How to use this guideIn this guide, we will show you how to get started with Smart Jam, one of the most central features of Spark amp. |
Regular Smart Jam
Smart Jam is the smartest way to play and jam! There are currently 4 drummers to select: Jarvis, Dave, Sharon, and Charles.
Jarvis
Jarvis is a rock-style drummer who will listen to your dynamics and feel while you’re playing, and provide you with real-time feedback with louder or softer hits, and more simple or complex grooves. More on that later.
Dave
Dave is a Rock style drummer who hits hard and hits loud! Dave will listen to your chords and create a backing track that follows a song structure, with a Verse, followed by a Chorus, then a Bridge, and another Chorus, according to what you played.
Sharon
Sharon is a Funk style drummer with grooves that make you move! Sharon will also listen to your chords and create a backing track that will follow a song structure according to your initial chord progression and strumming pattern.
Charles
Charles is a Blues style drummer who plays to help you bring out your most soulful playing. With Charles, you can choose between a straight and shuffle feel, and between an 8-bar or 12-bar blues progression. Once you’ve selected the feel and BPM, start playing your desired chord progression and let the blues take over!
To use Smart Jam:
- Connect both Tone Control and Bluetooth Audio of your Spark amp to your device
- Go to the Music page of the app
- Tap into Smart Jam to select a drummer to jam with
*Microphone permission is required as chord detection and real time excitement detection (Jarvis only) requires your device's microphone.
Once you’ve selected your drummer:
1. Tap in your desired tempo by tapping the Tap button
2. Place your device at least 0.5 meters or 1.8 feet away from your Spark’s speakers, with the microphone facing the Spark. This is to prevent your device’s microphone from clipping during recording.
3. Tap Start, you’ll be given 4 clicks at your desired tempo. If you do not hear the clicks, please ensure that your device is connected to Spark’s Bluetooth Audio and that your device’s volume and the Spark’s music volume is turned up.
4. Once these 4 occur, the drummer will start listening to your playing, so start playing a chord progression on the next beat. All the Smart Jam drummers currently support 1 chord every 2 beats. Make sure to observe the red bar at the bottom of the screen; when the red line goes across the entire screen, it means you have clipped the microphone on your device, and the results may not be accurate.
5. You may play up to 8 bars, but if your chord progression is only 4 bars, you may tap the checkmark button when it’s highlighted on the screen to skip the last 4 bars.
6. Once the analysis is complete, select from the 6 tracks that have been created by the drummer that you like best. Swipe left or right to scroll between each option and preview the tracks.
7. Once you’ve selected a track, you will be taken to the Jam Track page to start jamming!
Real-time Jam (Jarvis)
Jarvis is a rock style drummer who will listen to your dynamics and feel while you’re playing, and provide you with real time feedback with louder or softer hits, and more simple or complex grooves. Another difference between Jarvis and the other drummers is that Jarvis currently only listens to 4 bars of chords.
For the best real time jamming experience, observe the top red bar and do the following calibration during your first playthrough with Jarvis:
- At your loudest playing level, ensure that the top red bar is almost at maximum. If it’s at maximum, it indicates that your device’s microphone is clipping; turn the volume of your instrument and music accordingly to ensure it’s not clipping.
- At your quietest playing level, ensure that the top red bar is at roughly 3 red blocks. This minimum and maximum range will have better dynamic detection.
- Make sure your guitar is louder than the backing track. Try to aim for a volume balance with your guitar and backing track at roughly 2:1 or 2:1.5. This will make it easier for Jarvis to detect your guitar playing.
*Quick tip: Mess around with some tones while you’re playing! Playing with only a high gain tone or only a clean tone won’t create the most dynamic experience. This is also good practice in general to get a feel for soloing!
Supported Devices List:
Due to the advanced nature of Jarvis’ real time feedback mechanic, a smart device with high performance CPUs is recommended. Although it does not necessarily mean that devices not on this list are not supported, the CPUs listed in this list should be an indicator of the minimum requirements for running Jarvis’ real time feedback calculations.
The list below are devices that have been officially tested and are supported by Positive Grid:
|
OS |
Device |
Chipset |
CPU |
|
iOS |
iPhone 7 (2017 Sep) and aboved |
Apple A10 Fusion (16 nm) |
Quad-core 2.34 GHz (2x Hurricane + 2x Zephyr) |
|
iPad Mini 4 (2015 Sep) and aboved |
Apple A8 (20 nm) |
Dual-core 1.5 GHz Typhoon |
|
|
Android |
Pixel 5 |
Qualcomm SM7250 Snapdragon 765G 5G (7 nm) |
Octa-core (1x2.4 GHz Kryo 475 Prime & 1x2.2 GHz Kryo 475 Gold & 6x1.8 GHz Kryo 475 Silver) |
|
Galaxy Tab A10.1 |
Qualcomm SM6115 Snapdragon 662 (11 nm) |
Octa-core (4x2.0 GHz Kryo 260 Gold & 4x1.8 GHz Kryo 260 Silver) |
|
|
Galaxy S6 Lite |
Exynos 9611 (10nm) |
Octa-core (4x2.3 GHz Cortex-A73 & 4x1.7 GHz Cortex-A53) |
|
|
Galaxy Tab A7 |
Qualcomm SM6115 Snapdragon 662 (11 nm) |
Octa-core (4x2.0 GHz Kryo 260 Gold & 4x1.8 GHz Kryo 260 Silver) |
|
|
Galaxy Note 8 |
Exynos 8895 (10 nm) - EMEA Qualcomm MSM8998 Snapdragon 835 (10 nm) - USA & China |
Octa-core (4x2.3 GHz Mongoose M2 & 4x1.7 GHz Cortex-A53) - EMEA Octa-core (4x2.35 GHz Kryo & 4x1.9 GHz Kryo) - USA & China |
|
|
Galaxy A22 |
Mediatek MT6769V/CU Helio G80 (12 nm) |
Octa-core (2x2.0 GHz Cortex-A75 & 6x1.8 GHz Cortex-A55) |
Smart Jam Settings
You may change the tempo, turn the bass of the backing track on and off, and transpose the current chord progression in the Smart Jam settings menu. To access this menu:
- For Jarvis, tap the settings icon on the bottom left of the Jam Track page.
- For Dave, Sharon and Charles, tap the settings icon at the top right of the Jam Track page
- For Charles, you may also choose between straight or shuffle feel in the settings menu. This is only applicable for new tracks, not saved tracks.
Edit Chords
You may edit the chord progression once you’ve entered the Jam Track page.
Jarvis
- Tap the “Edit Chords” button on the bottom of the Jam Track page
- You may navigate the page by tapping on the chords on the timeline or by using the arrows, then select your desired chord from the picker below. Tap “Apply” on the top right of the page to apply it to the backing track. The backing track will restart with your new adjusted chords.
Dave, Sharon and Charles
- Pause the backing track by pressing the pause button on the bottom right of the page. Then long press a chord on the timeline. Your selection will appear on screen, and you may drag the left and right edges to edit multiple groups of chords at once to change them to a single chord.
- Once you’ve selected the chords you want to edit, tap on “Edit Chord” once it appears on screen.
- Select your chord of choice. Tapping on “Apply” will change the chord in the selected section only. Tapping on “Apply to All Parts” will change the chords in this position for every section of the song (Verse, Chorus, and Bridge sections).
Save Your Smart Jam Track
1. To save your Smart Jam track, first make sure you’re logged in to your Positive Grid account. If you are not logged in, tap the save button to make the login prompt appear.
2. Once you’re logged in, tap the save button on the top right corner of the screen for Dave, Sharon and Charles, or the bottom right corner of the screen for Jarvis.
3. The Save menu should appear, then select a slot to save your track to. If the slots are full, you will be required to overwrite a track before continuing.
4. To load your track, while logged in, go to your Menu, then tap “Saved Songs”. Tap on the “Jam Tracks” tab on the top, then select the track you want to load to load the saved track and start playing! You may also rename the tracks and clear the tracks from the slot.