just as i suspected, shit!!!

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I haven't had the chance to use it and there's no way I would trade my Maschine for Spark, but it does look like a nice instrument and has some pretty cool features. I think the biggest problem with Spark and the reason they aren't flying off the shelves is its price point - Maschine's feature set (esp. its ability to host VSTs/AUs and integration with Komplete 8) make it far more appealing to most people at just a marginal (or 0) price difference. Maschine's normal street price is $599, but you can usually find new A-stock for around $500-550, or even less if you have a NI coupon or get one of their many offers as an owner of other NI products, whereas Spark's street price is $549. For Arturia to compete, they either need to up Spark's game to make it an attractive alternative to Maschine, or drop the price to something more reflective of its capabilities and short track record (probably around $400-450).

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cryophonik.com | facebook | soundcloud

Sonar Platinum | Ableton Live 9 | Logic Pro X | Access Virus TI2 Keyboard | Kurzweil PC3X | Nord Lead 4R | NI Maschine

Haven't tried one yet, but would love to.

It looks like Spark's got some real advantages over Maschine, depending on how you want to work. It's perfect for messing around with loops on the fly and the control knobs alongside each pad would make it much easier to tweak the sounds as you go than Maschine.

But it's not as featureful. You can basically arrange a whole track in Maschine then 'perform' it live (albeit minus a few golden touches like sidechaining, although that's possible with a bit of Ableton integration), where as if you're JUST doing drums and want massive tweakability live, Spark could be the better option.

It's looking like future Maschine updates will bring it closer and closer to being a full DAW, so if you like the sound of that, it might be worth thinking about Maschine + some extra controllers to give you more live control, but bear in mind that what you can control in Maschine with additional MIDI controllers is a bit limited at the moment.

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Stu Cox |

Thanks guys. I was well have been looking at machine for a while in fact i remember cryo speaking about it some time ago ( and he admired it)! I noticed on their adds for the spark how they focus on manipulation of loops etc which i like but im not buying one just for that. Im wanting a piece of HW as i miss the hands on though im still getting aquainted with all of logics onboard capabilities tho im not a virgin. But i shall continue to look into this tho for sure

Thanks for input appreciate it really

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Just bumping this old thread to see if anybody is using Spark and what you think of it, now that it's been out for a while.

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cryophonik.com | facebook | soundcloud

Sonar Platinum | Ableton Live 9 | Logic Pro X | Access Virus TI2 Keyboard | Kurzweil PC3X | Nord Lead 4R | NI Maschine