Spark: Chords, Backing Tracks Reviews

by Firebird59

If I could give this thing zero stars I would, but you have to give one star in order to post a review…so with that out of the way…where do I start with how useless this thing is…how about, some background. I’ve been playing guitar and have been in and out of bands and recording studios for the past forty years…So with that said…First, l’ll start this review by pointing out how overwhelmingly muddy and bass heavy the amp itself is, and that’s with plugging the bass port. Additionally, trying to use the bass controls (in the apps amps) to tame the bass is useless as well. Also, the treble controls either add harshness to the tone, or are useless. Plus, I tried a Strat, a Tele, a Les Paul, an ES335, a Firebird, an Explorer, a Gretch, and a Yamaha, and didn’t make a bit of difference in getting a passable tone. I also tried single coils, humbuckers, mini humbuckers, P90s, and soapbar pickups, and that didn’t help in dialing in a satisfactory tone. And trying to get a tone on the amp using the bridge, neck, or the two together was futile. Though, I will say this, if you play metal the this app amp and app are passable. Look, I could go on, but I won’t, though I will offer this piece of advice…do yourself a favor and buy a Vox Valvetronix modeling amp, or a Yamaha THR series, or just buy Bias Amp 2, or Bias FX 2 and an iLoud, you’ll be better off. The only thing the this app amp is good for is a door stop. Again, avoid this thing like the plague!

by Kmac -apple

-update March 22nd received email suggesting I should have received a replacement for dead power brick. Asked The support tech for a copy of Fedex number - no tracking data shared and no power supply received. Sitting at 100 days from day I opened ticket asking for replacement. Is anyone else having issues in dead power supply?

-update Jan 15th 2021 still not a word on sending replacement power supply. No eta.

-Update dec 19th final got confirmation that they are looking at replacing faulty power supply. No date for when unit will ship.

-Update dec 16 - email response finally received at 2pm pst today. The support person shared some of the specs to buy replacement power supply. No mention of warranty that PG states is one year. No idea if this is norm. Are others find lack of support for warranty an issue?

Update dec 15 - still no response from PG support team.

Update Dec 14. Opened a case dec 13th because power supplied died no response after 24 hours. Part of it was over the weekend.

Went to the forum page and see others mention power supply issues. To many note lack of response.

----first review---
Delete first review after finally receiving email on my open case about dead power supply

by Eclecticwhyzas

I spent a few weeks trying to resolve the muddy tone issue and finally found a way to get an amp to make the town sound OK. I wish I knew exactly what I did. It seem to be fine for a month or so but after I unplugged it for a period of time and then re-plugged it in, it went back to being muddy again, and try as I might I cannot resolve that issue. This is incredibly frustrating and annoying. I’ve gone back to using my JS-10. It doesn’t have the volume output but it always sounds great. I really have no desire to spend all of my time trying to make this amp sound right, I just want to play, but I hate sounding like I’m sitting in a wet cave with this dead tone. I was somewhat pleased with it when the sound was brighter and clearer but I have no idea what happened to it when I unplugged it. Even my THR-10 sounds better. The best thing about the JS-10 is that it can record what you play. That would be a great feature for the this app...After fixing this tone issue.

by LightShadowZero

Currently, the synchronization with the this app 40 Amp is unreliable. Whether that’s the amp’s Bluetooth modem, or Spark , it certainly needs improvement. Sometimes I turn on the amp, give it some time for the Bluetooth modem to kick on, then start Spark , and it attempt to connect but then fails.

Sometimes Spark will do exactly what I expect it to, and sometimes I select a preset in Spark and the amp audibly responds with a short pause, but then nothing changes on the amp.

Sometimes I try to save a preset to the this app 40 and Spark returns an error that it had problems doing so.

Other times I’ve tried selecting presets in rapid succession and it causes the this app 40 to completely freeze up where the LEDs are froze and the knobs do nothing. Most of those times, I got a very loud ear-damaging tone played by the this app 40 when it freezes, and in one scenario it played absolutely nothing. Only power cycling it “fixes” the issue.

Mind you, this doesn’t happen when working just off the amp. The communication between the amp and Spark is causing this to happen.

I’d be happy to update my review once this is resolved, but this isn’t acceptable behavior for a product that will be launching to the general public within months.

by Double-0 Diablo

I bought the this app amp recently, and Spark is the main way I interact with the little amp. I found it fairly easy and intuitive to dial in some useful tones, various effects, etc and save them as pre-sets. However, the other features like Smart Jam and tone cloud are buggy and poorly designed and I’ve yet to get much use out of them. For instance, I’ve dialed in and saved to my local device 3 or 4 nice tones, but can’t find them on my other iOS devices even if I upload them to the tone cloud. There should be a way to sync all of my iOS devices with the presets I’ve created. I have an iPhone and two iPads and it is a mess. A search of the tone cloud does not show the presets I’ve uploaded at all, and the sorting tools do not work. So these sorts of bugs and complete dysfunction have severely limited the ease of use and flexibility of the product. The web page is not of much help in trouble-shooting, either.

by Klub Foot

After waiting for a long time l finally received my Amp, plugged her without BT. Sounded pretty good, then gave Spark a go, first l was stuck on one page then deleted Spark and re installed it, that worked to get off the page. Now l tried out a few Amps off the cloud after about five minutes of trying different amps the amp just started screaming a high pitched noice and had to turn off the amp!! Once again stuck one page? And this is on a iPhone 11 that’s updated, so l hooked up to my iPad 7 and here we go again, stuck on one page? Went through the delete process and it worked to get off the page. Once again tried the amp models on the cloud which by the way are 90% terrible?? And got that loud screaming tone out of nowhere. This thing needs a lot more work! Too Sad!

by LokiHB09

I got my this app in June. Love it. The amp is small, looks good and sounds great.

The effects and amp modeling are excellent, and I love tonecloud.

My favorite feature by far is the ability to stream music through the Bluetooth connection. I love the backing tracks and spend a lot of time just playing over them.

This is where my criticism comes in. Since I got my iPhone 12, the audio connection is awful. Goes in and out, the playback at times will sound like an old cassette about to be spit out all tangled.

I opened a ticket back in December and was told they they are working with Apple to remedy this, as it seems to be exclusive to the iPhone 12. I verified this with my son’s iPad- no issues. Unfortunately, he needs that for school so I’m stuck with what I’ve got. I was told they were working on it and the ticket was closed.

I saw Spark updated last week and was hopeful. Today, I connected my guitar and my amp, and started streaming some music to play to. After about 10 seconds, the problems started again.

Disappointed that I can’t use my favorite part of the amp with the the hardware I have, and that my support ticket was closed with no resolution other than “we’re working on it”. That wouldn’t fly with my support desk or my customers.

by Elxsound

The weakest effect on the this app is the reverb. While there are “9” reverb pedals, the reverb must be the same in every pedal because the only difference between them is the time of the late and early reflections along with some EQ shaping. Otherwise it’s the same resonant reverb sound for the plate, as it is for the natural hall as it is for the ambient reverb.

My biggest complaint is the volume setting on each amp module and preset. They’re all set very loud for my humbuckers. I’ve overwritten every preset with a better master volume setting, but if I switch amps modules I have to dial back again. This likely won’t be such a big deal after creating my favorite presets, but it’s annoying.

Because I’m using the this app as my primary practice amp I can live with the mediocre reverb. The other tools are decent enough to get wide variety of different sounds. it is too bad that there’s no master EQ dedicated to just the speaker output, but there’s always hope for an update later.

by SafariTwins

I love my this app amp! I haven’t had any connectivity issues with my iPhone 8. There are thousands of quality tones to play around with, and the amp is loud enough to practice with. I love that there is a separate volume control for both your guitar and the backing track. The automatic backing drum and bass track feature works well enough, as long as you don’t play anything super complex. The build quality is quite sturdy. I wish I had had this amp to practice with 30 years ago when I was coming up. It is a lot easier to play along with drums and bass rather than just a metronome click. The price is more than fair for everything you get.

by Meme38:8017

The amp itself is terrific, but I continue to have connectivity issues between app and amp. It typically takes me 2-3 retries to connect initially, but even once connected some odd things happen from time to time.

Often the selected tone on Spark will not change the amp tone. Ejecting the amp and reconnecting usually fixes this. But my biggest complaint is with the play along feature, which I sorely want to use more than I can. Songs will playback with horrible stutter, and often will slow down and speed up oddly.

I’m on the latest firmware on the amp, and have the latest version of Spark on my iPhone 11. I’ve also tried on an iPad 5th gen and get similar results. I’ve even gone so far as to take the amp out of the house to avoid other Bluetooth or Wi-Fi interference but that didn’t change things. I’m not sure if it’s the amp or Spark or the phone/iPad, but there is still some gremlin loose in my setup.

by Zchristiansen64

I’m quite impressed by the functionality and design of Spark and how smoothly it pairs with the amp itself. That being said, I wish there were more options available for the audio effects chain/pedalboard modeling. I wish it were more like the pedalboard simulator in Logic Pro, which allows users to completely customize the effects chain instead of having a preset order of effects (e.g. noise gate, compressor, gain, etc...) . I know that some guitar players get really cool tones by putting effects out of order from the traditional order set up in Spark , and that functionality is allowed in Logic Pro, but not in Spark currently. I also would like to be able to add both a phaser and a chorus in sequence with each other instead of just one or the other. I’d like to see these features implemented in future versions of Spark ; it would allow for even more incredible guitar tones.

by Larry The Gray

I am a church musician I’ve been so for 45 years. I remember when the first electric guitars in the church with me wearing it was met by 40% of the congregation saying what are you doing with that devil instrument. Now however things have changed radically and people just want good music I can do any style I want and I truly love the this app app because it will help me work on my lead phrases. Most the time in band practice the lead guitarist is like shut off to the side with the singers going on…it’s all about them and yet on a Sunday we the lead players are the ones that got to be beyond incredible and push it to the next level. I appreciate the smart jam and it’s been beneficial not just me but to the congregation. I hate crashing and burning in front of people in this gives me a chance to figure out what’s going to really work and work best…

by ICow

I love my this app 40. Perfect for travel or when I don’t want to bring out my Fender GTX100. However there’s one glaring deficiency in Spark . There’s no way to order, group, search, or favorite downloaded tone patches. They simply are added to the end of the list on whatever category they are assigned. This makes it a pain to find the tones you use often because the amp resets to a hardware default each time you launch Spark /amp. I’d love to be able to order the patches myself, favorite them, or for the love of Pete at least search on my downloaded patches to find the one I want without having to scroll each time. I have several Beatles tones and they are spread out all down a long patch list. We should be able to drag the into whatever order/slots we want. Thanks for the consideration.

by Benn2771

I just received mine last night. First, a shout out to Positive Grid for making that happen knowing what you all have on your plate in getting them built and shipped.

I have had no issues so far. Connectivity is excellent with iPhone 11, knock on wood. I’ve used numerous amps and effects and am quite pleased at the range and distinctive differences in sound quality. This is one powerful little amp.

As I get more familiar with it, if there is anything I have an issue with I will contact PG and edit my review based upon customer service response.

by GDGarch2005

I read the criticism regarding delays in orders. With great trepidation...I finally pulled the trigger and just settled in for a long wait. I placed the order on Sunday and received the amp on Thursday. Four days. I was shocked but pleasantly surprised. I figured the myriad reviews singing it’s praises were pure paid rubbish. I was skeptical, to say the least. After Plugging in and fiddling around with the straight amp, then trying out the presets...I was grinning ear to ear. Then I downloaded Spark and an hour and a half disappeared in mere seconds. I had to force myself to stop and turn it off for the night. I was like a kid in the candy store running from one flavor to the next. It is simply outstanding. I don’t expect it to be my one and only amp. For its purpose of practicing, chasing tone, jamming to backing tracks and potentially using it to record to the computer...absolutely brilliant. I am completely and utterly in love with this feisty amp. The flexibility and control are fabulous. I don’t understand shipping the cover separately. Still no word on that item but at least it’s not the other way around.

by ErikSax

This hardware/app combination is the absolute pinnacle of what can be expected. Anyone that cannot revel in the practical musical application of the this app Amp is not a musician at all. For the rest of us musicians, this product exceeds all reasonable and most pie-in-the-sky hopeful expectations. It is after 11 pm and I had to pause to write this review to pay homage to the musical engineers at Positive Grid! Thank you. Build quality is top notch, sound is saturatedly wonderous and adventurously flexible. It is so pleasing to the ears that you'll want to play everything through it. It is a great sounding a high volumes as it is at whisper-level. Wow! Thank you again.

by Hwhshhe

This amp is exactly what I’ve been looking for. I’m a hobbyist player and do not perform in a band. This amp makes it so you do not have to spend thousands on an amp and pedals to find the sound you are looking for.

Instead, you can choose your sound through this amp with an incredible amount of tones already created, or create your own tones (lots of amps and pedals to get whatever sound you want).

I really like all of the different jam tracks already on Spark I can practice soloing to, or you can use other music apps to jam too. As I play by myself, this has been incredibly helpful in advancing my playing. One small issue I had using Spark on my iPhone was that music would not play through speaker. Going in my Bluetooth settings I found there are two different this app connections that you need to connect for music to play through the amp. There is the regular this app connection and an audio one. Make sure both are connected.

The amp is not perfect, but overall this is an amazing amp and perfect for my use. This is the only amp I’ll ever need. If you mainly play guitar by yourself, this amp is a no brainer.

by G The Legend

I didn’t know what to expect when I got this amp but I had been following the hype. I couldn’t believe how amazed I was at how it changed the way I played. I usually stick to the keys that I am familiar with but selected some backing tracks that made me think and work in ways totally unfamiliar to me!!! The backing tracks are an awesome part of this but the effects are awesome especially the thickness of the lower tones compared with my other amps. The tuner is so handy too! I stumbled upon that. The only negative thing about this amp is that it didn’t come with a booklet explaining all it does but learning has been eye opening and surprising. Now, my other amps are jealous because I rarely use them since getting this thing!!! It is addictive to use because it is amazing!!! I love this amp!!!

by El Kbung

I ordered my amp in February due to the pandemic I did not receive it till a week ago in July, so I was wondering if it was worth the wait, and I would like to say this amp is completely great portable the electronics are sounding crisp the way Spark works is wonderful, and if it only had the features of the jam with you that would be more than enough everything else is just the icing on the cake but to turn it on pick a groove or create one and jam along with it with state of the art effects is completely great I am so happy thank you so much. And so reasonable in cost. Highly recommend it’s a game changer in portable practice amp but also super loud for a small thing it also came with free digital recording software studio one 4 by presonus . I am playing it right now!!! Order as fast as you can I am not kidding!!! Luv luv

Sam Cairns- California

by Donster From Tonys Muzik

I got this amp yesterday. I’ve played in bands and taught over 35 years. This amp sounded great right put of the box. I haven’t enjoyed playing by myself this much ever. Started off with Rivera Paradise by SRV. Great back track. The other jam tracks from you tube I know so well also sound great. I don’t know why they call this a practice amp. This is enough to go out and entertain people who are starved for live music anywhere. Take a portable battery with 110 outlets and go jam anywhere anytime for anyone. Positive Grid this app Amp is the best thing for guitarists since the guitar was actually invented. I could say more but only after a few hours of jam time I’d be here all week. I’d rather be playing so that’s all for now. Donster, from Tony’s Music, Richland Hills TX.

by Ndefiore

Like most of us here I waited a very long time for this. I really like bias fx 2 but It’s a chore to get put my computer and interface to play with the software. I was hoping this would fill that gap, however Spark will not connect. Out of the box it connected, I used it for 15 minutes and it had a connection error. I figured it was a normal thing and it would resolve itself later. I am on my second time using the amp and it will not connect. My Bluetooth audio from my phone works fine but the amp will not connect via Spark . I have an iPhone XR at recent update. I attempted to connect several times and it forecloses every time. I deleted app and reinstalled with more foreclosures. I am regretting this purchase.

by Smooosh

Pretty cool but Spark really needs better filtering for the tone library. They say that there is 10,000+ tones but they all are in 7 categories so you have to scroll through thousands of them or you might get lucky if it’s named something your looking for. At a minimum there should be a filter where you can choose the amp type so you have at least a base to start from.

by Capkirk94

After waiting several months I received my this app amp today. The various amp models work fine and sound better than I expected. The smart jam feature also works quite well. However, I am having a serious issue with the auto chord feature. I synched Spark with my Apple Music account and downloaded several songs, however when I tried to play along, none of the songs would play. For most of the songs Spark created a chord chart that was fairly accurate ( I downloaded several songs I know well to see how it wold do) but none of the songs would play so that I could play along. Since auto chord was a primary reason I purchased the amp, I am not pleased. I updated the firmware, turned the amp on an off and deleted and reinstalled Spark on my iPad and my iPhone. I also made sure the amp was not connected to both the phone and iPad at the same time. Nothing worked. I have emailed positive grid and I hope there is a solution, but I didn’t find anything in my online searches.

by Nswe6757665)

If your thinking about buying this and enjoying the smart jam feature. Think again. You cant turn the bass accompaniment off. You have no click track or way to set how long smart jam is in learning mode to record your rhythms and this almost always leads to weird unusable backing tracks. You also cant adjust individual pieces of the drums, like if you think the snare is too loud there is no turning it down.

Smart Jam was touted as a major feature and in my opinion it does not live up to the hype.

by Venice Vixen

Got the this app amp after an almost 6 month wait - and there are some problems: 1. The second tone I played from the Tone Cloud (a Hendrix rig) it didn’t play; instead, a very loud, ear piercing shriek emanated from the amp and I had to power down. Then Tone Cloud stopped working. 2. I just opened Spark and it tried to pair and kept failing then I noticed it was ALREADY paired. However, the home page kept trying to pair it and failing. I power cycled and still, it’s paired and I cannot get past the first screen.

Not loving it. Please advise.

by K40er

Great practice tool. Love it. However, this thing has screamed at me for no reason on numerous occasions. I will be practicing and it will all of a sudden disconnect and make a high pitch squeal which scares the heck out of me and my dogs. It is like an alarm that you are not expecting. It also does not connect to my phone or iPad easily. It disconnects from Spark quite often. But, when it works...it is so much fun!!

I truly hope this issue gets worked out because I really do like this little amp!

by Whamprhri

The tones are so good that just placing your fingers on the strings and strumming makes you sound like a guitar hero. Everything works flawlessly and it just makes me want to play again way more often. Highly recommend!

by Seaweed1972

I love my this app amp and Spark is fantastic but I have a substantial investment in positive grids mobile apps like bias amp 2 mobile and bias effects 2 mobile and would like to be able to use them with the this app. I don’t know if it’s because of technical or marketing issues but inter app capability of some sort really needs to be addressed.

by Abandonedteacher

I am blown away by the tone qualities of the effects and amp sims. Nothing I’ve heard from any other brand gives me the sound I crave. I will mic the this app before I bring a huge pedalboard because it’s a superior sound. I also love the chord software and jam along features. It is almost perfect!

by Agilepig

Only had the this app for about a week and just got every thing set up a couple of days ago. So far Just jamming with backing tracks, but it’s great fun. I figure I will learn more about its capabilities as time goes by.