Bye bye Spark

[Funtmaster]

With the advent of MacO S27 I am being alerted to the fact that, come MacOS 28, Rosetta will not be supported and thus, Spark will no longer work.

I am not one of those who demands that this or that functionality be added to products. Yes, I make my fair share of suggestions for improvements but they are just suggestions. Overall, I love Arturia products as they are and the direction the company is going. However, I feel the abandonment of Spark years ago, with no comparable replacement, is a mistake. Spark is easy to use and just sounds great. I really cant understand Arturia reasoning for abandoning it. If you are listening Arturia: please update it to Apple Silicon and make the GUI scalable. No need to add any functionality - just keep it alive - please.

[Yves]

I completely agree with you. I’m already unable to use it in my DAW, Cubase, and I find it a real shame—if only out of respect for those who have placed their trust in the Arturia brand (myself included, for the time being)—that we can no longer use a product we paid for. It would certainly be great if we could continue using Spark, and I support your request.

[Jon_Vincent]

I’ll update to the gargantuan AI-bloated MacOS27 when hell freezes over but count me as someone else who would love to see a native Spark.

[Funtmaster]

I know! Its hard to avoid. Seeing as so many are getting AI to generate plugins, maybe I should turn to Claude…

[Jon_Vincent]

It’s weird isn’t it.
There’s no law in the land that can ‘force’ Arturia to update the Spark app I bought as part of V Collection 4 all those years ago, so that I can carry on using it on modern computers with modern OS’s. But neither am I entitled to a refund.
We just sort of accept it.
Arturia could say, “well if you were still running the OS you were running when you purchased Spark, it would still work. We didn’t tell you to change your computer and OS.” Which is true. But I can’t realistically still run a 12 year old OS in the modern world.

With another hat on I’m just in the process of re-capping and changing a couple of transistors in a 46 y/o Philips R2R machine, after which it will be as good as new and still fully usable. Speaking of which Revox still honour the lifetime warranties they gave away with Revox A77 reel to reel tape recorders 50 years ago providing the decks are still owned by the original buyer, which was part of the original warranty agreement. These were sold in a different world when no one questioned that purchases of anything except obviously-expendable items would probably last a lifetime.

We’ve got way too used to our purchases being transient, in so far as they become unsupported and useless (Spark), or they just simply are taken from us, with no better example of the latter being the 551 StudioCanal movies and TV shows that Sony removed from digital video libraries in the UK and Europe on 01/09/26 because Sony have lost the distribution rights, it making zero difference that maybe hundreds of thousands of customers had legally paid for them.

[Funtmaster]

Ahh - obsolescence, a bug bear of mine. I own a 20 year old NAD CD player, which sounds great and a 45 year old Sansui cassette deck, which, now serviced, sounds fantastic! I drive an 11 year old car and it meets all my requirements. I own a 80 year old house and I love it and I am never moving. I try to keep away from constant upgrades if what I have fulfils my needs. Spark does that for me. I realise that Arturia is under no obligation to update Spark because the OS keeps updating but I would like to think our investment is appreciated. I do have a 11 year old MacBook and that will continue to run Spark but I dont use that for composing. Im just an old bloke, having a moan…

[Jon_Vincent]

You’re not so much having a moan as highlighting how we’ve been subtly conditioned to accept—and even defend—obsolescence, particularly when it comes to software. On the other hand, how long should we reasonably expect a one-off software purchase to be maintained free of charge? It’s a difficult question.

One thing that really boils my ****—here and elsewhere—is hearing people say, “Arturia [or another manufacturer] are rubbish; they haven’t released an update for [insert product here] in years.” When I ask, “An update to do what?”, the answer is often, “To add features that let me do XYZ”—features that were never promised when they bought it. I then ask, “Would you be prepared to pay for those?” “Of course not! I just expect Arturia (etc) to update their products regularly! It’s outrageous!” Yet those same people expect to be paid appropriately for the work they undertake. The disconnect and self-entitlement are crazy…

[Funtmaster]

I try to approach a product from the perspective of what I can do with it rather than what I cant due to (insert feature) not being present. Feature request are fine - but we all want something different and no company can satisfy all our requests.

[GerenM]

I’d also really like to see Spark updated so that it will continue to work with future operating systems. Alternately, a V Collection version of DrumBrute would be welcome, as far as I’m concerned.

[Tim.Arturia]

Like a lot of you guys, I do love Spark.

At this point, we can’t make any promises but I’ll try to make my best to avoid it’s death.

Cheers.

[Funtmaster]

All I would ask Tim is that Arturia are aware of our sentiment and that its a reflection of the outstanding product they developed.

[Yves]

tout à fait d accord … We want Spark !!!

[Zip_oLeighter]

I hope that at the very least the OS compatibillity is maintained, and the graphic scaling updated (especially important for the modular voice patching screens).

I would have no problem if there were no other changes or feature additions, to me Spark is perfect the way it is.

[matjones]

PLEASE do @Tim.Arturia
It’s still one heck of a plugin, despite its age… one thing though, can we PLEASE have Song Position Pointer added to the sequencer?
That would make it just about perfect for those of us that still write ‘songs’, rather than having to trigger pads from our DAW.
The swing function was pretty good iirc and it’s always nice to have a swing function independent from the DAWs swing function, in my own case Cubase which doesn’t have the best swing function.

[Jon_Vincent]

Just another voice confirming that the reason we are passionate about it is that it is such a good product and it deserves to not die. It’s been on life-support now for such along time.

[Jon_Vincent]

…and while I can’t speak for others, I wouldn’t at all be opposed to having to re-purchase the new version with perhaps a small discount for those who already own licences of the old version. I don’t expect your software engineers to code it for free.

(EDIT: We’re not far off being able to throw old apps at Claude and asking it to re-engineer and re-compile them. If you don’t make a new Spark legitimately, it’s only a matter of time before someone else does it, or vibe-codes a compatible product that can use Spark’s sound libraries.)

[Funtmaster]

Im also happy to fork out a few quid to keep the wheels of Arturia greased

[Jon_Vincent]

Elsewhere in this forum there’s already someone who’s made their own open-source app that’s sufficiently reverse-engineered your KeyStep Pro firmware so that all the KSP’s functions can be assigned and manipulated on a computer screen. Then there’s the guy who’s trying to contact you with a view to licencing a one-fits-all script for Logic/GarageBand/MainStage for your KeyLab range.

The world of software development is changing. Helped by generative AI, gutsy enthusiasts ‘in their mum’s basement’ (colloquialism) are writing tools to meet user-needs where official channels are too reluctant or glacial. If you don’t seize this opportunity to re-engineer Spark officially (or replace it with a modern equivalent), someone else with no sh*ts given but carrying a full bucket of “phuckem I’ll do it myself” will do it unofficially, to your financial detriment. We won’t be pleading forever.