JoLa

This looks like a great practice tool with a lot of great features. With the reviews that other Positive Grid products receive, this one should sound good as well

A couple of things to consider
1) This is a new product and that usually means a few bugs to work thru. Be sure of their policy of correcting those issues before you buy.
2) On the pre-order of the unit, I didn’t see any kind of satisfaction guarantee – I may have overlooked it. If you are serious about this, you might want to contact Sweetwater and see when they are expecting delivery. With Sweetwater you will be covered.

Keith

Naw, you’re way beyond the need for a toy like that. As you know, in addition to Brian’s jamtracks, you can get countless free jamtracks from Youtube and other online sources. I would spend the money on Logic Pro X, if you don’t already have it. And some good quality studio monitors if you don’t already have them. Then just create your own compositions from scratch. There’s no point in learning countless “songs”, unless you are getting into singing. And if you’re getting into singing, you should be singing to your own accompaniment. As for generating a drum and bass jamtrack on the fly, if you’re just steadily strumming some chords, it could probably do that. But I seriously doubt that it could generate the proper notes if you started playing some David Gilmour stuff. As for the effects, you can set Logic Pro to play real-time effects through your studio monitors, so that you can sit and play your guitar and have thousands of effects just a few clicks away. And the effects that come bundled with it are truly mind-boggling. For example, Delay Designer and Space Designer are two of my favorites. Both are way superior to the expensive Strymon Timeline and Big Sky.

Or if you’re not into Macs, just buy a Boss RC-300 looper. It has heaps of built-in drum tracks and effects, and you can easily and quickly build your own jamtracks. I use mine almost every day for practice.

reputable sources anyway, like Sweet-water?
yore kidding right?

jadm wrote:

reputable sources anyway, like Sweet-water?
yore kidding right?

Nope, no kidding here

Many of us have had great experiences with Sweetwater. by far the best customer service that I’ve found online

sunjamr wrote:

As for the effects, you can set Logic Pro to play real-time effects through your studio monitors, so that you can sit and play your guitar and have thousands of effects just a few clicks away. And the effects that come bundled with it are truly mind-boggling.

Steve brings up a good point here

I use a Blackstar ID 260 that is very versatile but in the end, I usually set up a patch for the guitar that I’m using and vary that patch slightly for OD or some other aspect of playing. I only use 3 of the 6 preamp channels and maybe 3 or 4 of the 12 effects on that amp

Amps like the Positive Gird Spark and even the 1st gen Fender Mustang amp that I had – there is so much that if you are a curious sot, you end up playing around with all of the bells and whistles in the amp instead of practicing. I could see all of those options being useful if you are in a Top 40 cover band but for my pursuit of blues and blues rock, much is unneeded.

I like working on some songs by my favorite players even though I’m not a singer per se; there are certain lick and solos that people like Dickey Betts, Duane Allman, Kim Simmonds and Alvin Lee have played that I want to know how they did it. Unless a person is a creative genius, which I could never be convicted of LOL, we learn to play by imitating other players just a toddler learns to talk by imitating his parents and those around.

Good guitar and amp, software to slow down recordings, a looper and a good DAW…..a person should have all they need right there to learn

It’s an interesting concept. I tried the Bias products from PG and liked the product overall, but absolutely hated their tiered package pricing. They get you in at a minimum level and all the added effects are in premium packages. I wonder if they’ll do the same with Spark. The price isn’t bad for the box alone.

Sounds like a Digitech Trio Plus pedal looper you play it your song and it generates bass and drums a very popular pedal, Boss also has new pedal looper Rhythm boxes like the RC-10R and DR O1s rhythm partner. Looking to the future Brian could be replaced by apps and technology👀

Vorocnan

I tend to play my guitar in our living room quite a bit and have gotten into the habit of downloading the backing tracks to my phone and playing them back either through the TV or on a 15$ portable Bluetooth speaker.

Not so hi-tech but it’s quick and simple, for learning I hooked up a large TV to my PC as a 2nd monitor.

Steve has a great point in that your a very good stand alone player as it is and would this improve/add value to your skills and speaking from experience I’ve bought all sorts of stuff and ended up not really using it.

It seems really interesting, but would I purchase one , I am not sure, my current amp VT20X with Virtual Element Technology pretty much does the same thing by emulating some of the best amp heads, but I will read more reviews, I like the idea it can work as a speaker for your music that’s cool
But it is amazing how amp technology has grown,

10,000+ tones when all we are looking for is the ONE, looks like it has integrated all the things that we use in home learning, playing and recording, is it a one off buy or another music money pit is the burning question..
Do I think you need this, as said before you show a high standard of playing already, so unless it’s a recording/practise device then honestly, No you don’t..
Would I buy It, considering the amount of money I’ve wasted on worse things then this is right up my street…hahaha

…and I don’t trust anything from FB…….I thought this is only a “German Angst”. My advice – Buy it, use it and if it does´nt works in the the way you want it to work find someone who to buy it from you. All the comments in the net aren’t a substitute for your own experience. Best Stefan

So quite a lot of good reviews coming out now about six months since Jola posted, Steve ponders whether it’s really needed however the app and Amp allow you to experiment with different sounds without having to connect or buy pedals and amps so it allows you to be more creative than just copying others, sometimes effects can make you more creative.

If they could combine this technology with a portable amp like Yamaha THR models which do not play well with a lot pedals and no FX loop great, the positive grid amp is quite small here is a review from

.

It’s a great little amp for practicing and noodling alike. Watching highly skilled players that can make any setup sound great because of the skill in their hands doesn’t sell amps to me… Although I am a sucker for a cool new practice amp to beat on while half-watching TV with one eye and reading music or tab with the other. PG’s problem is they can’t deliver their product fast enough, coupled with a never-ending pre-sale in which people who’ve paid for their amp ages ago (I took the bait on December 23rd) are still waiting for their goods to show up. Any responses from PG are laced with an indignant invitation to cancel your order and f#ck right off, so that’s a big no-go on the customer service. As of this post, on (Five-Oh de Mayo!) I have yet to receive my Spark amp, and am starting to think my comments have adversely affected my ability to receive it any time soon. That’s okay though; PG is a solid company and I don’t think I’ve been swindled, this is just another case of an over zealous marketing team that has burned a lot of bridges and customer good will, and sacrificed repeat business in the pursuit of the almighty dollar. They killed it on the pre-sale though…

On a side note; Sweetwater is pure awesome and so is Zzounds in my humble opinion. Both share the mantle of king of online retailers.