Equally engineering continues to evolve at baking speeds, the old duck examination—"If it looks like a duck, swims similar a duck and quacks like a duck, and then it probably is a duck"—seems more than and more than similar fodder for the recycling bin. Consider the Positive Grid Spark MINI. Information technology looks like a mini amp. It roars like a guitar amp. Y'all plug a guitar or bass into it. But, um, you tin't actually call it "just" a tiny guitar amp.

This pint-sized powerhouse is perhaps more accurately an interactive, multitasking tool for tone creation, jamming, learning, and having large fun. It's a musical fantasy camp in a teensy parcel.

If that sounds a scrap much, here are the details. The Spark MINI offers iv onboard sounds, only when yous add the Spark app to the mix, you suddenly increase the compensation of tone to 33 amps and 43 effects. Withal non impressed? You can access more 10,000 sounds when yous log into Positive Grid's ToneCloud community. But we're only getting started. If you lot want to jam with some bankroll tracks, Spark MINI doesn't just provide a canned rhythm section that never changes. Instead, Spark MINI's AI-driven bankroll tracks automatically react to your playing—just like a keen band of human musicians—and lays downwardly the right grooves in existent time. You don't even have to take the fourth dimension to select an amp sound in order to showtime jamming. The Spark MINI recommendation engine learns your sonic desires and serves up tones that lucifer your usual selection for the way of music y'all're playing. If y'all desire to improve your chops, the Spark app is always at the ready to offering tons of automatic learning tools, tutorials and other educational resource. Bluetooth is onboard for streaming tracks to play along with and jam, and the amp does double duty every bit a Bluetooth sound speaker when you lot merely want to relax and listen to some music. Spark MINI may be petite enough to fit into the palm of your manus, but information technology delivers a gigantic medley of tone crafting, education and entertainment.

Positive Filigree Vice President of Production Design Ethan Lu kicked off his career in the consumer electronics market place, and the unbridled, benevolently disruptive tech-industry approach he and his team took toward music gear helped bulldoze the expansive features, look and experience of Spark MINI. In this exclusive interview, Lu talks virtuallynot designing Spark MINI for a detail user, envisioning a guitar amp as a monitor speaker and his personal-favorite feature on the tiny tone machine.

The HUB:  When you lot started designing Spark MINI, did yous have a specific vision of the customer who might be using the amp?

Ethan Lu:  Not necessarily. We avoided that blazon of thinking. When I was in schoolhouse studying product design, a professor asked the class, "What is the best production in the world?" Then, he answered information technology was Coca-Cola, considering Coke didn't ascertain the user. You lot meet Coca-Cola everywhere—fancy places and ordinary places—and you don't have to be a special person to buy it.

Of form, in that locationare some consumer products that are very much related to who you are as a person. In fact, when I start joined the electronics industry as a product designer, we were focused on personas—student laptops, business laptops, and so on. Just gauge what happened? The Apple MacBook came out. And that, I think, became the second-all-time product in the globe later Coca-Cola, because you saw everyone from art students to people from Wall Street using the same laptop. No one was judging whether or not they were the "right person" for a MacBook. It was everywhere.

Now, information technology's hard to make something universal similar that. There's no design "procedure" for it. You lot accept to dig into the cadre concept, and for Spark MINI, that was getting people to play more than and focus on making music.When I look at the Spark guitar amp and Spark MINI, I don't see a premium amp or a practice amp. I simply run into smart tech that everyone tin can enjoy. In that location's no demand to separate 14-year-sometime players from twoscore-year-old players, or whether the amps are being used effectually a campfire or played while sitting on a burrow. It's more about enjoying the human activity of playing, whether yous're a beginning guitarist or bassist, or an advanced 1. Considering of that, we made sure that "personas" did not impact the design of Spark MINI.

Positive Grid Spark MINI Amplifier Top Panel

The HUB:  Spark MINI is built on the Positive Grid BIAS engine, which is a popular amp and effects-modeling platform. What are the principal differences between the large software offer and the version included in the amp?

EL: The fundamental technology is very similar, merely BIAS FX 2 Elite has more than than 210 manufactory presets and the selections are expandable through the Positive Grid ToneCloud. The amp and furnishings collection in Spark MINI is smaller, but information technology still provides yous with a broad range of sounds. You can be a metal maniac 1 solar day and transform yourself into a night-gild jazz player the next. We've got yous covered now, and nosotros are constantly working on new tones and features.

The HUB:  It's interesting that y'all didn't excogitate of Spark MINI equally simply a miniaturized version of the Spark guitar amp.

EL: We had ii primary concepts for Spark: a guitar amp and a music speaker. The Spark amp is a guitar amp that plays music, and Spark MINI is kind of the reverse. Information technology's a neutral studio monitor designed to reproduce music, equally well as being able to handle the sounds of different instruments such as electric guitar, acoustic guitar and bass. So, when we designed the Spark guitar amp, we referenced conventional amp structure—the wood used to brand cabinets, the acoustic properties, and so along. In essence, we made a guitar amp, just smaller, and with many innovative features. For Spark MINI, we were non trying to make a smaller version of the Spark amp. We wanted to make an extremely neutral-sounding speaker that would make our BIAS-based Spark DSP shine, and transform Spark MINI into any amp y'all like.

Positive Grid Spark MINI Stereo Speakers

The HUB:  Was ane design strategy more exciting to you personally than the other?

EL: I love both projects, simply I'thou an audiophile, so I really enjoyed designing Spark MINI. Nosotros committed to delivering high-end audio, and we put a lot of energy into the details to provide high-fidelity tone. For case, we tested several versions of the chiffonier using different thicknesses and audio-visual formulas to see how they influenced the tone. Nosotros even looked at the design of the feet, which contact surfaces at just three points. This configuration helps isolate the Spark MINI from whatever it is sitting on, and therefore produces taut and focused bass frequencies. It'due south a tiny piffling detail y'all might detect in a high-end music speaker, rather than a guitar amp, but it makes a significant difference to the sound quality.

Then, nosotros angled the two speakers slightly in different directions to aggrandize the sound stage and widen the stereo image. In fact, during the design stage, we debated whether to brand Spark MINI a mono or stereo amp. Near tiny amps stick with mono, merely we pushed for a very nice stereo image. Over again—little details.

The HUB:  The Spark app is really designed for instruction and entertainment. It serves up increased options for dialing in tones, but it also offers some how-to-play guidance, as well as interactive play-along features and more than. How the app encourages you to play is truly wonderful.

Positive Grid Spark MINI Passive Radiator

EL: Well, that chemical element was essential, as our core philosophy is to encourage people to play more. We too want you lot to enjoy playing, so every aspect of the app is designed to support that—such as Smart Jam, which is a clear favorite for many Spark owners. And, recollect, this isn't just an electric-guitar amp. If you're into acoustic guitar and/or bass, the app includes amps and tones merely for you lot, and we're working to expand the library fifty-fifty more.

The HUB:  When you're out jamming, how long can you expect the battery power to last?

EL: A little more than eight hours—although if you play at full volume, the battery life will driblet to around five or 6 hours.

The HUB:  For home-recording musicians, Spark MINI can also exist used as a USB audio interface.

EL: That's right. Spark MINI operates equally a 1 in, 2 out USB interface at a sample rate of 44.1kHz and a bit depth of 16. But put, any sounds y'all create using the Spark MINI or Spark app can be seamlessly recorded using the included PreSonus Studio One Prime software, or whichever DAW you choose.

Positive Grid Spark MINI Rear Panel

The HUB:  How do you use the Spark MINI, and what is your favorite characteristic?

EL: About 99 percent of the fourth dimension, I'thousand playing along with a backing runway when I'm using Spark MINI. So, my favorite feature is the recommendation engine that curates a tone to friction match whichever backing rails I'm playing. I'm not looking for a signature tone I can apply every fourth dimension I play—I like to be surprised.