I have this very same issue, when recording/rendering in song mode, spark seems to do something internally which is reflected visually by the load bar in the top left GUI animating such as when loading a kit.
Spark is rendered out of sync even with host and tempo initiated, further more, even when all midi clips are exported out of song mode to the spark plugin midi channel in the sequencer and song mode, host mode and tempo buttons are disabled, the render output of spark via the ableton sequencer is still out of time, or starting late.
Additionally when selecting song mode under 1.1.2 revision all patterns would graphically truncate to 48 steps even though 64 or some other selection range maybe selected.
This happens whenever in record mode in ableton but strangely enough not when simply playing back the sequence.
After moving the entire composition in the ableton timeline forward from 0.0.0.0 to a new location further ahead in time it still did not align the spark song playback when recording and remained out of sync or delayed significantly.
a basic breakdown of the setup is:
Intel Mac book pro 2.2ghz, OS X 10.6.8, 8gb RAM,
Latest Ableton Live 8, Novation nocturn (Automap), onboard system audio.
Unfortunately this has reduced my lovely spark hardware controller to a paper weight for now (due to lack of song mode features) and I ve had to use an alternative drum synth/generator to complete my projects until this is solved.
Greatly looking forward to receiving the update which corrects these issues, keep up the good work.
Merci