ispark to spark 2 experience

[oopsi]

Well I have just picked this up and having fun with it so far.I have not trrid connecting my sparkLe unit as mini usb to lightning connector is hard to find and so I have ordered a mini to micro lead and a micro to lightning adapter. I am not sure but maybe Belkin or some similar have a single adapter that can do this also need to try exchanging presets between the two. I do not like that this seems to need iTunes to handle the transfer.

 I do prefer the ipad as a touchpad over the x/y on the hardware as it requires less of a firm press.
Automation is very easy to edit on screen also.

Have noticed some sound glitching when running Patterning or ielectribe alongside ispark or when moving to browser on the Air 2. Fx per part could explain this or maybe some optimization is necessary for multiple cores? Not that I need extra drums with ispark these are the only other apps I currently use and they play together without gliches.

Ableton link is also very welcome working perfectly.

[oopsi]

On the details of importing spark projects which btw the manual calls presets it is vague. ispark does not recognise exported spark projects and it does not recognise factory projects. However in cases where factory projects contain the samples for the user projects they have to be transferred in order for user projects to work and if you do not know which project you have started from then it means copying the entire factory bank! In fact the only way i have managed to get ispark to recognise my projects it to copy across the entire spark library folder. This is a complete waste of space if most of it is not accessible.

Why then can we not just access the purchased factory banks? This part of ispark is at present imo poorly implemented/documented. I hope there is something I am missing that somehow makes this procedure easier.   

[edmo]

Very excited when I saw the email announcement this morning. Even more excited when I plugged the SparkLE controller in and everything worked perfectly. Bummed when I tried to copy some of my favorite projects over with much head scratching and manual reading. I ended up changing the export extension but as you mention the samples were missing.

You said it is possible to transfer the whole library? I have space on my iPad that I wouldn't mind trying this. How do you do it?

[oopsi]

Hi edmo Once you have your connection to ipad set up in itunes you need to highlight the app, scroll to file sharing and add your entire spark library folder from here. Seems there could be a bug though as mentioned here in the comments of this arturia tutorial video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FA5S33DwPYo

Aside from my mini rants I have to say that ispark is very well laid out and great in use. I forgot in my excitement what early adoption can mean. Rough with the smooth. 

Oh and a camera connection kit is all that is needed for the sparkLE connection. Would have saved a few dollars and an hour of my time had I seen this tutorial video sooner.
 

[gburks]

On the details of importing spark projects which btw the manual calls presets it is vague. ispark does not recognise exported spark projects and it does not recognise factory projects. However in cases where factory projects contain the samples for the user projects they have to be transferred in order for user projects to work and if you do not know which project you have started from then it means copying the entire factory bank! In fact the only way i have managed to get ispark to recognise my projects it to copy across the entire spark library folder. This is a complete waste of space if most of it is not accessible.

If you copy a particular folder from a factory bank into your iPad's iSpark iTunes sharing folder, then that folder contains all the samples and the .dat project file for that project. Don't use Spark's export function. Instead, copy the folder from the Spark library to the iSpark iTunes sharing folder.

If you build a user project out of your own samples or factory samples, by manually adding each sample, and answer "Yes" when asked if you want to save the samples with the project, then it is similar to above. The folder will contain your project and all the samples, and you can copy it over to iSpark.

However the problem described in the post above happens if you try to use factory "instruments" instead of "samples" to build your project. If you answer the question about saving a copy of the samples "Yes" it doesn't collect the samples from the factory instruments. All you have in your folder is a .dat project file. If you copy this over to iPad, then the project will be missing all of its samples. Unless, you have put the entire factory library on your iPad.

The fix: if You build a user kit from factory or user instruments, and it asks you if you want to save the samples with the project, it should save the samples with the project. Arturia please fix this.

Here is my thread reporting the problem: http://forum.arturia.com/index.php?topic=87145.0

[strizbiz]

I know this is a late reply, but when getting a project from iSpark to Spark, once exporting if from ISpark, if you change the extension from .ispk to .spk   , it imports into Spark with no problems, now the issue Im having is importing from Spark into ISpark, you have to do the reverse, change the extension from .spk to .ispk.  The only way to change the extension so that it work is select the Spark file get info   ( comand i ) and change the extension there, but the issue Im having is that while it will import the sequence into ISpark,  it doesnt import sounds from Spark, or rather Spark doesnt export the sounds. Im guessing since Arturia is trying to make money off the expansion packs, maybe they made it so you cant export sounds, but if you use your own samples in Spark Id hope youd be able to export them into ISpark, so far it seems you cant. If I have any luck ill post again.

Striz

[gburks]

For a short period of time, this was fixed and all was well.  The latest version of Spark 2 fixed (or added?) the ability to export Spark 2 kits to .ispk files.  For about a month things were great.  Then, last week, iSpark was updated, and now all my kits that I moved from Spark 2 to iSpark are a mess.  Missing or incorrectly mapped samples in all my kits.  Erratic, different problems every time I open a kit.

I'm trying to figure out how to downgrade to iSpark version 1.0.1 but I'm worried thats not possible and I'm stuck in broken condition.

[oopsi]

You can downgrade and sometimes it is easy sometimes not. You can thank apple  You can try downloading the app via itunes on a mac. Delete the ispark version you have on the ipad and load the downloaded version from itunes on mac os to ipad (sync) and this may be a previous version. If that fails to bring an earlier version you can use free software called Charles Proxy to pull a previous version from the itunes store.

 http://www.howtogeek.com/263568/how-to-install-older-versions-of-ios-apps-on-an-old-iphone-or-ipad/

http://www.idownloadblog.com/2015/12/25/how-to-download-older-versions-of-ios-apps/

Or you can wait it out and see if Arturia bring a fix if needed. 

[gburks]

As follow up to my previous post:
The problems I described were once again corrected by deleting iSpark from my iPad, downloading a fresh copy from the App Store, then using Spark 2's new export to iSpark feature to bring all my kits back in.

The issue seems to be that version upgrades to iSpark break imported kits. The good news is that the Spark 2 export for iSpark works great.