Mercuriall Audio Software

Spark

VST/AU/AAX plug-in for PC/Mac

Introduction

Spark is a VST/AU/AAX plugin that models four Marshall® tube amplifiers, four guitar cabinets, four overdrive pedals and a set of the most common spatial effects.

Try
Spark Demo
Spark Spark Demo
Price
  • $120 for new customers
  • $99 for existing customers
FREE
Restrictions No restrictions
  • Occasional silence
  • Plugin settings cannot be saved
  • Default plugin settings are restored every 20 minutes
Updates
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:
  $ 120*

Modeling

Spark is the realization of all our latest achievements in the field of real-time electric circuits modeling. First of all, it’s a tube push-pull power amplifier that is working with a reactive load (guitar cabinet), with negative feedback and electric feed chains. This allowed us to implement a truly realistic poweramp saturation (very important for the majority of the Marshall®-based amps), realistic work of the Presence knob and made possible to take into account the influence of the output and power transformers.

Topology of modeled linear circuit of AFD Hi channel (switch #34=off).
One from more than ten linear circuits modeled for Spark.

We have considerably improved the cabinet section. Apart from the smooth positioning of microphones, we added an option to mix sound of two mics. This allows you to find pretty much any desired sound. There are four cabs and three microphones at your disposal.

Despite the fact that Spark is an amp and cab sim above all, we gave a lot of attention to the FX section. There is a Noise Gate at the input, as well as a number of pedals: there are currently four overdrives, implemented with our proprietary technology of the electric chain modeling. As for the spatial effects - there are Chorus, Delay and Reverb.

Spark’s UI continues our approach of simple usability at no expense to a wide functionality. All main actions require just a single click. We pay a lot of attention to the design, that passes a lot of iterations of adjustments and improvements, offering you a very simple and functional solution.

Key Features

  • Electronic circuits of amps and pedals are modeled with our custom technology using Neural Networks
  • Pedals, preamp and power amp are working within the same oversampling cycle. Thus, there is no latency build-up and no additional losses when using several anti-aliasing filters
  • Realistic and smooth positioning of up to two microphones simultaneously
  • Several preamp and power amp tubes to choose from
  • Stereo-mode: right and left channels are modeled independently. This mode is useful for processing stereo signals. For example, a panned double tracked guitar
  • Delay and reverb can be used in parallel to get a more expressive effect without extra routing
  • Plugin supports CPU multi-threading
  • Standalone version

Product Details

Supported platforms and formats:

Mac: VST2 x64, VST3 x64, AU x64, AAX x64 (Pro Tools 11 and newer)

PC: VST2 x64, VST3 x64, AAX x64 (Pro Tools 11 and newer)

Amp section:
  • Based on Marshall® AFD (four channels)
  • Based on Marshall® JCM 800 (two channels)
  • Based on Marshall® JMP Super Lead (two channels) with Master Mod
  • Based on Marshall® JMP Super Bass (two channels) with Master Mod 
  • Tubes: 12AX7 RCA, 12AX7 RSD; 6L6GC, EL34
Cab section:
  • Based on Bogner® Uberkab 412 - 4x12 Celestion® G12T-75
  • Based on popular American metal cab - 4x12 Celestion V30s
  • Based on Marshall® 1960B - 4x12 Greenback
  • Based on Marshall® 1960B - 4x12 JBL® K120 (vintage)
  • Microphones: Shure® SM57, Sennheiser® MD441, Royer® R121
  • Cabinet IRs by Redwirez
Pedals and FX section:
  • Noise Gate
  • Overdrive based on Ibanez® TS-808
  • Overdrive based on Ibanez® TS-808 Lower Drive Mod
  • Overdrive based on Ibanez® TS-7 Hot
  • Overdrive based on an American pedal
  • Overdrive based on Boss® Super Overdrive
  • Stereo Chorus
  • Stereo Delay
  • Stereo Reverb
Additional settings:
  • Oversampling: no, x2, x4, x8
  • Samplerate: 44.1, 48, 88.2, 96
  • Stereo processing allowed

Minimal System Requirements

PC Mac
CPU Intel or AMD with SSE2 support,
2 cores and 4 threads, 2.6 GHz
Intel Core 2 or newer,
2 cores and 4 threads, 2.6 GHz
OS Windows Vista or newer OS X 10.13 or later
DAW * VST 2.4 compatible or Pro Tools 11 AU or VST 2.4 or AAX64 compatible
RAM 4 Gb 4 Gb
Disk Space 250 Mb 500 Mb
* Some of our customers reported that Spark under-performs in Studio One and Ableton Live. Observations show that these DAWs do not offer optimal multi-threading experience, which is required to run our next-gen modeling engine. If you run Studio One or Ableton Live and still wish to purchase Spark, we highly recommend extensive testing of the Demo version.

 

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Samples

All speaker cabinet IRs are Copyright 2009-2018 by Red5hift, LLC dba Redwirez. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED