Steve Vai and Positive Grid have joined forces for a signature edition of the Spark MINI that ships with four custom presets designed by Vai himself, and a design inspired by his legendary custom Ibanez Hydra triple-necked electric guitar.
Dressed in burgundy Tolex, with a Mandala grille clothe design – and shipping with a signature guitar cable with Vai’s logo on the plug barrel – this Spark MINI is unmistakably a Steve Vai production, and if you purchase during the preorder period there is a chance you will get your hands one of 100 of these little feature-packed guitar amps that have been hand-signed by Vai.
They will have been well-tested by Vai, too. He admits that he is a longtime fan of the Spark Mini and has a few of them with him when he is out on tour. As practice amps go, they're tough to beat.
“I gotta tell you, I don’t go anywhere without it,” says Vai. “I really don’t. It sounds great. I have one backstage. I have one on the bus. And I have one for my hotel room. I am so in love with it and I use it so much, they asked, ‘Hey, you wanna sprinkle a little Vai fairy dust on it?’ And here it is.”
Like previous Custom Artist Series editions with Paul Gilbert and Zakk Wylde, the Vai Spark Mini’s big selling point is the fact that it comes pre-loaded with presets that Vai has designed.
There are four in total: Fresh, Mild, Hot, and Dirty, and each can be edited on your smartphone or mobile device via the Spark app. Vai’s presets cover the main four food groups of his tone.
Fresh is clean, with a slap of delay on it. Mild has “a little more rock ’n’ roll of a tone” while Hot is similar to what Vai would use onstage for his “rhythm/dirty” tone.
Fire? That’s for solos, and you can see from the demo video that it has all the gain and power you need for working your way through the Inviolate tab book.
And this being a Positive Grid product, there are plenty of ways to interact with the extended Vai guitar universe, with the Spark Mini affording players the opportunity to jam to “exclusive backing tracks and loops directly from Vai’s catalogue”.
We at MusicRadar are big fans of the Spark Mini. The tones, courtesy of that Positive Grid BIAS engine, are work the price of admission alone, and that’s before you get to features such as Smart Jam, Auto Chords, AI-powered tone, and the clever editing and preset options that the accompanying app offers you.
It has 10-watts of Class D power driving a pair of 2” active stereo speakers that bely their size. All in you have something like 33 amp models and 43 effectsThere is a headphones output, an 1/8” aux input, Bluetooth and USB connectivity that allows you to use this as a USB audio interface.
And you can take it anywhere, with its rechargeable batteries offering up to eight hours of playing at low/mid volume from a three-hour charge. Or listening – the Spark Mini can be used as a Bluetooth speaker, too.
Positive Grid is taking names for the preorder. Price TBC but we would expect it to be in line with the £/$229 the regular Spark Mini sells for. They are the same amp just with added Vai details and presets. See Positive Grid for more details and to sign up for the launch.
