Spark Zone

At guitarbackingtrack.com or on youtube.

Creating Presets with the Spark app is easy. But if you want it to sound reasonable, there are a few things to consider.

In general, I can say the following for the Spark app's signal chain. From left to right:

Noisegate only when necessary. But be careful with the threshold button. All the way to the left is no problem. But as soon as you turn it up, the sound is quickly killed.

Compressor and Drive. Here you can experiment as much as you want. There are no limits.

Mod: Be careful here. If you don't really need this part for the sound, it's best to leave it out completely. Here you can quickly destroy the sound of a preset that is good in itself.

Delay and reverb are good for almost every preset, but please never use too much of them. Always with feeling and usually just a little. Of course, certain sounds need a lot more. But the same applies here ... a lot is often too much.
 

 

J.C. wrote: ↑Wed Aug 19, 2020 8:24 am At guitarbackingtrack.com or on youtube.

Creating Presets with the Spark app is easy. But if you want it to sound reasonable, there are a few things to consider.

In general, I can say the following for the Spark app's signal chain. From left to right:

Noisegate only when necessary. But be careful with the threshold button. All the way to the left is no problem. But as soon as you turn it up, the sound is quickly killed.

Compressor and Drive. Here you can experiment as much as you want. There are no limits.

Mod: Be careful here. If you don't really need this part for the sound, it's best to leave it out completely. Here you can quickly destroy the sound of a preset that is good in itself.

Delay and reverb are good for almost every preset, but please never use too much of them. Always with feeling and usually just a little. Of course, certain sounds need a lot more. But the same applies here ... a lot is often too much.
 

Thank you, Jurgen, for the tips and the link for backing tracks .
About the tones, more or less, we got to the same conclusions.
As I mostly use clean tones, I tend to let Gain quite low, like at 9 o'clock position. Same for Master (and Output...). I'm currently experimenting with reverb and delay... Not as easy as one could think . It's a matter of balance, and it seems to be quite a delicate one.

Drives are another thing I must study. I'm still trying to find "my" setting for the BigMuff and a couple other drives. I'd like to reproduce one I built on the ZOOM G5n, so I went to see what distortion the pedal I used in that tone emulates... And it just emulates a valve amp overdrive. I'll have to find something that sounds alike .

 One of my goals is to built a tone that resembles the tone of guitar at the beginning of "In the air tonight" by Phil Collins... But I have to sudy a lot more, before I feel like trying.

Thank you again.

J.C. wrote: ↑Wed Aug 19, 2020 8:24 am At guitarbackingtrack.com or on youtube.

Creating Presets with the Spark app is easy. But if you want it to sound reasonable, there are a few things to consider.

In general, I can say the following for the Spark app's signal chain. From left to right:

Noisegate only when necessary. But be careful with the threshold button. All the way to the left is no problem. But as soon as you turn it up, the sound is quickly killed.

Compressor and Drive. Here you can experiment as much as you want. There are no limits.

Mod: Be careful here. If you don't really need this part for the sound, it's best to leave it out completely. Here you can quickly destroy the sound of a preset that is good in itself.

Delay and reverb are good for almost every preset, but please never use too much of them. Always with feeling and usually just a little. Of course, certain sounds need a lot more. But the same applies here ... a lot is often too much.
 

 

All good advice

finally some free time today

J.C. wrote: ↑Tue Aug 18, 2020 9:13 pm Recording on the Ipad is easy.
USB cable from the Spark to lightning into the IPad.
And then with Garageband is the easiest way for only audio recording.

I only have android or windows and I have no recording software installed so I recorded two short tracks with the smartphone microphone.
sure the quality is what it is, but I think it is enough to understand the relationship between the two presets in my configuration and the difference with the sound of J.C.'s audio files.

sorry if I'm not very practical in playing but I have had an electric guitar only for a few months..

https://www.dropbox.com/s/rr0rcw0ahspc8 ... C.wav?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/wpa2xy4f3vj6z ... u.wav?dl=0

Ciao Samuele,
You're absulutely right.
Your two sound examples are very close and mine are sounding different.
Yes, another guitar, pickup, Volume, Smartphone instead garageband etc. this all make a difference, of course.
But here i cannot really recognice my own preset and i think that our playing is pretty similar.
I have only Strats and Paulas. And no matter which of my guitars I play this preset with, it always sounds similar. Comfortably numb can be played with Strat or a Les Paul, no problem.

How can it be that your recordings are so different from mine when playing in a similar way?
What guitar are you playing? Was your amp volume near 10 o'clock? Did you play my preset without changes, also not turning the amp knobs? The Guitar volume between 7-8?
I miss distortion and power in my preset.
Here once again my recording for comparison.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/4k3k6a4w98nez ... 0.m4a?dl=0

Hallo Jürgen
Strat guitar with bridge pickup.
I played your preset without any changes, not even volume, just the gate as I told you.
I haven't turned any knob on the amp,
only the volume of the guitar was at 5 because otherwise it would have overwhelmed the base too much with too much higher sound level.
in fact it is a strange thing..

Same here strat with bridge PU.

Strange thing really, but the volume of the guitar can be the main reason. Big difference on a Strat between 5 and 7/8.

If you play the presets again with the guitar volume on 7 or 8, the difference should be better to hear.

These are some good presets, Jurgen. Please keep them coming. Thanks!

Good advice. Some of the presets I've looked at sound absolutely terrible. Like you said, people need to understand the limits of a noise gate and how to use it properly.

Over the last month i made some new presets and added them just now to my tone collection at the beginning of this thread.
I also added the Links, that will bring you directly to the right preset in the tonecloud.