on what you want. Okay, in Tone cloud you select a preset, the play button on left switches to a pause, and you can hear it on your spark. There are 2 ovals. The white one allows you to flag it as a favorite (favorite tab in tone cloud tabs at top shows all your selected favorites. The red oval, allows you to download it to your spark app. It gives a pop up tat allows you to give it a name, and what category to store it in (Confusing is they are the same categories or tabs in Spark App as tone cloud..

Now, when you get out of tonecloud, and in Spark App, you will find it in whatever cat/tab you saved it to. You can also see the signal chain and mess with it.

IF you want to store it to one of the hardware locations (selectible on the amp itself with the knob). you load it in spark amp, and hit the 3 dot icon, top right. THAT allows you to save aby tweaks you did to your spark app location (Overwrite), to a new location in Spark Amp (Save as New} or to one of those limited Hardware spots (save to Hardware Preset). You would also use this if you want to tweak existing Hardware saved presets and save changes.,


Agreed. Not a limitation of the amp, just the presets. It CAN do good metal tones

All the default presets, in hardware and app have it on. Most people just tweak those and store em into tonecloud..


Adjust with the little headphone aux volume knob.


Can't speak on this. Check out the Spark Amp forum for more info.


Agreed

Thanks for all the tips I really appreciate it!

 

[cybermgk]

Thanks for all the tips I really appreciate it!

NP. Couldn't sleep last night.

BTW, in addition to the little volume knob by the headphone jack, adjusting volume of backing tracks etc (stuff you play on Spark ap hosting device), the volume of that device's media level also affects the volume. So max volume would be achieved cranking the tablet or phone volume AND the aux volume on Spark Amp. Well it works that way for Android devices. I no habla Apple, so don't know for certain.

 

[ehb]

Yep. Music playback and guitar volume are two separate critters...

Guitar volume is self explanatory.

Music: you can max the amp’s little music volume knob to a desired max value and control music actual volume with volume knobbery on your iPad, tablet, whatever.

or, max your iPad,etc. volume and control actual volume with amp’s little music volume knob...

Bluetooth audio is totally separate circuit from guitar shit. It is just summed w/ guitar shit in power amp section....

 

[Lungo]

I’ll have to pay closer attention and try to be more patient looking for volume settings. I remember last night playing something in smart jams and not being able to adjust the volume. The little volume knob next to headphone Jack did nothing. I’m sure it’s user error, just need more time with it.

Thanks again for the tips!

 

[cybermgk]

I’ll have to pay closer attention and try to be more patient looking for volume settings. I remember last night playing something in smart jams and not being able to adjust the volume. The little volume knob next to headphone Jack did nothing. I’m sure it’s user error, just need more time with it.

Thanks again for the tips!

Could be yours is broke too. Hope not. I REALLY wish they had put a substantial knob on it for this. But, I guess to do so makes a slightly bigger amp box AND they figure most folks won't adjust it that often.

 

[flamesarewicked]

I think Positive Grid would really take a bite out of the market if they made a 1x12 or even a 2x12 combo with this same technology.. it finally sounds better than what’s currently out there...

 

[cybermgk]

I think Positive Grid would really take a bite out of the market if they made a 1x12 or even a 2x12 combo with this same technology.. it finally sounds better than what’s currently out there...

I think they could as well. THOUGH sounds better than what is out there? Maybe, Maybe not. I've A/Bed my Blackstar Silverline Combo (Next gen Blackstar ID:TVP) with the SPARK. First I will say the Blackstar needs it's speaker broke in. The SPARK, didn't as much OOB, though as the little speakers broke in, it's tone got better. But the Blackstar needed it, That Stiff speaker translated into stiff and thinner, less open tone.

But, once broken in, tonally, in quite a few ways the Blackstar sounds and plays better, on some settings. (You can select different output tube models on the Blackstar. But what they really do, is adjust the dynamic response, simulated SAG and EQ. With the more dynamic tube selections on the Silverline, I think it is more responsive, by a hair than the SPARK. Whereas the SPARK is BASS heavy on it's presets, the Silverline is the other direction, LOL

And the Spark has a lot more choices AND the drive pedals.

But tonally, they are very close. And, imho, I think the Silverline, is the best sounding Modelling Combo out there (As compared to Katana, Mustang etc).

BUT, and perhaps this is an indicator, for Office and bedroom play, when I don't
t want to go downstairs to the Studio and the Axe FX, I have been using the SPARK almost exclusively. And, it;s Headphone tone is better than the Blackstars

 

[Lungo]

Could be yours is broke too. Hope not. I REALLY wish they had put a substantial knob on it for this. But, I guess to do so makes a slightly bigger amp box AND they figure most folks won't adjust it that often.

I figured out my volume problem. I realized that the audio I was hearing was coming from my iPad. (It was leaning against the front of the amp). I realized I had played music through it from my iPhone. So it was connected to my phone which superseded my iPad. It’s been one of those weeks.

Still not finding any rock or metal tones to get excited about. Actually they sound pretty bad. Really like the clean tones though. I’ve only had about an hour total with it though so I’m hoping I’ll figure it out this weekend.

 

[cybermgk]

I figured out my volume problem. I realized that the audio I was hearing was coming from my iPad. (It was leaning against the front of the amp). I realized I had played music through it from my iPhone. So it was connected to my phone which superseded my iPad. It’s been one of those weeks.

Still not finding any rock or metal tones to get excited about. Actually they sound pretty bad. Really like the clean tones though. I’ve only had about an hour total with it though so I’m hoping I’ll figure it out this weekend.

Did that with my tablet and phone a couple of times.

Take any preset they have in Spark Amp. Turn off ALL the pedals. Change the Amp to the Soldano amp model, tweak the EQ a tad gain to taste. Then possibly move to a TS in front and verb after.

 

[ehb]

When I was a percussionist in a blues band a couple years back, a racket was coming out of buds Italian Valve Amp... He was scratching his head... I told him to move his damn iPhone from atop the amp...