Spark 2 / Spark Creative Drum Machine / Pro Tools 11

[arturiauser12]

Hello,

I'm looking for help connecting the Spark Creative Drum Machine to Spark2 when used as a plugin in Pro Tools 11.

For nearly two weeks I have been trying to figure out how to disable private midi ports. Standalone mode works fine, and I have figured out how to get it connected in Reaper by disabling the Spark Midi Out port in the Preferences/Midi tab. However, I have had no success figuring out how to disable the Spark Midi Out port in Pro Tools. I have tried disabling the Midi Input for Spark in  Pro Tools as suggested in the Arturia FAQ video, but does not fix this issue for me.

There is not much written information about this anywhere online or in these forums, or the FAQ. I have asked Arturia and their response to me when it wasn't working in VDM was use Spark2. I'm in Spark2 now, and having the same issue.

Any help is appreciated.

Here is someone else's post from another site with  a similar issue.
https://www.gearslutz.com/board/avid-pro-tools/984780-arturia-spark-le-pro-tools-11-not-connecting.html

Unplugging the Spark Drum Machine before or after loading Pro Tools has not worked for me, and even if it did work, there's got to be a better way than having to plug/unplug the USB when entering new Pro Tools sessions.


I am on Pro Tools 11 on Windows 64-Bit

Thanks

[arturiauser12]

I think I've found a way to make this work, at least for my purposes. Hopefully, this will be helpful information to someone else.

Download a program called DevManView (it's a an alternative Device Manager Utility). There is a 32 and 64 bit version. Extract the zip. Create two shortcut links on your Desktop. I named one Enable and one Disable. In the target field put in these values respectively (******'s stand for whatever directory you have it located in):

C:**********\Downloads\devmanview-x64\DevManView.exe /enable "Spark Controller"
C:**********\Downloads\devmanview-x64\DevManView.exe /disable "Spark Controller"

Before you open Pro Tools click on the Disable shortcut to disable the Spark Controller in your Device Manager.

Once Pro Tools is open, click on the Enable shortcut to enable the Spark Controller in your Device Manager.

You should then be able to connect the controller to the Spark plugin successfully.

I added a Spark icon to the attachment of this post for the shortcut links in case anyone else wants to try it out.

[ben arturia]

Have you been trying to connect your SparkCDM after launching ProTools ?

[arturiauser12]

Hi Ben,

I did try plugging in after Pro Tools opens. I do remember it working at least once. It wasn't consistent though, especially if I was changing sessions.

It seems inconvenient to me to have to unplug hardware from the computer every time I want to use it with the software. With my solution above I can accomplish essentially the same thing with two mouse clicks and so far it's working consistently.

Until someone can tell how to disable the MidiOut port for Spark in Pro Tools, or a way to prevent Pro Tools from seeing the port, I can't think of a better way to do this. Ability to disable the ports in Pro Tools, like can be done in Reaper, would be ideal.

[ben arturia]

Anyway thank you for sharing your solution !
Pro Tools settings regarding midi are quite poor...