Feature requests: 1) Access to drum machine 2) Better / longer looper capability
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Yes, I submitted these thru Contact Support and they very quickly responded that they'll be forwarded to the engineering team: Thanks, Positive Grid! But I wanted to see how the community felt as well. I have a Fender G-DEC 30 that has spoiled me (even with its clunky interface) as far as what a practice amp should do:
- I find it frustrating that the drums are accessible only thru Smart Jam. I typically just want to select a pattern, a tempo and go.
- The G-DEC has about 30 sec. of true looper with overdub recording so I can quickly lay down a rhythm (and bass if I'm so inclined) of what I'm practicing at whatever tempo/pattern I select on the drums. Sure wish I could do that with Spark. Yes, I know I can pre-record or find a backing track on the web, but the G-DEC just makes it soooo easy if I get an idea to quickly, with no internet access get to trying it out. Smart Jam doesn't really do it for me because: a) It doesn't record the sequence you used to set it up. b) It's too short - 8 bars doesn't cut it. c) I find it's actually not very accurate in capturing your chord sequence: Try playing the iconic rhythms to say, China Grove or Stairway to Heaven solo.
I also have a Trio+ with its fabulous looper, but it's a lot of extra setup and stuff. Would love to have both of of these capabilities built right into the oh-so-portable Spark.
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100% agree a true looper would be an amazing enhancement. I also agree that the Smart Jam is a very cool idea but just doesn't quite work. I saw they added a blues section and I tried a basic 12 bars blue rhythm in Em but the resulting jam was not quite 12 bar blues.
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@cgwilson73 Right... it's 4 bars short.... what's the point?
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@ghclaborn None of the drummers they could design could count to 12 so they gave up. :-)
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@ghclaborn yes good ideas, these hopefully will be included in the Spark 2 when it's released in 2023 at, I'd say... US$599?
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Looping feature should be a software patch. Link to app the loop through app
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@sadbttru But audio data doesn't go from the amp to the app. Any "listening" the app does is only through the mic on the iOS or Android device. So there would be no way to do looping through the app until/unless they get audio going via bluetooth back to the app. I can't imagine that using the device's mic will make for good looping results.
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Yeah I am not a pro user with spark for sure.
Currently my work around is to record a quick bit in music memos (iOS) edit it to a good loop add drums and bass, if desired and then play that through spark and jam along to it. The advantages there are that drums and bass are much better and more customizable than smart jam, you can hear your guitar part you played as well as a new one, you can record a bit as long as you want. To record it will just use the mic on my phone, which not the best but let’s me try adding other parts. If I really wanted I could run the spark app on a second device and use music memo to capture a second part as well.