Spark: Chords, Backing Tracks

The Spark 2 is a good practice amp, and has lots of features. It sounds much better with headphones. So I found when dialing in your tones it’s best to do it without headphones, because if you do it with headphones on, it’s not going to sound near as good through the speakers. Using it to play along to backing tracks with headphones on sounds great, but you need to use a volume pedal on guitar because many of the backing tracks got places in them where they increase in volume and drown out the guitar. But with the headphones on jamming to them sounds great. As far as the looper. It leaves much to be desired, and really is subpar. The AI is pretty cool. And am getting some good tones for both electric and acoustic guitar. The main issue with the app is connecting. Every time I want to use the amp. It takes multiple times of trying to connect before it connects. Most of the time I have to turn phone and amp completely off, and turn back on a couple times before both connections will connect. It always eventually connects, but sometimes I’m messing with it for like 10-15 mins before it will connect. Which is very frustrating when I just want to have a quick jam before bed. So I hope they fix the connection issue. Many people on Facebook has had issues when they updated. So all that needs to be addressed by the company and fixed. Don’t get me wrong, I like the amp, and it does sound good, just think it was released before all the bugs were worked out. Can see it being the perfect practice amp, once they get the issues resolved.

If I could give this thing zero stars I would, but you have to give one star in order to post a review…so with that out of the way…where do I start with how useless this thing is…how about, some background. I’ve been playing guitar and have been in and out of bands and recording studios for the past forty years…So with that said…First, l’ll start this review by pointing out how overwhelmingly muddy and bass heavy the amp itself is, and that’s with plugging the bass port. Additionally, trying to use the bass controls (in the apps amps) to tame the bass is useless as well. Also, the treble controls either add harshness to the tone, or are useless. Plus, I tried a Strat, a Tele, a Les Paul, an ES335, a Firebird, an Explorer, a Gretch, and a Yamaha, and didn’t make a bit of difference in getting a passable tone. I also tried single coils, humbuckers, mini humbuckers, P90s, and soapbar pickups, and that didn’t help in dialing in a satisfactory tone. And trying to get a tone on the amp using the bridge, neck, or the two together was futile. Though, I will say this, if you play metal the Spark amp and app are passable. Look, I could go on, but I won’t, though I will offer this piece of advice…do yourself a favor and buy a Vox Valvetronix modeling amp, or a Yamaha THR series, or just buy Bias Amp 2, or Bias FX 2 and an iLoud, you’ll be better off. The only thing the Spark amp is good for is a door stop. Again, avoid this thing like the plague!

After waiting several months I received my spark amp today. The various amp models work fine and sound better than I expected. The smart jam feature also works quite well. However, I am having a serious issue with the auto chord feature. I synched the app with my Apple Music account and downloaded several songs, however when I tried to play along, none of the songs would play. For most of the songs the app created a chord chart that was fairly accurate ( I downloaded several songs I know well to see how it wold do) but none of the songs would play so that I could play along. Since auto chord was a primary reason I purchased the amp, I am not pleased. I updated the firmware, turned the amp on an off and deleted and reinstalled the app on my iPad and my iPhone. I also made sure the amp was not connected to both the phone and iPad at the same time. Nothing worked. I have emailed positive grid and I hope there is a solution, but I didn’t find anything in my online searches. - UPDATE - positive grid responded to my email within a day informing me they had updated the app to correct the problem. The auto chord feature now works great. Loving the amp