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Spark's eight pads are arranged horizontally along the front of the unit.

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Arturia has been at the forefront of the software-based instrument and synthesizer emulation scene for over ten years. While, more recently the company has ventured into the realms of hardware with their Origin Keyboard and Desktop boxes.

The latest instalment is the Spark 'Creative Drum Machine', a combination of hardware and software.

Electric dreams

On opening the box, you will find the hardware controller (with USB cable), DVD, registration card and printed manual, with the installation process being no more complicated than any other USB audio device.

"We had fun with Spark and it got us making beats in new and interesting ways."

The front-end software comes in two main flavours - standalone and plug-in. We opted initially to test Spark in standalone mode. A graphical representation of the controller interface popped-up on screen as well as a message saying that it was connecting to the hardware (though this only took a few seconds).

The first time we booted the system, a window informed us that a firmware update was available for the controller and guided me through the process. After restart we were ready to go. So far, so simple.

Given that the point of hardware controllers is to free you from the perceived shackles of screen and mouse editing, we decided to dive headlong into some beat-making using just the unit that was sitting in front of us.

Using the great-sounding '80's Studio Drums' kit we bashed and tweaked our way through real-time recording, step-time programming, kit, drum and pattern selection, as well as a healthy dose of individual drum parameter editing.

Everything fell into place quite easily without ever looking at the host computer screen, although when it came to engaging the metronome or arranging patterns in song mode (which didn't appear to work as detailed in the manual) things got a little trickier.

There are also a number of areas of functionality that are not covered by the hardware controller, and we'll take a look at these later.

Light my fire

As far as the hardware goes what you have is pleasant-looking metal-fronted unit populated with drum pads at the bottom. The pads have a springiness to them, not unlike an Akai MPC, and are a broadly similar size.

The horizontal layout is not perhaps as flexible as the MPC or Native Instruments Maschine's grid-style, and with only eight pads you need to move between the two pad-banks quite often when working on grooves.

The three unlabelled infinite encoder controls above each pad can be assigned to various sound-editing parameters, but you will need to look at your computer screen to see what each knob controls.

Again, we can't help but feel the competition do this better, even if some flexibility is compromised at the expense of clarity. None of this is helped by the slow refresh rate of the backlit - text only - LCD screen.