This feature is a great bonus, since the modelling is good enough that you could easily use this amp to make records, and they’d more than likely sound better than if you attempted to mic a cab at home!Īudio titled Spark - Glassy Preset Example 03 Getting Hands On
Sparkbox portable driver#
No driver is required for Mac/iOS, but there’s an ASIO driver for suitably low‑latency performance on Windows. There’s also a USB connection, which allows you to record the emulated amp sound directly into your DAW as audio, without the influence of the Spark’s own cab‑and‑speaker combination.
With the app, you can also pull tones from a vast online library, and the Spark can even listen to your playing and create a basic backing track for you, or help you to learn a well‑known song using its Smart Jam feature (see box). You can access presets using the hardware controls but can do much more tweaking using the Bluetooth smartphone app. The resulting sound is pumped out by a 40W solid‑state amplifier driving two four‑inch full‑range speakers in a stereo configuration. I recently did just that.Ĭonceptually, the Spark is pretty simple: you plug in your instrument, as with any amp, and a DSP modelling engine gives access to most guitar and bass tones you can dream up. That’s all out of the way though, and the Spark is now available to buy in shops. It had something of a rocky start to life, because the crowdfunding campaign was so popular that it took quite a while for everyone to receive their units. Launched around a year ago, the Spark 40 combines a power amp with DSP amp and effects modelling, along with some interesting practice‑oriented features. So small practice amps still have a place in my life and after some incredibly positive experiences with Positive Grid’s Bias Amp modelling plug‑in, I figured it couldn’t hurt to try their take on the idea. Plus if you want to move any of it… well, let’s just say I skipped the gym during lockdown. The amp is unreasonably loud, it gets hot, and fooling with attenuators to bring the output of the cabs down to a sensible volume for practice defeats the point of their lush tone somewhat. It would pass the cork‑sniffing test of all but the most lofty gear snobs but, sometimes, even a top‑degree tone‑mason can’t be bothered to deal with tubes and cabs. My own miniature Tonehenge is a lovely boutique tube amp, plus a custom 2圆 cab and an oversized 1x12 cab with a Celestion Alnico Cream.
Sparkbox portable portable#
The affordable and stylish Spark 40 packs Positive Grid’s powerful modelling software into a convenient, portable practice amp.
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