Arturia Spark - my impressions

[punkdISCO]

Hi all - some may recall that got a Spark drum machine about 10 days ago.
Here are my thoughts:

1. Fecking frustrating!!  Despite being on version 1.4, it really does feel
like a pre-release beta.  Lots of the interface is badly though out (both
software and hardware) and it still does not follow your DAWs song
position(!) so, pattern mode only for DAW usage..  Saying this, Spark's Song
Mode is as basic as you can imagine so you would probably only use pattern
mode anyway.

2.  It sounds incredible.  There are 3 sound engine:

a. Sampling: has some sound sculpting controls not found on other samplers.
Layering is very basic, for example, you cannot even set or see (so you have
to guess) the velocity zones.

b. True Analog Emulation TAE.  This is where the fun starts.  Being a Jomox
die-hard, my only real interest in drums is synthesis and not samples.  This
section is truly amazing.  Again, clearly implemented by a software engineer
rather than a muso but the sound makes up for it.  Basically, for each
instrument (eg kick etc) there are 30 engines with each one constructed as
an internal modular synth with 6 parameters exposed.  Unfortunately, most of
the 30 engines exposes a completely different  set of 6 params so that is a
heck of a lot of remembering just for the 30 kick engines.  Then you have
engines for snares, HHs, FX, Synth, etc etc so you can imagine it is pretty
complex.  It is very similar to the MonoMachines 6 very simple engines that
yield loads of power through a very simple interface but, Spark has probably
well over 100 engines which to me is not good..   It would have been far
simpler to have 1 analogue engine for, say Kicks, but with 30 presets.  This
bigger kick engine could then expose more parameters than the current 6.

Some of the TAE engines are incredibly dynamic with different timbre's
appearing depending on velocity.  Super sexy and way beyond what you could
ever do with samples or simpler synth engines like Jomox..

For a synth-enthusiast, this section is where the true power of Spark lies..

c. Physical Modelling PM.   Supposed to be for modelling real drums and it
is scary how real these engines sound.  However, I just treat these as
another set of analogue engines as not into real sounding drums.
Interestingly, the PM section does actually come with lots of analogue
instruments despite appearing to all about modelling real life drum
characteristics.

Listen to the "Sound Engines" demos (not so great demos):
http://www.arturia.com/evolution/en/products/spark/spark-guided-tour.html#sp
arkgt

3. The interface is ONLY designed for live use.  WHY?!!  Sure, 5% of buyers
will be interested in using it live (once they fix the hourly crashing!) but
what about the other 95% who are studio based!  Example: select and
instrument (kick) and you now get 6 dedicated knobs under the LCD for Aux 1,
Aux 2, Panning etc.  BUT you only get 3 knobs above the instrument's pad
assigned to 3 of the 6 editable parameters for the instrument!!!  This means
you cannot edit the instrument without heavy mouse usage yet you can happily
give yourself a headache sweeping the dedicated Panning knob.

Another way to look at it is: Spark has a very healthy 35 knobs but, at any
one time, only 3 of these are assigned to editing the instrument's 6 params.
Being into Spark's sound design, I spent the first 3 days not touching the
hardware controller, reverting to mapping the 6 parameters on my Novation SL
controller. Crazy!!

4. Spark v Maschine.  Maschine feels far more mature.  Spark really is a
like a single, very simple implementation of 1 Group in Maschine (Maschine
has 8 groups).  However, I really do not know of any other drum synthesizer
that sounds anywhere near as good as Spark.  They really have taken all they
know about modular synthesizers and packaged this into an incredible drum
synth..

5. Conclusion.  I have owned every Jomox drum machine there is, now with
just the 888.  I also own the incredible NI Maschine.  I got Spark hoping it
would give me the integration of Maschine with the sound of Jomox, allowing
me to sell both these.  Unfortunately, it falls very short of Maschine's
integration and interface however, it totally exceeds the sound of my Jomox
888.

Im keeping Maschine and Spark, selling the Jomox.  Hopefully one day Spark
with develop enough to allow me to sell Maschine also..

Paul
London
www.punkdisco.co.uk
Text SLUT to: 29 7 29 7
Here's the video:  www.youtu.be/Zl0PTZKy7fg