I can give you a couple of tips that worked for me, a newbie using Spark LE and Ableton Live Lite 9.1.1.
1. When you start Live, go to options->preferences->midi sync and make sure that Sparkle is set to off for all three of track, sync, and remote.
2. Open the Sparkle vst (the controller should now connect properly).
3. To record the sound from Sparkle onto an audio track, toggle the i/o (it is a circle button to the right of the master volume control in session view; below it are four other buttons, starting with S/R, then M, D, and X). On the track where Sparkle VST is open, click "audio to" and select some track, like audio-3, for instance. Then arm audio-3 (or whatever track you chose) to record, by hitting the record button at the bottom of that track, beneath the S (solo) button. On that same track, switch the monitor setting from off to auto. You'll then hear the sparkle sounds, and when you record, you'll be recording as audio whatever the sparkle is playing.
4. To use the sparkle knobs to control different knobs in live, have the live knobs you want to control on the screen, then hit the word "midi" at the top right of the live screen, which turns everything blue. Then click on the knob in live you want to control, and, once it is selected, turn one of the knobs on the sparkle controller. That "assigns" the sparkle knob to the live knob. Then click on midi again in live to make everything no longer blue.
5. As for using the sparkle controller to send the midi of your song to an ableton midi track, I hope that someone else here can help you out. Anyways, hopefully at least one of these tips is useful for you. In passing, you can select "midi" mode on the sparkle controller by pressing filter, slicer, and roller simultaneously. Then, using midi control center (a program that you should already have or else download from this website), you can program what midi information each button on the controller will send to live (for instance, making each pad send an ascending note in a scale, like C for pad 1, C# for pad 2, D for pad 3, etc.).
*Sorry, I forgot to add something: once the sparkle controller is connected, you can record to the options>preferences>midi settings and enable track, sync and/or remote. If you hit filter/slicer/roller and toggle to midi mode and start hitting the pads, you won't get any midi signal sent to Ableton unless you have enabled "track" in the midi settings for sparkle, for instance. So watch out for that. Another thing, none of this has anything to do with the "controller surface / input / output" settings, for which you need a "script", which some able people on here are working on and offering to the community for testing.
** This website (
http://www.beatflakes.com/review-arturia-sparkle/#3) has a tip on how to have ableton record as midi a sequence that you have playing on the sparkle. I just tried it and it looks like it works. You might need a little patience to click around and ensure that all the routing is correct, but following the pictures should make things easier.
Good luck and let us know what works and what doesn't.
