I see Positive Grid has gone smaller than the Spark Mini and now have the Spark Go due to start shipping in late May. Pre-order price is discounted $40 down to $109US ($179 in my local currency - AUD) which seems pretty good that can be used as a tiny practice amp, headphone amp or audio interface. Combined with the features of the Spark Amp, I’m very tempted to pre-order one.
I already have the Mooer Prime P1 which does the headphone amp and audio interface part pretty well, but interested how much extra value might be able to get from the Spark App and I think this would be the cheapest way to utilise it. Not sure how good the speaker will be for just bass, but given you can use it as a bluetooth speaker and I also play guitar.
The Prime P1 was more expensive as well, think I paid about $250 AUD via Amazon but it’s a crazy $379 AUD in retail stores.
Another thing with the Prime P1 is to switch between guitar and bass, you have to load firmware - it doesn’t take that long, but slows you down and not sure if it would eventually screw up the device if you’re constantly switching firmware. Presume that with the Spark Go, you can just include bass as one of the 4 loaded presets.
Anyway, seems like a pretty exciting device and probably more so if you play guitar and bass
For the size the speaker on the mini is pretty amazing imo. Mainly because it has a separate woofer at the bottom. For practice it is awesome.
Before this I had the Blackstar Fly3 Bass for mobile practice which wasn’t too bad eiher, but with this you can do bass and guitar, the app brings tons of features and the speaker is a lot better.
Nice, thanks Paul. I’m looking for something to take out of the house. My son does competitive swimming and training is 5am (soon to be most mornings). It’s too far to drive back home so looking to extend by “back seat” practice routine and it would be nice to not have to use headphones.
Yes I have the Spark family, the Spark Go is pretty good with bass when you are practicing late into the night and do not want to use the headphone. If you have any Spark products the interface is the same so it just comes down to form factor.
While the Spark GO has a room filling volume I’d be cautious pushing the bass volume to that limit. I’ll record both Go and mini when I get home from my daughters swimming meet.
It goes without saying that it’s a much better device for a guitar player because of the effects and the more forgiving audio range on a smaller speaker. If you use the Go with the headphones then the experience is pretty awesome.
Backseat? That might work well but it depends on the car as well. If it has a great sound absorption I can work in your favor. It just going to suck some volume out a bit.
I did a quick video comparing the 3 battery operated Bass amps. I have another battery operated amp but it’s just a different in size by quite a bit( Boss Dual Cube Bass LX) so it would not be a good amp to do the comparison.
The lineup
Spark Go
Spark Mini
Blackstar Fly bass
I recorded using my iPhone camera app and using internal speaker to play the backing track. Both Sparks have bluetooth but the Blackstar required the 3.5mm cable. It’s not direct recording so there’s an AC in the background.
The Mini had the least amount of treble in the video I just realized, it’s because I turned it sideway instead of firing straight on to the phone.
They are fun little amps you can mess around with. The Blackstar is pretty much sound the least interesting, lol. The Spark GO is very interesting. It’s a perfect carry around with the guitar and would shred just about anywhere. On the bass it would sound great with the headphone and at lower volume without one.
The Mini is a great choice in any small space with or without the headphone. Plenty of volume for rich sounding bass and both Mini and Go would let you record straight into your computer. I mic up the mini before and it sounded pretty awesome.
Wow, thank you @Al1885, that was awesome, very cruisy. I’d probably be happy with either of the Sparks. Really like the convenience of bluetooth backing tracks.
I’d most likely be in our SUV which is very open and quite a bit of cabin space. Could get in close to a 2hr practice session or maybe 1hr and get a swim in as well.
I also often don’t get to practice until late at night and would be conventient to be able to play in another room rather than where my gear usually sits. I work from home in the same room anywhere from 3 to 5 days a week and it can feel like I haven’t detached from work sometimes.
I forgot to mention that I recorded both Sparks with their video app. It’s convenient. I uploaded the track from Moisses and then just recorded. Pretty neat function too as it also has a retake button
Good to know. Does the Spark have to be physically connected to your phone? I’ve got the Mooer Prime P1 and you connect directly. It worked on my Pixel 3 but doesn’t work on my recently purchased Pixel 7. Really frustrating.
To use the spark app not every time but it needs to be connected from time to time. I’ve done it a few times when my spark 40 was out of action and awaited replacement. Not sure if the current app version would allow that still.
You don’t need app to use the devices all of your personal preset 1-4 can be programmed in to the button or dial.
@Al1885 I picked up the Go yesterday and very impressed. Haven’t been able to use it much yet, but tried with bass and guitar.
Tested it with a PRS SE 24 and a Fender Player Jazz. Liked what I heard enough to not even try the mini (this time ).
Speaker is respectable with both and headphones sound awesome. Picked Fuzzy Jam under the Alternative presets and tried with my Jackson Dinky - sounded crazy enough to make me smile.
Haven’t used with any backing tracks or any of the app features yet, but looking forward to it.
I had a quick go using it to record via USB into Reaper on my laptop and super easy to get going. Any idea if you can adjust the monitoring volume as it seems to be at max?
I’m glad you like it @iDuncan. Are you talking about the volume of the bass or the track? Also are you asking about the volume at recording? If so I think you can boost the volume on your computer as far as the volume of the speaker, for the bass you can choose the amp and adjust the gain. I would not go crazy on the gain though, it’d cracked and distort.
If you are using this as an interface then the headphone would help a lot. As you can probably see the volume of the GO playing as a Bluetooth speaker is quite loud for the size. I tried with the guitar and it’s pretty loud too. It takes a bit of finesse to get the right volume balance for the bass. It can produce quite an attractive recording tone. Maybe not as loud as guitar but still very good.
@Al1885 it the volume whilst I have the track armed in Reaper. I’ve only tried with guitar so far. The Go is connected to my laptop via USB and I have my headphones in the Go. The volume is very loud (not distorted, just too loud). The volume knob on the Go doesn’t do anything and neither does changing the volume on the laptop (it shows the output is the Go USB).
I don’t think there is any clipping in Reaper, it might be close, I’d have to check again.
If I’m using my iRig HD2 and plugins, I’d just adjust the volume on the iRig. Same sort of thing if I’m running my Yamaha THR10X.
Oh cool! You have the opposite problem than I thought. That’s and easier fix than the other way around. I’m not familiar with reaper but I’m sure most are very similar in general. Do you have Mic/Line switch or a pad switch?
I’m a noob when it comes to this stuff so not really sure what either of those are
I did just find the ‘Master hardware output controls’ which are available by default in Reaper.
I think dragging this to a -DB setting has done what I wanted. Prior to trying this I added a wav file backing track to Reaper and it nearly blew my ears off.
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