The shaker is mapped to Gb2 as one articulation normally this would be the tambourine in GM. G1 is the high rack tom (I expected D2 to be the MIDI mapping) instead of the high floor tom though C2 is still the hi-mid rack tom, and F1 is still the low floor tom. They also have a BD2 kick in the pad set, but it is mapped to something else (I forget what, but it's in the next octave up). The following notes apply to there Oberheim DMX kit ("DNX" under VDM->Pop), at least: Turn off the Host and Tempo buttons at the top set pattern and MIDI mode in preferences to General MIDI (these may not be necessary when triggering from DP8 vs.
OK, I found that my user manual wasn't the latest, and they do briefly mention the Host and Tempo buttons in the latest version of the user manual, which can be found at their website. Not that I ever really use patterns, I prefer to create my own and just use these things as sound sources.
On the older versions of Spark you could simply click on the pattern "wheel" to select another pattern. Second thing I find frustrating is that, unlike Spark VDM, EDM, and Dubstep, you have to access a different page to change the patterns. That's understandable, but frankly I like calling up what is listed as an 808 or 909 or a Roland drum machine or Simmons kit. Now, that said, I think Spark 2.0 is really cool, but one thing I don't like about it is that, unlike Spark VDM, kits are listed by genre, not by the type of drum machine or electronic drum kit. Regarding Spark coming up defaulting to a pattern on - no, it doesn't do that here on my system. So you have to transpose any MIDI tracks that used GM-mapped kits up 2 octaves to get Spark to respond to them. The whole map for Spark drum instruments is essentially shifted up 2 octaves from the General MIDI map, meaning that the kick normally assgned to C1 is actually at C3. I can reassign MIDI tracks I did using BFD as a sound source and Spark plays them back fine.with a caveat.
I just downloaded and installed Spark 2.01 last night and installed.working a treat here. As I think about it more, I probably had not yet verified it is possible to use Spark as a source of drum sounds inside Digital Performer sequences. Unfortunately I can't verify that at the moment as my Spark LE is temporarily extremely inaccessible due to moving a bunch of stuff around recently for some ongoing live acoustic drum recording sessions. responding to a MIDI sequence fed to it via its assigned channel? a constant loop machine playing internal patterns vs. Maybe Spark LE has to be hooked up to the computer as some sort of "dongle" for the AU version to work as a sound source vs. I loaded up the standalone version just now and it does NOT play an infinite loop of a pattern and can be used to play the pads with the mouse or to trigger the sounds via a keyboard, at the very least. My recollection is that I found something in the settings window a while back that was counter-intuitive and several screens away, but that might have been in standalone mode as I see no hidden information or additional screens in the AU version.
I see nothing in it that shows how to shut off its annoying auto-pattern loop, but regardless of the constant looping of whatever pattern is loaded (and I see no way to null that out), it never plays MIDI fed to the VI channel assigned to it. I couldn't figure out how to do that with the previous version, but got it working with the demo of the new version so bought it with the controller and then thought I was "done" solving this mysterious problem. If so, then I wasted my money, as I expected to be able to also use it as a normal VI, to record MIDI parts that I've already entered.
I could swear I had this working when my Spark LE controller arrives with the Spark 2 software a few weeks ago, but I hadn't yet gotten around to using it in DP so maybe it's only possible to use Spark VI as a sound source when playing it in real time from the controller?