QA Checklist for New Spark
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Okay, I unboxed my amp last night, did a factory reset and executed a firmware check with my Mac Power Book. Lmao, So far it’s performing to perfection! It did all those things correctly. My new cord showed up late yesterday so next I’ll check for power supply hum with a guitar plugged in, and makes sure the input jack is functioning.
Even though I got it as an inexpensive acoustic amp for my Taylor 814ce I’m really at a loss as to how to systematically go about QA checking to see if all it’s features work correctly (as advertised). I mean I’d like to know that it’s capable of doing all it should.
Could folks recommend a systematic approach? I’m happy to tabulate the recommendations as a form and put it out there for people to use. Starting from simplest operational checks to most difficult feature would take me some considerable time as I’m not likely to use all the features. Please feel free to make recommendations from simplest check (does it power on?) to most difficult. Keoki
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@keoki Step 1) while strumming your guitar turn all the knobs up and down and notice whether you get any change in sound. The Gain needs to be up somewhat above zero to get any signal through the amp, and the Master and Output also need to be a bit higher than zero.
Step 2) Go through each of the 4 presets that come programmed in the amp.
Step 3) hold the Tap/Tuner button down long enough to turn on the tuner aspect. Check your strings -- the tuner is best used only for strings that are slightly out of tune.
Step 4) Be sure to make the bluetooth connection for Spark Audio. On my iPadPro(2018) the second connection was made through the app itself. I don't know how things work on the Android app.
Step 5) be sure the Spark app is installed on your device. Start the app.
Step 6) Go to the tonecloud and try out some tones. If the amp changes sound when you tap on the icon for a tone, then it's working perfectly. Try saving a few tones to your device.
Step 7) viewing the app screen for a particular tone, double tap on each device. Every device other than the Noise Gate should show a list of possible effects/amps to use. Change a few of those. Move the knobs on the screen to be sure your sound changes with the knobs. Try turning some knobs on the amp -- the corresponding knobs on the screen should change also.
Step 8) try playing some of the backing tracks from within the app. The sound should come through the Spark amp. If not, go back to your device and try to repair the bluetooth connection between the device and the amp.The sequence of these steps is fairly arbitrary -- you can perform them all in different sequences as you wish. I'm sure others will have their suggestions to add or edits to what I've suggested.