Positive Grid's Spark is a smart guitar amplifier and app that offers guitarists a truly interactive playing experience, allowing players to jam along with countless backing tracks.
Spark's Auto Chord feature allows guitarists to stream music from a wide variety of streaming services – Spotify, YouTube and Apple Music – while the app displays chords in real-time to play along to. If you get stuck on a particularly difficult part you can slow the track down, or those loop parts that are really difficult to nail.
As a practice tool, Spark looks hard to beat, and the app looks intuitive enough to get going without too much fuss, and responds to voice commands
Spark also has a Smart Jam feature that maps out your style to create its own rhythm section for you to play with.
As for the amp's design, there are two speakers, a 40-watt output, and Positive Grid's BIAS tone engine that models a variety of valve amps and effects, while the ToneCloud feature allows you to download over 10,000 amp and effects settings programmed by Positive Grid's user community.
Unsurprisingly, it is Bluetooth compatible, and has a USB interface for recording and comes bundled with PreSonus Studio One Prime recording software.
The control panel has a three-band EQ, mod, delay, and reverb, and there is a built-in tuner and tap tempo.
Spark ships in December and is available to preorder now at an introductory price of $179 (£139 approx).
See Positive Grid for more information.
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