Just stopped to say Hi!

[Seiishu]

Hello you wonderful forum members and of course to Arturia team.

After all these years I'm finally coming back to this beautiful world of audio engineering. I've been quite active at European trance/chill-out scene back in 1994 - 2002. After losing literally everything during the civil war in my country, among other belongings, I've lost all my audio equipment too 

After all these years and me moving to another country in NA, I finally got to the point where I can say: "...OK, I think it's time for me to bring back some good memories..." - After extensive research, I've come to conclusion that SPARKLE is the unit I want to be productive with. It looked to me like an amazing controller that's much, much more than simple drum machine. This looks and sounds like ultimate audio production tool, crammed into super small but super sexy enclosure.

Anyway, didn't want to bug anyone with my story, just thought it would be polite if I introduced myself, and of course say "HI" to everybody.

I do however have a question. I just purchased SPARKLE (didn't even open it yet, can't wait to get home) and I am not sure what is the software and the firmware inside. I've read some not so promising posts people complaining about a lot of problems with software v1.7.1, crashing, freezing and whatnot...

My question is - if I still have old software and old firmware, should I bother updating it, or would I be better off with old one and let it alone for a while? Just want an honest advice, so I can start with this machine as painlessly as possible

Thank you all so much in advance!

[Kosmology]

Hi,

Well I'm pretty new to Spark (the big version) and I'm using 1.7.2, I do get irregular crashes however they are only when loading presets, or browsing for samples using the inbuilt file browser. I haven't seen a pattern to these crashes so far, they seem fairly random, but as far as loading samples just dragging them to the pads or slots in the sampler works fine.

Outside of loading, I haven't experienced any crashes when using it to make music or performing etc thankfully, it's a lot of fun to use and has a good workflow. Not sure what the SparkLE is like but on the big one I rarely need to use the mouse/computer except for loading samples and initially saving a new project (after that you can use Select+Sequence 9).

I don't know how much more stable previous versions are I'm afraid as I started with 1.7.2. Spark is a lot of fun!

[Seiishu]

Thank you so much Kosmology! I just finished registering my controller and software, and looking forward to testing everything.

[CC4]

Your background story actually sounds rather interesting.  I'm glad to hear that you're back on the road of being able to do what you once loved -- music production.  Hope Spark works out well for you!...

[Seiishu]

Thank you so much CC4 for your kind words. Yes, well said "... back on the road of being able to do what you once loved -- music production...". It was pure love, and enormous amounts of quality time spent with some very good friends. New life in this country is super fast, and while I don't have many excuses as to why I delayed this for so long, I still think it was almost impossible. We all spend a lot of time working (heck, it eats probably 80% of our each day), family duties, trying to spend as much quality time as possible with my beloved wife and daughter... all those things ads up to our already super busy schedule, leaving  not as much time for other things/hobbies we all love so deeply. But fortunately with time, everything falls into its place and you learn to apply patterns to everyday life too... just like in music, they have to be nicely arranged, well put together, nothing should feel off. Once you manage to do that, you end up with one nice and harmonic piece. Big thing is I have full support from my little family, on my side.

Thanks again, greatly appreciated.
Have a wonderful rest of the day my new friend.