Positive Grid Spark Live

I had high hopes for this, and for the first week at least, it has delivered quite well – it does all it’s marketed for, and then some. I’ve tried it with basses and guitars, electric and acoustic, and while the sound might not always be precisely what I’m looking for, it is useable indeed – but then it is to be noted that I had quite specific uses in mind for this.

Firstly, when I connect my other interface to the stereo inputs (3 and 4 in the back panel), the sound is flat and pristine enough for using this as a monitoring device; much like you can also use it as a Bluetooth speaker. The rationale here was that it is compact, loud when needed, and capable of some stereo separation – it is there, though it is quite slight given the size of the unit; but then there is also a stereo out among its many connections.

Secondly, when I use the ”audio/data” usb-c port to connect it to an iPad or even an old iPhone, I have an instant interface for live looping: there is no latency either way, you can change presets for different layers, and it plays both the live and the looped loud and clear; I did a little demo of this on my YouTube channel. Certainly the same connection would work with computer DAWs, but do note that the usb combines all the physical inputs into one, so you couldn’t have a whole band play all their instruments into separate tracks all at once, for instance.

On the slightly negative side, you have to work your way around the different controls, with volume knobs for the different channels on opposite sides of the device, and loud surprises in store if you happen to adjust something on the Spark app and then return to the physical knobs; probably best to find a working routine and stick to that? But altogether, I think this will serve me well for what I need: as an FRFR sort of monitor, as an audio interface, and as a functional practice tool either with the Spark stuff or with external devices. I don’t yet know how it would survive in a full band situation, but looking forward to hearing and reading people’s experiences.

There is no stereo separation between input 3 and 4 as marketing and manual let customer understand. Those two input channels (3 and 4) are just summed and outputted as mono sound. Even with earphones connected to Spark Live. Bluetooth connection plays in stereo and i guess also channels 1 and 2 mono input digital signals also, have not tested those troughout because do not need those. As mainly keyboardist i really would like to have stereo output from speaker itself as instruction manual and marketing let understand. And yes i have had it in horizontal position and i have tried to change 3 and 4 input modes to line input from default. Basically sound is ok speaker like this size.