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What is it?
When it comes to cramming a lot of tone into tiny units, Positive Grid’s Spark Series of amp modelers has led the industry for years. From combos and practice amps to headphones and the pocket-sized Spark Go, the Sand Diego-based firm has proven a formidable player in the field.
It’s a surprise, then, that it’s taken this long for the tech to be converted into the more traditional pedal format. With the say-it-as-it-is Spark Pedal, that’s changing.
Crafted as an all-in-one amp and effects pedal, with a looper and partner mobile app for scrupulous tone sculpting, it’s super compact and caters to electric guitars, acoustics, and bass in equal measure. Flexibility is also the name of the game, with the pedal ready to become the epicenter of someone’s entire rig, a recording tool, or a versatile practice station.
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Under the hood is the same Spark tech that has impressed players worldwide. It packs 33 amp models, 43 effects, and grants users access to over 100,000 tones through Positive Grid’s online ToneCloud community. That creates near-infinite tonal possibilities in a unit that easily slots into a guitar bag.
Other features include a rechargeable battery for up to seven hours of shredding (there’s no mains power option), Bluetooth connectivity with users funneled through its partnering mobile amp for operation, and AI tone building.
The latter is the same prompt-generating feature that first launched in its impressive Bias X plugin, and it can craft tones on demand from the array of amp models and effects baked into the pedal.
Positive Grid’s software is typically quick and easy to get great results from, and its track record of releases attests to that. So, is the Spark pedal another victory for the series, or does the new format fall short?
Specs
- PRICE: $199 | £179
- ORIGIN: China
- TYPE: Amp and effects modeler pedal
- FEATURES: 33 amps and 43 effects, plus access to the Positive Grid ToneCloud community, looper, Bluetooth, MIDI-compatible
- CONTROLS: Drive, three-band EQ, amp type, volume, three preset footswitches
- CONNECTIONS: Input, mono and stereo outputs, expression pedal, MIDI in/out, USB-C port, headphone jack
- POWER: Built-in battery with up to seven hours of playtime, rechargeable via USB-C
- DIMENSIONS: 170 (w) x 100 (d) x 30-50mm (h)
- CONTACT: Positive Grid
Build quality
Build quality rating: ★★★★½
At 0.58kg, it weighs just a little more than a standard Boss pedal, and about half of a Crybaby Wah. And with the Spark’s signature black-and-gold drip, it walks a tightrope between classic pedal and modern aesthetics, in my book. It’s small but mighty.
All the in/outputs are housed to the rear of the pedal, and with expression pedal compatibility as well as MIDI – with 3.5mm jack-to-MIDI port adapters coming in the box it ships in – it’s well equipped and neatly assembled. The Power and Bluetooth buttons, however, sit by the input, so an angled jack is slightly ill-advised, as it gets in the way. It’s a small note.
Intriguingly, the Spark Pedal follows the lead of the Spark Go in that most of its outer shell is textured rubber, yet it looks and feels durable. The real benefit here is that the entire bottom skirt of the pedal means it’s never really in the mood for sliding about.
As with most other Spark products, there’s a real marriage between the unit and its mobile app, which means I’m tethered to both a lot of the time. For more traditional players who don’t want extra screens and tech to get a pedal to sing, it’s likely to prove off-putting. But it also makes a lot of sense.
Often, these products are better managed through a mobile or desktop app, but still let you craft tones and edit settings within the unit itself. That’s the case here with EQ, amp and effect type editable on the hardware but further control requiring the app. In truth, I imagine most players intrigued by the Spark Pedal will not be put off by this phone-and-stompbox marriage, given that it’s very much a futuristic, tech-filled product; it’s digital through and through. The app makes the experience far better.
Setting up the app and using it was pleasingly intuitive. But without coming across as ‘old man yells at cloud,’ the thought of tweaking a tone via my phone at soundcheck is pretty bizarre.
The Spark Pedal has fairly premium feel considering it’s almost entirely rubber and plastic
The pedal itself looks really smart and makes great use of the limited space. Its row of six knobs has multiple uses and, at a glance, makes the powerful pedal look much prettier and far less intimidating. They’re quite stiff to touch, in a pleasing, sturdily built way, and they give the Spark Pedal a fairly premium feel considering it’s almost entirely rubber and plastic.
From there, a series of seven lights flicker and flash to show players what mode it’s in, whether Bluetooth is on, the power status, and more. It takes me a minute to get to grips with everything, but I find it as intuitive as it can be. Still, the app is where I tend to gravitate, because it displays the amps and pedals, etc., in a more obvious way – I can see the green tube screamer or the Marshall-looking amp head – it feels far more tactile and less like I’m getting dressed in the dark.
Usability and features
Usability and features rating: ★★★★½
In amp mode, the dials are straightforward: Drive, a three-band EQ, the big center dial for choosing the amp type (Clean, Glassy, Crunch, High-Gain, Metal, and Bass), and the master volume. While the dials have lines on them, as is tradition, each is also surrounded by LED lights that show how much, or how little, something is dialed in. It’s all very clear.
Pressing the center dial switches the Spark Pedal from Amp to FX mode, and the dials now offer different functions. The far-left dial houses the Boost, Distortion, and Fuzz effects, increasing in intensity before switching to the next effect. The next dial does likewise with modulations – Tremolo, Chorus, Phaser, and Flanger. On the other side of the center dial, there are choices of Digital, Vintage, Multi, and Reverse delays, and Studio, Chamber, Hall, and Ambient reverbs.
If I press and hold the center button, the tuner engages, which, for me, is a really important feature if Positive Grid has any real hopes of players using the Spark Pedal live. The pedal doesn’t display the name of the note being played; it only tells me if it’s sharp, flat, or just right. For minor adjustments on the go, it’s useful enough, but for any more specifics, the app becomes a crutch – for better or for worse.
For minor adjustments on the go, the pedal face is useful enough, but for any more specifics, the app becomes a crutch
The same applies elsewhere. Spark Pedal sans app is well-suited for making smaller adjustments. Sure, adding a little fuzz, delay, and reverb to a crunch tone can make it sound wholly different, and I am having a lot of fun making those more wholesale changes on the pedal’s face, but there’s also a ceiling. For anything more involved, like tweaking the speed of the Tremolo, the feedback of the delay, or the specific amp at play, the app becomes a necessity.
One benefit of being chained to the app is making the most of Positive Grid’s AI tone generator. I first typed in “modern prog rock rhythm,” and within about a minute – there was a short wait – it served up three presets and a breakdown of how it got there. The three presets are previewable and savable, making for an easy addition to my bank of tones.
The crunch tone I found a little underwhelming; it was a bit too scuzzy for what I was looking for, but the middle option paired a Friedman BE-100 (down as BE-101) and matching cab with a Tube Drive and a few other accouterments. The problem is that when I accidentally press back on my phone, it closes the app completely and takes a few seconds to reconnect to the pedal. It also takes me back to the home page, which is frustrating, as I lose that tone entirely.
The pedal itself is also really well laid out
The Amp Type dial is also smart. Once I find a tone I like – for instance, I found a user-made Slash/Guns N’ Roses tone using a Marshall – I can tweak the amp type, as it says on the tin. So if that crunch amp needs a shot in the arm, I can turn it to high gain while leaving the other settings alone, or pull it back for a glassy clean. It also changes the cab to match the head, which is the best way to work it.
So yes, it’s designed to be used almost always in conjunction with the app, which is like the key to the Spark Pedal’s tonal kingdom, but the pedal itself is also really well laid out; everything makes sense, everything’s easy to find and tweak, and it’s hard to find any major downsides here.
Also, with three preset footswitches per bank, and each bank wholly customizable, that should leave most players with enough tones to cover a song each for live. For example, preset one could be a glassy clean with a little chorus, with the other two for rhythm and lead channels.
Naturally, it’s not as plentiful as Neural DSP Quad Cortex, a Line 6, Kemper, or the other leading built-for-live modelers, but there should be more than enough to get by. Preset changes are also lightning quick. But for those looking to take this into the rehearsal room and beyond, I think it’s a drawback in terms of flexibility that it’s completely battery-powered – you can’t use your pedal power supply or any other mains adaptor here. You always need to consider battery depletion and recharging.
Sounds
Sounds rating: ★★★★★
From my experience with Positive Grid’s Spark range of modelers, it’s nigh-on impossible to craft a bad tone. Its products are always really easy to use and very forgiving. The Spark Pedal is no different. Even with some of the built-in metal tones, which were initially too nasal, old-school, and cliché for me, a simple nip-and-tuck with the EQ quickly fixes things. Not once have I managed to concoct something downright awful; it’s just taste that dictates whether what I dial in is exciting or not inspiring enough to lock that particular amp in place.
You can see that by scrolling through the provided presets. From a pure clean tone provided by a model of a Matchless DC-30, to some really lovely, warm-but-gritty crunch tones from an Orange AD30, and searing 5150 lead tones (all from bank B), the bar is high, and the versatility of sounds on offer is hard to argue with. I rarely tweak the other presets; they’re finely tuned to begin with.
There’s a sense of a great well of inspiration for players to draw upon
I plug a variety of electric guitars into the Spark Pedal. From a Fishman-powered Charvel San Dimas Tele to a seven-string Strandberg Boden N2 Standard and a 30” Gear4Music baritone tuned one octave below drop-D, it handles everything I throw at it with ease. There’s no tuning so low that the amps fall apart, and really, given the breadth of options, no genre that feels out of reach.
With tones so quick to dial in, or find via provided, user-made, and AI-powered presets, there’s a sense of a great well of inspiration for players to draw upon.
The quality is high enough to gig with, and versatile enough to make a solo practice an absolute hoot
There are rare moments when I’m left a little disappointed. The Reverse Delay, for instance, has an inherently digital sound and doesn’t track quite as well as I’d like. It’s a little glitchy. But more often than not, reaching for an effect gives me what I want, from fuzzing up a bass tone (which sounded great with my baritone) to embellishing a clean tone with a nice, wavering chorus. Largely, very few moments of using the pedal have left me wanting more.
For those looking to call upon cornerstone tones for covers, this is an excellent value option. Whether it’s a Marshall JCM-800 for tight, British rock and metal tones, or a Blackface Duo (based on a Fender Twin) for spangly, John Mayer-inspired cleans, the Spark Pedal nails the brief time and again. The quality is high enough to gig with, and versatile enough to make a solo practice an absolute hoot. Playing also feels dynamic under my fingers, and the amps the tones are modeled off are easy to recognize the majority of the time – something a lot of cheaper modelers can struggle with.
Moreover, it tracks really well, so using it to record, practice, and gig are all tasks it’s more than capable of handling. Add in an expression pedal and MIDI switching, and this is a serious bit of kit for a price closer to a single effect pedal or wireless guitar system than the big dog modelers of the world.
Verdict
It’s packed with more than enough features to get almost every player by
Positive Grid’s reputation with the Spark family of products has preceded it here. Its track record of delivering impressive, highly versatile tones in really affordable, user-friendly packages is a standout. So it’s perhaps wise that it’s taken this long to add a more traditional amp-in-a-box format to the celebrated series; it’s gone into this task emboldened by previous successes, and it comes out on the other end with flying colors.
Tone-wise, there’s no compromise compared to the rest of the range. It’s the same great array of options, all tweakable and re-shapable on the pedal itself, and, to a larger, more detailed extent, via the partner app.
For $199, it feels like a real steal, and certainly has its head above a lot of the other competitors circling that same price point. Sure, it’s no (much more expensive) Quad Cortex or Tone Master Pro, but the drop-off isn’t insane either, and it’s packed with more than enough features to get almost every player by.
For $199, it feels like a real steal
My playing experience was 10x better with the app loaded, even just as a visual aid to see what amp and effects a preset offers, and whether I wanted to swap anything out. The tuner was also far better on the app than the pedal alone, so that reliance on a mobile phone companion may not be everyone’s cup of tea, and will make it more suited to the home environment for others.
But with three presets per bank, AI tone building, and enough amps and effects to handle all genres, there’s a hell of a lot going for the Spark Pedal.
Guitar World verdict: For those new to the modeling world, or players with tighter budgets, this should be top of mind for practice and gigs alike into an FRFR cab or PA. For more experienced players, and those with a little more cash to splash, it’s more of a practice and recording companion plugged straight into a DAW, or used via Bluetooth to jam along to songs, rather than something that might replace your trusty amp or a higher-end modeler. With its price, ease of use, and some really nice features, this pedal makes a very welcome addition to the Spark’s genuinely brilliant range of low-cost modelers.
|
Test |
Results |
Score |
|---|---|---|
|
Build quality |
Feels more premium than the price has you believe. |
★★★★½ |
|
Usability and features |
It’s a little too tethered to the app, but it’s packed with features all the same. |
★★★★½ |
|
Sounds |
IK Multimedia’s impressive suite of tones makes many genres and sounds feel attainable. |
★★★★★ |
|
Overall |
An incredibly versatile powerhouse modeler in a small, transportable format |
★★★★½ |
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