Jam vs Positive Grid Spark app (Smart Jam)
This page describes the difference. It doesn’t declare a winner: everything below about Positive Grid Spark app (Smart Jam) was read off its own pages on October 10, 2026, not tested at a piano. We make Jam, so read our column accordingly — its gaps are listed at the bottom.
They’re different kinds of tool. Positive Grid Spark app (Smart Jam) is closest to live-listening accompaniment: Software that listens while you play and responds in real time: it works out where you are and what you are playing, then plays with you. Jam is live-listening accompaniment for a MIDI piano.
| Positive Grid Spark app (Smart Jam) | Jam (ours) | |
|---|---|---|
| Listens while you play | Yes, per the vendor. | Yes, over MIDI or through the microphone. |
| What you prepare first | No chords needed, per the vendor. | No. No chart, no song, no chord zone. |
| Follows your tempo | Not stated on the page reviewed. | Yes, by default. It can also hold steady once it joins, or set the tempo and count you in. |
| What it hears | Guitar (built around Spark amps) | Digital piano over MIDI, or any piano (acoustic too) through the microphone |
| Platforms | Mobile app | Chrome or Edge on a computer. Microphone mode should also work in Safari, but we have not tested it there |
| Pricing | The app is free; amp prices were not reviewed. | The demo is free. Playing your own piano is included with any HiveJournal subscription. |
Where Positive Grid Spark app (Smart Jam) is ahead
Shipping and mature, several “bandmates” with different feels, and built into hardware guitarists already own. The closest thing we found to Jam, for guitar.
What Jam doesn’t do
- New and experimental. We have measured it on a scripted demo, not yet with many real players.
- Synthesized drums and bass, not recorded or sampled instruments. Every hardware arranger and DAW above sounds better.
- Eight styles (four of them hip hop). Arrangers and backing-track apps have hundreds or thousands.
- 4/4 time only.
- Microphone mode is newer than MIDI: tested on synthesized recordings, not yet in a real room. With headphones it hears you cleanly; on speakers it also hears itself, so it holds tempo more than it follows you and is less sure of your chords.
- MIDI needs Chrome or Edge on a computer (Safari and iPad cannot read MIDI). Microphone mode is untested in Safari.
- No recording, notation or editing. It plays with you; it does not make a track.