Spark - Positive Grid

[BatUtilityBelt]

Hey, after only 7-1/2 weeks, mine changed status from "Being Prepared" to "In Transit". Maybe it won't be many more months now.

[golem]

I got an update as well. 7 months now and no amp.

[UrenragK]

No update for my order, but a friend got his last week.

[thepezident]

July 1, my order status went to Shipped.

[BatUtilityBelt]

July 1, my order status went to Shipped.

So it's positively on the grid now.

[thepezident]

Ugghhh...I will be at Camp Pez from Friday morning until Sunday evening.

Need to see if a neighbor can take it in for the weekend.

I guess I waited this long....

[voodoorat]

my buddy got his last week. i played with it *very briefly* over the weekend. he has never really had a modelling amp at all so he was wowed by the options (his only other amp is a bjr). i was less impressed by that but for its size it's surprisingly loud and full-sounding (the speakers are tiny). i didn't get much of a chance to mess with any of the more interesting stuff.

mine is slated to get here friday. honestly, i'm more than a little tempted to see if i can turn it around for $500 or whatever before they meet the rush.

[golem]

Mine was shipped and is supposed to be here Thursday.

[golem]

Update: Got it today! It's got a lot of features. I'd say the quality to price ratio on this is pretty good with this piece of gear. I wish I'd had a practice amp like this starting out.

[thepezident]

[mention]golem[/mention] bruh.....any more thoughts about it?

[golem]

@golem bruh.....any more thoughts about it?

The interface is pretty easy to figure out. It's easy to tweak the settings for pedals and amps on my phones. It sounds pretty realistic, but more like a recording amp than an amp you're playing right in front of. I found a setting where it will teach you the chords to popular songs. Honestly, it's better than Fender's tutorials in that regard. I have barely scratched the surface of what this can do.

[golem]

[mention]thepezident[/mention] I'll try to do better when I have more time to play with it. [mention]andrewsrea[/mention] any interest in trying this?

[BatUtilityBelt]

So waiting on a Spark order from months ago, I just got an email from their CEO basically saying "Hey, we know we're not communicating and had a bunch of issues but we're working on it". I don't know about anyone else, but this makes me less assured I will get an amp and it will work.

[golem]

So waiting on a Spark order from months ago, I just got an email from their CEO basically saying "Hey, we know we're not communicating and had a bunch of issues but we're working on it". I don't know about anyone else, but this makes me less assured I will get an amp and it will work.

I got it too but reacted differently (more positively?). Posting for full context:

Calvin, CEO of Positive Grid here. I am overwhelmed and truly appreciate your support for Spark. It is clear that we have not been communicating effectively about delays and obstacles that have prevented us from shipping your Spark. I sincerely apologize for keeping you waiting for so long.

There are things we will—and must—do better. From here on out, I promise to do everything within our power to keep you 100% informed. Here is an update I want to share with you directly.
What happened?
In November and December of 2019, the early response for Spark far exceeded our expectations. We had to significantly increase our production capability, operation and logistics, and solve resource challenges.

In January and February of this year, the COVID-19 outbreak hit which closed our factory and many vendors in our supply chain, dramatically affecting our production capability. Once the production issue was resolved, the pandemic had spread worldwide, affecting our logistics and shipping.

As a small team, it has been very challenging to navigate the large scale uncertainties of producing and shipping in the world today. But we should, and we will get better. This I personally pledge to you.
What's happening now?
We have ramped up production and shipping extensively. Most pre-orders (90%) will be shipped by the end of July. The remaining orders will ship by mid-August.

We are revamping our order tracking system and customer service team to make it easier for you to track your order, and to be more responsive to you when you have questions so that we can reply in a timely manner.

Some customers received tracking numbers many weeks prior to their amp's delivery. Tracking numbers were automatically generated the moment our warehouse received a shipping order. We are working to improve the process to ensure tracking numbers are not created until they are in fact scanned and in the shipping process.

Yes, we are shipping Sparks in the order they were received, and based on their location in the world. We did make an operational mistake and shipped a few hundred units out of order. We’ve fixed that and it won’t happen again.
Looking forward
We are doubling the warranty on Spark to Two Years as a thank you for your support.

We will post communications every week until everyone has received their Spark.

Spark is created with the vision of a smarter way to play and jam. We have many new developments in the pipeline, and we’re committed to adding new features, sounds, software and firmware updates on a regular basis.
This has been an incredible learning experience for me and for our company. As a group of forward-thinking musicians who are passionate about creating new experiences for guitar players, we hate to disappoint you. We are working hard every day to make our customer experience equal to the quality of our Spark amps.

Thank you, once again, for your continued patience and support.

Sincerely,

Calvin Abel
CEO, Positive Grid

I waited 174 days. But, they did give me their software for free (it costs $60?) and extended the warranty to two years. I don't know. I don't think they did a great job. I didn't cancel my order either. I'm happy with the final product and the value it represents. But yeah, 175 days is a long f-ing time.

[UrenragK]

I’m on the positive side too,

At leat they’ve acknowledged they’ve done a piss poor job so far.

I’m still looking forward to being able to jam without too much messing about, and hopefully getting a bit more into playing again!

[voodoorat]

ha! looks like i'm going to be only 172 days!

[andrewsrea]

@thepezident I'll try to do better when I have more time to play with it. @andrewsrea any interest in trying this?

Always!

[voodoorat]

mother*****, scratch that 172 days apparently unless they forgot scan it a few times. grrrr.

[voodoorat]

yep, i'm gonna do worse than 174 after all.

[PsychoCid]

I can't put my finger on why quite yet, but I feel like these should be $99.

[Jaymo]

I believe it was Darrel Braun's YouTube channel that said these can be used as a soundbar, in addition to being used as an amp and bluetooth multimedia speaker?
Can anyone confirm that? If so, that would check several boxes for me. Bass amp. Guitar amp. audio interface. soundbar. bluetooth speaker. Learning aid.
I want one. Looks like I'll have to wait a while before ordering, since they are so far behind on orders.

[voodoorat]

ok so i've had a little more time to play with this and have some initial impressions.

for perspective, i've got a digitech trio (although i haven't used it in a long time) and a few jam training/drum apps, and also use youtube videos for the same thing sometimes. i also have had several lower-end modeling type amps with effects: fender mustang, fender super champ x2, and boss katana. i also have positivegrid's bias fx 2 and bias amp 2 apps/plugins.

for its size, the amp sounds surprisingly good and is unexpectedly loud. i was expecting it to sound more toy-like because the twin speakers are tiny--maybe 4"?

i'm honestly pretty underwhelmed by the amp and effect choices, it feels like a pretty limited subset of what's available from those other (cheaper) modelers and i'm not sure why. it's kind of nice being able to tweak via phone/tablet app + bluetooth instead of via pc software + usb, but honestly i usually set up my presets and they are what they are, I don't fiddle with the amp knobs much once i find something that i like the sound of.

everybody except me apparently loves a ton of reverb and delay because every fucking patch seems to have like 20 times more of that than i like, i don't know why everybody wants to pretend like they're in an underground church or something. i get it for surf music but not everything else. it's like delay/reverb that lasts like 5 seconds after i play something.

the jamming functionality is a mixed bag. there are some "quick jams" that are similar to the other backing track apps i've used. the quality of the backing tracks are ok--although not completely convincing, not sure how they are digitized. you can adjust the key and the tempo though. there's also a "create your own" smart jam which is weird: it asks you for the tempo up front and then you play a little and it analyzes it but it only listens for a few seconds and i'm not sure why it asks you for the tempo up front when it does its own analysis of the chords. it integrates with youtube somehow so you can see the chord progression more easily, and it's integrated, which is nice and might be nicer if i wasn't sitting at my computer most of the time anyway.

there's also functionality which lets you analyze songs off spotify or whatever and it tries to identify the chords so you can play along. this is basically the same functionality that you see on the web, it mostly works but misses a lot of chord changes, gets some wrong, and puts in phantom chord changes where there are none sometimes. for simple songs it's probably good enough but you could probably have figured those out without the app if you've played much at all.

it also seems like noisy amp. i usually don't play with a ton of gain on "real" amps but it seems like there's a lot of noise, and it also seems like a lot of the patches include a noise gate to counteract it, so it feels like you either have to live with the noise or live with notes dropping out constantly and seemingly kinda randomly.

all in all, i'd say for a new player it would be great. new players may not be aware that a lot of this functionality exists already scattered around, and being able to play along--to a song or to a backing track or whatever--is probably the single most important thing to being able to play with other people since it teaches you to listen and play in steady time. nothing is more annoying than jamming with someone who's never played with a metronome. for intermediate or advanced players it's not as much of a no-brainer. that said, it's small enough that i'm probablyi going to sell the katana 50 and keep this--i don't see myself using the katana in a jamming environment or anything with all the other amps i have to choose from and this is maybe not quite as good but it's good enough and it's small and has this extra stuff integrated.

[BatUtilityBelt]

Went to see if there was an update of mine (supposed to ship in the next week or 25). Their website is down! It just says "Server Error Something went wrong Please try again later". Hope they're not folding up operations. They would not be the first company to collect a ton of orders and go away like that.

[edit] Waited an hour or so and the site was back - guess it was maintenance. It is unnerving to watch and wait and hope this turns out.

[solteroblues]

I've been tempted to buy one, they're starting to show up on Reverb from scalpers. one guy was selling his at a reasonable price, I think like $314 including shipping, so that was maybe only about $50 above retail. But it was gone pretty quick and I didn't want to even take a chance until more people had real experiences with them.

[golem]

I believe it was Darrel Braun's YouTube channel that said these can be used as a soundbar, in addition to being used as an amp and bluetooth multimedia speaker?
Can anyone confirm that? If so, that would check several boxes for me. Bass amp. Guitar amp. audio interface. soundbar. bluetooth speaker. Learning aid.
I want one. Looks like I'll have to wait a while before ordering, since they are so far behind on orders.

Yeah, I haven't tried everything you're asking, but it is supposed to do all that. I can try hooking up as an audio interface and a Bluetooth speaker later today.

I don't have a bass.