Issues with FL studio (crosspost from other forum)

[suecae]

Hi,

I'm probably planning on getting Arturia Spark, from what I can see it's a powerful instrument. In a thread on Image Line's forums, a user has raised a couple of issues which seems to be part of some troubles of integration between FL Studio and Spark - I thought I should make the devs here aware of these issues:

Here are the forum posts:
http://forum.image-line.com/viewtopic.php?f=1915&t=99155&hilit=arturia+spark
http://forum.image-line.com/viewtopic.php?f=1915&t=93913&hilit=arturia+spark

It's a possibility that some of these issues emanate from FL Studio, but also that some are related to how Spark interfaces as a SW with FL. So I'm sending this your way, guys.

[vaikl]

The forum posts in your links are fully readable for FL users with an account only, but from what I could see, I don't believe that these issues are Spark-related at all.

[silikonanswer]

The forum posts in your links are fully readable for FL users with an account only, but from what I could see, I don't believe that these issues are Spark-related at all.

Spark is not working very well with FL Studio. It doesn't transmits midi data. It is not supported natively. It seems neither Arturia nor Image Line are interested in Spark. FL Studio developers are working with demo versions of Spark. So you migh buy Maschine. I am very sad to say this but I've seen a total lack of support from the two companies, specially from Arturia.

[Seb]

It doesn't transmits midi data. It is not supported natively.

To transmit midi data, you need to activate "send midi from pads" or/and "send midi from sequencer" in Spark preferences panel.


What do you mean by "it is not supported natively"? What are you trying to achieve exactly?
If you use Spark hardware as the controller for the Spark software, then no, it is not supposed to send midi data, it is supposed to control the software exclusively (which is a natural behavior).
If you want to use it as a midi hardware controller, press the three (filter/roll/slicer) buttons simultaneously, and Spark will become a hardware midi controller that should be able to work with FL Studio.

[silikonanswer]

I want to trigger Spark sounds from the Spark controller. And of course, Don't have 20% of CPU on idle which is not a normal behaviour for a state of the art piece of Software. And these issues are related for other DAWS. Spark eats CPU doing nothing, do you thing this is ok for a top product. Controller is beautifully built, it sounds fantastic, it does synthesis, it is easy to use, but it has a major flaw it is really CPU hungry. On idle 20% and triggering some smashing sounds 20%. Tremor, another drum synth. On idle 0-1% and in use 19%. Dones this makes sense? (Windows plataform I Don't know Mac behaviour).

Returning to my question I bought Spark to use it as a controller with the fantastic Spark library of sounds so my question is, can I do this?

[vaikl]

Returning to my question I bought Spark to use it as a controller with the fantastic Spark library of sounds so my question is, can I do this?

Yes. Period.

Don*t know why this Maschine lovers are always running down Spark for the performance.

[Seb]

If you know how to load a VST in your DAW, then yes, you can do it.

If you want to use it as a midi controller, press filter+slicer+roller.

[silikonanswer]

vaikl I bought Spark and not Maschine but don't tell me 20% is normal on idle. Maybe Maschines has 40%? I don't know because I haven't ever touch it. But I own other Drumsynths (Tatoo, Tremor, DrumSynth, Extreme Drum Synth, Attack, Drumaxx, Battery...) Some of them sample based but Tremor or Drumaxx are pure software based. Sumarising: It is not acceptable that a plugin eats 20% on idle. MAybe for some novel syhtnmaker developet but not for Arturia. It is a pity because Sparks is just a great product with tons of possibilities...

Is this CPU problem affecting only Windows users?

Thanks for the info Seb

[Kevin]

Is this CPU problem affecting only Windows users?

Spark is a big CPU eater on all platforms but it is very problematic on some (not all) Windows computers.