Spark Review - Reviews - Music Tech Magazine

Arturia moves off the beaten track with its first drum-based product. Liam O’Mullane tries thumpin’ out a groove.

Price: £419.00
Manufacturer: Arturia
Website: http://www.arturia.com

arturia spark synth

Arturia has a well-earned reputation for re-creations of classic analogue synthesizers, all using the company’s own TAE (True Analog Emulation) system. This emulates the characteristics of analogue circuits and has been used to virtualise the Arp 2600, MoogModular, MiniMoog, CS-80, Prophet and Jupiter synths. Arturia has also released the simplified Analog Laboratory, Factory and Player, which are collections of presets taken from across its virtual range but with less user tweakability. The latter three products are also available with accompanying hardware.

This marked Arturia’s first steps into the creation of hybrid systems, which has now led the company onto Spark, Arturia’s drum-based product.

Sparking up

We’d already had a play on the prototype version at NAMM earlier this year, so we were very keen to see how this finished product would perform. The hardware controller adopts the same cream colour scheme as other Arturia products and the whole unit is raised at a slight angle towards the user on two plastic rails. While carrying it around we noticed that the rails flexed a lot if used as handles – so don’t do that as they feel like they could easily break! To be fair, though, Arturia makes no claims that this is what they are for.

Various rubber buttons give you control over most aspects of the software and they’re all brightly backlit, as are the eight velocity- and aftertouch-sensitive drum pads. All but the main jog dial and two loop division-based dials are smooth and click-less, and all rotary controls are endless. We gave everything a good heavy tug and whack, and they feel well-made. The weight of the unit, coupled with the small but effective rubber feet on the rails, also keeps it firmly in place.

Connections are simple, with USB for MIDI and power, along with five-pin MIDI in and out which enables the device to work as an interface. A power input can be used with an optional adaptor if you want to use the device as a standalone MIDI controller, but Spark itself will not work with hardware alone.

Doing it the hard way

The hardware and software are closely intertwined, with the main software window being descriptively named Controller View. More pages are available above and below this, with the bottom section taking care of sound elements and the top dealing with rhythm programming and preferences. Controller View includes a blue-and- white two-row LCD display, which is also well lit on the hardware.

The Sequencer Zone runs across the top and includes a traditional 16-button sequencing strip to program patterns or songs, with up to 64 steps to scroll through for either. Below this and to the right, the Song/Pattern Zone hosts a jog dial to change single sounds, referred to as instruments, or full drum kits (which replace everything). Unfortunately, there’s no auditioning of sounds and you can’t undo a load – this is more akin to real hardware than the usually more flexible software form.

Pattern banks surround this area and are geared towards easy live access to four banks that contain 16 patterns each, so there’s plenty of potential for variation. To the far left, the FX Pad is a mini X/Y pad for controlling one of the various real-time performance effects, including filters, bitcrusher, reverse, strobe, slicer and drum rolls which controls their speeds.

At the bottom, the Instrument Control Zone hosts eight of the 16 drum parts in each kit, and although this isn’t as much instant drum access as the more common 16-pad controllers, it does give you three drum-shaping tools to tweak at any given moment for each pad. These three are the most dynamic controls which are initially decided for you by Arturia, but others can be selected or chosen, including filter settings, aux sends and even insert FX.

To program a sequencer from the controller you select the instrument to focus on and this then attaches the filter, aux send, panning and volume controls in the middle for additional control to shape the sound as well.

Soft at the core

Anything that isn’t on the hardware controller can be edited in the Spark software, which runs either as a standalone program or as an AU/VST/ RTAS plug-in. We used Spark in both standalone and plug-in modes (the latter as an AU inside Ableton Live) and they function just the same; we did find a few quirks and bugs in the final beta version we received, but these will be fixed in the official release.

One of the most interesting aspects of Spark is where the sounds come from. Some are from Arturia’s TAE algorithms, which do an excellent job of emulating classic drum machines. These include the Roland 808 and 909, of course, as well as other classic models such as the Linn, Oberheim and Simmons. Spark delivers the punchy yet rounded tone of analogue synth drums, and the three controls for each sound really give you the kind of instant satisfaction that these older hardware machines used to. A few melodic instruments are also available, and although you can’t program any complex melodies, they are great for creating those tweak-based acid lines and sub booms.

Physical modelling is the next sound source, which again is exceptional in terms of sound quality and offers many sonic possibilities, ranging from authentic-sounding kicks and snares to weird ’n’ wonderful sci-fi tones.
The final drum sources are samples. Spark comes with a decent collection of real drum samples, including rock, jazz and funk kits as well as electronic sounds in various production styles. Sample instruments can be multi- layered and they have all the standard sampler controls, with a frequency shifter added for extra manipulation.

Making beats

When it comes to programming, we preferred to work in a traditional groovebox manner using the hardware – either step inputting, recording the pads or using the Roller effect on the FX controller. With this engaged you can use the X/Y pad to change the roll speed and use varying pressure on the drum pad to control the velocity of the hits in real time. In this way we created some very expressive hi-hat and ride parts, and we also found the X/Y pad useful when working with modelled sounds, as they tend to react to velocity change with pitch: some brilliant effects can be made with one sound on its own. Although quite small, the pad is easy to use as part of a live performance.

You can also work with the software sequencer if you prefer and Spark will happily work on its own. This is good if you want to do some work away from the controller, but we did find the navigation of the software a bit clunky for use solely on its own. Most hardware controls can be recorded as automation live and edited in software. A mixer page shows two inserts for each drum instrument and these are the usual suspects of compression, EQ, chorus, bitcrushers and so on. A pair of aux sends is available too, and almost function as normal – except that they work as pre-fader effects only. This is another element that we hope is addressed in the future!

The sum of two

Although this is a simple drum tool to control from the hardware, there are actually too many features to cram into this review, which should be encouraging for any potential buyers. It’s all about the hardware control for us, and we’d suggest that Spark is a little biased towards live performance as the X/Y pad effects can’t be recorded to patterns and songs. Its DAW integration could also be better, but we imagine that this will be refined in future updates. We found that working in standalone mode then exporting audio out to arrange in the DAW later was our preferred way of working. But as this is true of most grooveboxes, it’s not necessarily a negative point. MTM

9/10 Verdict - The power of this unit should not be underestimated – don’t be fooled by its simple and creative interface. It’s this that enables you to get hands-on fast, all with excellent sound quality.

WHY BUY

+ Great sound quality and range
+ Incredibly simple to use
+ FX pad is very expressive
+ Visually stimulating to program and perform with
+ Works as a MIDI controller

WALK ON BY

- Metronome and save functions are software-only
- Aux FX are pre-fader only
- DAW integration could be better for sequencing

Score: 9/10

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This review first appeared in Music Tech Magazine issue 99
Filed under Home, Hardware, Hardware Instruments, Reviews, Synths

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Arturia Spark Review