#POSITIVE GRID SPARK AMP PRICE PATCH#
#POSITIVE GRID SPARK AMP PRICE SOFTWARE#
#POSITIVE GRID SPARK AMP PRICE PLUS#

The Spark 40 is pitched as a home practice amp for electric guitar, bass guitar and acoustic guitar which is a lot to pack into one unit. Others have complained that this tiny knob is too small making it hard to adjust to the correct volume. This includes jam tracks via the app and I found this a bit confusing at first but I guess it makes sense to be able to mix with your guitar. There's also a tiny 'Music Volume' control next to the headphone output which separately sets the volume of external music via Bluetooth, the Aux in or USB. This could result in a quick jump from it's prior value which could be nasty surprise if you are turning the gain 'down' from 9 when it has actually been operating at 2. On the Spark if you twist a knob it will change that associated setting to the knob value and the app shows this is real time. Short of expensive motorized knobs or led lights all over the place there really isn't a perfect solution which means that you are often operating blind when looking at the physical controls.

#POSITIVE GRID SPARK AMP PRICE PATCH#

The problem you inevitably run into with this sort of setup is that of 'dueling' controls between the analogue knobs and the app or patch values. For more fine grained control of effect parameters or amp models you need to use the app. They've done good job of making it look and feel like a classic amp here but there's only so much you can control this way. You can recall 4 patches via buttons next to a tap tempo button and these can also double as tuner lights which is pretty handy.

#POSITIVE GRID SPARK AMP PRICE PLUS#

There's an amp style selector and the usual amp controls (gain, 3 band eq and master) plus single knobs for levels of Mod, Delay, Reverb and Output (the real master volume). The controls look pretty well organised on the top of the amp with about as many knobs as you could fit (10). The control knobs on the Spark 40 amp itself. It's hard to keep remembering that this is a sub-$300 product and not want more though and it's not without flaws.

#POSITIVE GRID SPARK AMP PRICE SOFTWARE#

What I discovered was an amp that delivers so much for such an inexpensive compact unit and it does feel like seeing the future at least - freed from shackles of clunky PC software connected via USB. I've long thought that a lot of music tech gear was lagging on the software usability side and PG's logo is 'The Future Sounds Like This' so I decided to get my hands on the Spark 40 to see what all the hype was about. So now that the dust has settled and it's widely available in stores, does it deliver on that original promise and more importantly should you get one? It continues to be mega popular today with over 250K sales at the time of writing and PG claiming it to be the world's most popular practice amp. Though many buyers weren't happy with the wait, more orders kept coming in and PG eventually cleared the backlog later in the 2020 having sold well over 100K units. Well it turns out the pandemic did impact manufacturing which lead to significant delivery delays, up to 6 months for someone I know. By early 2020 they had won Music Radars 'Best of NAMM' award for guitar amps and were getting ready to ship nearly 25 thousand pre-orders. Furthermore they used a crowd funding style model, offering steep discounts as rewards to people willing to place pre-orders months in advance. At the time they had limited experience building hardware so it was a bold claim. At the time Positive Grid (PG) were mainly known for their software guitar modeling apps 'BIAS Effects' and 'BIAS Amps' and they sought to bring this experience to the world of musical equipment that was only slowly adapting to the modern era of ubiquitous smart phones, wireless everything and 'The Cloud'.

The Positive Grid Spark 40 was announced in late 2019 in an ambitious campaign promising a truly smart amp for the home that would revolutionize practice for guitar and bass players at an agreeable price.

Positive grid spark amp price