That is not the christmas spirit .

More seriously, why not something more friendly and practical, like a 30 days trial?

 

@Antikythera Mechanism
Thank you for your interest!

The only reason for this is protecting our software from pirating. I am not a developer myself, but from what I understand, fully functional time-trial versions can be hacked easily. We are a very small company and it would destroy us.
The methods above cannot be easily hacked and we hope there will be no pirated version of Spark online.

You will be able to demo Spark with the above inconveniences, but all the functions within should be available to make a proper test-drive.

 

As you may have noticed, we've released Spark today! All the details are available at https://mercuriall.com/cms/details_spark
Check out the Demo - hope you like it!

 

I don't know if they're easier to crack or not, but I myself bough Thermionik 5 and Scuffham S-Gear. I won't be buying anything Mercuriall because of those restrictions. Acustica Audio plugins are fully functional 30-days trial and so far are uncrackable. Same as S-Gear which stood strong for 5 years until iLOK2 was cracked. Thermionik 5 has the same protection as Reaper and it has not been cracked (probably due to respect to the developer's "try before you buy" approach.

So yeah, I don't buy it.

 

i've been testing spark but for a little time, there's a issue with cpu usage, i'ts really high

 

MusicRadar:
http://www.musicradar.com/news/tech...arshall-modelling-spark-amp-sim-plugin-646214

 

@Torrao Hi and thank you for the feedback. Sad that you are not giving us a chance.

@pelao Hi! Could you give more details on your computer, DAW, sound card buffer settings and Spark settings? And what is the CPU usage in your situation?

 

hi, i use mercuriall spark in reaper 5 and minihost modular, it consumes 50% of cpu i have a intel celeron g540 (2.5 ghz dual core). thanks for the attention, spark sounds really good and the limitations are not annoying

 

i don't know if it's been done already,
but (and also considering all the feedback you've got here) why not giving your plugins more chances to take off with special offers, like a specific discount code for audiosex members who request it ? (on a regular basis)

i don't want to create a fuzz or a controversy of any sort, but despite I totaly understand how difficult it is for a software company to survive, especialy in the music industry, I also find ... unusual the commercial approach ( i've got an adblocker, so I don't know if you advertise on the site, or even if you're related to any of the forum owner(s)

(i've tried remain diplomatic)

 

I see, thanks.
I am afraid the processor is having a hard time to run Spark more effectively due to it's relatively old age/spec. The only thing I can suggest is to lower the oversampling (if you can go lower) and play with the sound card buffer settings.
We will try to optimize the code even more in future releases!

@black bounty Thank you for the feedback! =)
We do run a special intro price right now (99 USD instead of 120, which is a healthy discount). We do not plan to offer special discounts to specific forums/communities, as it will lead to all other forums/communities to request the same. So, we will be forced to offer everyone a discount. We won't even have a way to identify if the person is a member of some community or not. Eventually, this means making Spark cheaper - however, we think the current price is fair. There will be good deals in future, of course, but not limited to specific forums/communities.

Just wanted to clarify - what is unusual in our commercial approach?

 

well, unless you have banners on the site, your presence in here is free advertising, isn't it ?

fair enough regarding that you have to face piracy, a good commercial approach in a way to go directly to customer -but, once again, when you're a developer, feedback is essential, and i think people, when they're "beta-tester" (even if it's not exactly the case here), deserve more attention than a general discount ( i'm suggesting here that your discount should be 50% to forum users, and yes there's a way to identify them, and no, just because you give to one, you don't have to give to the others ) ... I still have mixed feelings about that, but all depends on your company mindset about a subject that is controversial and "against the rules" here, so I won't go further, but i'm pretty sure you've guessed my point.

99$, however it seems justified regarding an investment, is not the best price for 1 amp simulator, not only in regards of what you can get elsewhere comparatively, but also especialy regarding the (healthy second hand) hardware you can get for a little bit more, e.g,
... if you want various type of sounds ...

I won't compare this with high quality hardware amps, because you can't (really) compete with that yet, but yeah ... i wish you good luck anyway ( and a meery christmas )

 

searching for this issue i find that other users have the same problem even with a better cpu. check this link please http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=6657469

 

@black bounty We do not have banners on this website. On the first page of this thread there is a welcome message from moderator, so I never felt we are doing something wrong by posting information about Mercuriall. If forum moderator closes this topic because of breaking the rules - that'd be very sad, but fair (I believe?).
We are not running any beta tests here. We have a closed dedicated team of alpha and beta testers who go through the earliest versions of the software. It's not fun at all. Mostly bug hunting and report writing.

To sum up - we are not planning to give exclusive discounts to specific communities/forums. Everyone is equally important and everyone will get the same deals.

As for the hardware - it's everyone's personal choice what to buy. Both hardware and software have their strong and weak sides.


@pelao Yep, thanks for the link! We are currently gathering information for analysis. If you have a bit of time, you could help us by posting this additional info:

1. Can you post info or screenshots of from Task manager > CPU and also Memory performance? Before you even start your DAW.
Important to see what is the system load before you even start the DAW.
2. Also, could you tell me what sound card you use?
3. What programs do you run in the background? Maybe we could find some common program that behaves badly with Spark.
Like antivirus (which one), cloud storage software, messaging apps, etc.
3. Are you on HDD or SSD?

Thank you!

 

i'll answer the 3 last questions

2- I use a lexicon alpha card, 512 samplerate
3- i have nothing running background, even i deactivate wifi when i load my daw
4- it's a hdd

thanks for the support

 

@pelao Thank you for the details! the question #1 is also very important for better understanding of how system behaves when idle.

 

yes i know, when i got time i'll post the pics of cpu and process

 

FYI:

We've analyzed the limited feedback where customers had complaints of Spark's poor performance.

We've noticed 4 main things:
1. Hyper-threading (if your CPU has it) must be enabled as well as all cores must be enabled on the processor. Spark relies on using all the CPU cores to spread out the load. If, for some reason, you turned off any of the available cores, please turn them on.
2. Your DAW should not run in a compatibility mode. We noticed a user was running Reaper in a Windows Vista compatibility mode and it drastically decreased Spark's performance.
3. Your DAW settings need to be configured to use all the CPU cores your machine has.
4. It looks like processors with 2 cores and 2 threads are having a hard time running Spark and there is no cure to this. I know it may sound harsh, but this is a sign of these processors getting old. They are not fast enough to seamlessly run Spark even at low settings. And yes, U530 does require less CPU than Spark.

With that said, potential things to try:
1. Hopefully, your OS is 64 bit (if not, disregard this point). If you are running your DAW and plugins at 32 bit, please try to run your DAW and Spark at 64 bits. There should be better performance.
2. Try different DAW and see if the result is different.

Apart from that, we do want to optimize Spark further.

 

Dear friends!

Mercuriall team sends you warm greetings and congratulates with the upcoming New Year! Let the 2017 bring you positive mood, creative energy and strong health!
With your support we are able to continue working on new Mercuriall products! Actually, we already have plans for the next plugin, which will hopefully bring a big smile on your face. Maybe even some tears of joy. Stay tuned for more!

On the New Year's eve please enjoy this powerful mix/cover made by NRQ's Studio.

PS. We still run the Holiday Sale until 3rd of Janury! You can get the U530 and Spark with a nice discount at www.mercuriall.com

 

Hi everyone!
We are happy to announce a new contest from Mercuriall Audio Software! By participating, you can win one of the three full versions of Spark!
https://mercuriall.com/cms/details_spark

Here's what needs to be done:
- Download the Demo version of Spark from our website: https://mercuriall.com/cms/details_spark
- Record and upload a video where you use the Demo version of Spark. It can be anything: a review, composition, playthrough, playing over a backing track, cover.
Exception: please don't send us reamped DIs found on the web.
- Send the link of your video to us via Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/MercuriallAudioSoftware), VK (http://vk.com/mercuriallaudiosoftware) or support at mercuriall.com.

Demo version introduces occasional silence - it is fine if your audio contains guitar dropouts!

Three winners, chosen by us, will each get the full version of Spark!
Please submit your entry before the end of January 31st (PST time). We will announce the winners on our Facebook page on February 3rd.

FREE stuff alert!
In the comments section of the FB post, tag a friend (or friends) who really wants to get Spark! Everyone who tags AND gets tagged (meaning, you and the people you tag here) will participate in a giveaway! The prize is a FREE full version of Spark.
The winner will be chosen by https://www.random.org/

 

bug : when i hit play on transport it cuts signal when plugin is loaded (spark). ?? never seen anything like it with ampsims