Arturia Spark - my impressions

[Andrew Tarpinian]

On Sep 2, 2012, at 6:59 AM, "punkdISCO" <forums at punkdisco.co.uk> wrote:
> 
> Nice..  I think Arturia are currently one of the most exciting music
> companies.  Nothing they have produced to date seems to have really grabbed
> the market, which is a big shame but, I expect this is going to change over
> the next few weeks (hey, Gert?!!!)  :)

Well they have done pretty well in the soft synth area. :)

> 
>> So that's cool, hope there are no weird limitations.
> 
> I believe the Vintage edition does not allow you to import your own samples
> so can only be expanded by Arturia.  Plus it only has the Analogue engine
> and Sample Engine, but not the Physical Modelling Engine.  I would not be
> too miffed by this.

Ah, got it, and it looks like I can't use the drum pack updates like those french ones.

> 
> Finally and obviously, you don't have the physical controller.  I would not
> lose any sleep over this.  Sure, it is fun but so badly implemented, I often
> find myself programming via my Novation SL controller and not Spark.  Can
> you imagine a Maschine user opting to ignore the Maschine controller in
> favour of a generic midi controller??!!

The thing is the software maschine interface is pretty decent. I found myself getting frustrated with the spark one, I know they wanted to match the hardware on screen but... It does of course sound very good, so it's annoying that even with the controller the interface is  not great. 

>  It simply would not happen..  I
> know(hope) this will improve with time but only if they buy into the idea
> that Spark users want to control the synthesizers and not the mixer - Spark
> is currently configured with an emphasis on (bad)mixing (dedicated knobs for
> pan, aux sends etc) which cannot be changed..

I'm sure it has to do with the interface not being labeled and them wanting to have parameters that were always standard. 

Also the new Oberheim SEM V is probably the best sounding soft synth I have ever used, someone else try it and tell me I'm not crazy, it does not sound like software.