MP-1 Mods.....

  • Thread starter Thread starter Greazygeo
  • Start date Start date
I have an MP1 that I got recently and it has only the noise mod( quiet enough for studio use), nice and clear gain, warmer and better than most demos I've heard of this unit.

JJ tubes always seem to work well with these, some types don't.

You may be able to get a little punchier response from the JJ 803s tube in there, they are physically different, sound beefier and more clear in my H@K Tubeman, haven't tried them in MP1 , which I use for warm tube cleans and medium overdrives ,very amplike , and no fizz at all .

Of all the Mods other than noise mod, the Voodoo Mods seem to be the ones people keep.

I wonder what I'm missing , I believe Voodoo no longer does the mods on MP1 ' cause parts are too scarce.

Since the JJ803s gave me more clear, usable gain with less fuzz ( I like NO FUZZ at all) in my Tubeman , will it do the same in my MP1 ?
 
Greazygeo":1w0n9z00 said:
Duke of Metal":1w0n9z00 said:
3TM :thumbsup:
Click to expand...
You have one of these Bashar? Tell me about it :)
Click to expand...
I personally like it.. it does change the tone of the MP-1 a bit but to my ears, it changes it to the better. it adds tightness and makes it more aggressive. yes it adds more gain, but you turn the gain down if you want to.

The 3rd tube isnt all gain.. it acts as an active buffer for the 2 trimpots that get added on the new tube board that control the amount and frequencies of the Low/mid & mid/high (i think thats what they were).

What I noticed is alot of people get the 3TM and only tweek the patches on the front panel. They dont open up the top and tweek the trimpots to get different response from the unit according to their rig (different cab, different poweramp, etc..).

Here's a clip i did a long time ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0KT8qkJFF8

been meaning to make sure but with a 16months old running around, i hardly get the time to pick up the Axe to jam.

I'll upload some more later..

Cheers
 
i tweaked and trimmed those tonestack pots like you would not believe, and still thought it sounded like over-saturated junk.

great for lead tones, sounded like ass for anything else.

like i said, my unit could have possibly had issues, but im skepitcal in purchasing another MP1 anytime soon. the chorus is the only thing i liked about it.
 
robertkoa":2ef8dfhw said:
I have an MP1 that I got recently and it has only the noise mod( quiet enough for studio use), nice and clear gain, warmer and better than most demos I've heard of this unit.

JJ tubes always seem to work well with these, some types don't.

You may be able to get a little punchier response from the JJ 803s tube in there, they are physically different, sound beefier and more clear in my H@K Tubeman, haven't tried them in MP1 , which I use for warm tube cleans and medium overdrives ,very amplike , and no fizz at all .

Of all the Mods other than noise mod, the Voodoo Mods seem to be the ones people keep.

I wonder what I'm missing , I believe Voodoo no longer does the mods on MP1 ' cause parts are too scarce.
Click to expand...
I'll most likely do the noise mod first, i have most of the parts hiding somewhere. As old as these units are now, the caps probably could stand to be freshened up. This one isn't that noisy really, but everybit helps.
 
Duke of Metal":1mhv1kgp said:
Greazygeo":1mhv1kgp said:
Duke of Metal":1mhv1kgp said:
3TM :thumbsup:
Click to expand...
You have one of these Bashar? Tell me about it :)
Click to expand...
I personally like it.. it does change the tone of the MP-1 a bit but to my ears, it changes it to the better. it adds tightness and makes it more aggressive. yes it adds more gain, but you turn the gain down if you want to.

The 3rd tube isnt all gain.. it acts as an active buffer for the 2 trimpots that get added on the new tube board that control the amount and frequencies of the Low/mid & mid/high (i think thats what they were).

What I noticed is alot of people get the 3TM and only tweek the patches on the front panel. They dont open up the top and tweek the trimpots to get different response from the unit according to their rig (different cab, different poweramp, etc..).

Here's a clip i did a long time ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0KT8qkJFF8

been meaning to make sure but with a 16months old running around, i hardly get the time to pick up the Axe to jam.

I'll upload some more later..

Cheers
Click to expand...
Cool thanks for the info Bashar. 16 month old huh? Congrats! I'll check out your clips when I get home. I like the idea of the trimpots for the freq's. Hard to figure out why they chose such weird freq placements.
 
Greasy...Todd actually helped design the unit with ADA. He worked there for awhile and the MP-1 was his baby. From what I gather the original intent of the MP-1 was to have 3 12ax7's to help with eq stages, better tone etc... But to keep production costs down like is so often the case ADA skimped a bit. Now that is what I was told from the guy who dealt with Todd directly. I never asked Todd about it but he did tweak my Langner pre-amps with additional features. He was a cool guy. Seems like Todd lost a ton of stuff in a flood and just never went back into production on his original amps etc...

Years ago Guitar Player did a peice on all the hot amp modders at the time and Todd was featured along with Lee Jackson, Caswell, Soldano etc...

There is one poster around here that owns a ton of Todds stuff and was good friends with him, he knows a ton more than I do...but alot of his stuff is very expensive in certain markets like Japan. Todds custom pre-amps or ADA's that Todd personally modified aren't cheap. I saw one of his DCP-1 Elite pre-amps going for over $2000 grand somewhere recently...I paid Todd $400 dollars. Shoulda kept it lol.
 
jabps":42unn4f7 said:
Greasy...Todd actually helped design the unit with ADA. He worked there for awhile and the MP-1 was his baby. From what I gather the original intent of the MP-1 was to have 3 12ax7's to help with eq stages, better tone etc... But to keep production costs down like is so often the case ADA skimped a bit. Now that is what I was told from the guy who dealt with Todd directly. I never asked Todd about it but he did tweak my Langner pre-amps with additional features. He was a cool guy. Seems like Todd lost a ton of stuff in a flood and just never went back into production on his original amps etc...

Years ago Guitar Player did a peice on all the hot amp modders at the time and Todd was featured along with Lee Jackson, Caswell, Soldano etc...

There is one poster around here that owns a ton of Todds stuff and was good friends with him, he knows a ton more than I do...but alot of his stuff is very expensive in certain markets like Japan. Todds custom pre-amps or ADA's that Todd personally modified aren't cheap. I saw one of his DCP-1 Elite pre-amps going for over $2000 grand somewhere recently...I paid Todd $400 dollars. Shoulda kept it lol.
Click to expand...
Pretty cool info. Didnt know about Todd working there. I'm hoping the eq will solve my issues with the tone stack. Having a small rack would be kinda nice for some things. The clean tones and midi switching is nice to have.
 
I remember speaking to Todd Langner when he was doing the mods years ago.

I didn't know him but talked awhile. I didn't have an MP1 but was thinking of getting one just for him to mod but I think it was too pricey and frankly , I didn't realize that he was kind of a legend and how great it would have sounded.
 
Hooked up my Ashly 31 band eq last nite. That helped alot. Think I'll goof around with it for now. Try out some different speakers with it. GB's probably are not the greatest choice.
 
Check out the rack behind me here. That was 1991 at The Stone Pony in Asbury Park NJ. :rock:

Picture006.jpg



But my friends tone KILLED mine everynight because of what was behind him. The ADA never stood up to that JCM800.

Picture007.jpg
 
Yeah the cathode follower mod will just smooth out the gain and compresses the tone a little from what I understand amd loose a little gain.
 
Greazygeo":l2ic8hbs said:
An ADA MP-1 showed up on my door step yesterday. Had been thinking of picking one up again and someone un-knowingly twisted my arm (Thanks Tim :) ). The clean tones are pretty killer really. The gain stuff is way over the top as to be expected. Cool for soloing.

Looking at the ADA mod sight, there is a mod changing the last gain stage to a cathode follower. Has anyone tried this? The other mods don't really interest me, not looking for more gain. More snap in the attack would be nice.

Having an MP-1 when they first came out, I spent alot of time with it. I always felt the eq controls were at strange freq's. The bass was more of a low mid, mid was ok ( maybe a bit wide) and treble too low. I'm going to try a 31 band with the mp-1 tones set flat and see what happens. Maybe a mod for a traditional tone stack?

Now to wire up a cab stereo....
Click to expand...


That's why I added an MQ-1 to my MP-1, and why I dig the MP-2 (except programming it) more than the MP-1, the MP-2 has a secondary graphic eq to shape the tone, whereas the MP-1 you were limited unless you added an EQ like the MQ-1. All I have now is my last MP-2 (down from 4 MP-1's, all stock, and 3 MP-2's (one with noise mod, still have) plus power amps and cabs...at my most ADA gear stage. Add a stereo GEQ IMO. The MQ-1 was nice as it had MIDI presets, I had a set of EQ curves that I could mix and match with my MP-1 presets for great versatility. Now, I'm missing it...YMMV

Last incarnation of my ADA guitar rack:

ADA-Main-Rack.jpg



Edit: and now I finish reading to find you did add an GEQ! ;)
 
danyeo":1ttqx4ue said:
Check out the rack behind me here. That was 1991 at The Stone Pony in Asbury Park NJ. :rock:

Picture006.jpg
Click to expand...

Looked like Petrucci in the old days.
 
danyeo":2a4tfuji said:
Check out the rack behind me here. That was 1991 at The Stone Pony in Asbury Park NJ. :rock:




But my friends tone KILLED mine everynight because of what was behind him. The ADA never stood up to that JCM800.
Click to expand...
Cool pic. Seems like every stage had the accumulation of duct tape everywhere. :) Looks like you had the ada cab? Was it a 4-12 or the split stack 2-12s? A student of mine had the split ones, they didnt sound very good to me.
 
jasonP":4qdv9dk8 said:
Yeah the cathode follower mod will just smooth out the gain and compresses the tone a little from what I understand amd loose a little gain.
Click to expand...
Loosing some gain wouldn't be an issue, this has a ton. A sharper attack would be good.
 
rsm":1xlqqwd0 said:
That's why I added an MQ-1 to my MP-1, and why I dig the MP-2 (except programming it) more than the MP-1, the MP-2 has a secondary graphic eq to shape the tone, whereas the MP-1 you were limited unless you added an EQ like the MQ-1. All I have now is my last MP-2 (down from 4 MP-1's, all stock, and 3 MP-2's (one with noise mod, still have) plus power amps and cabs...at my most ADA gear stage. Add a stereo GEQ IMO. The MQ-1 was nice as it had MIDI presets, I had a set of EQ curves that I could mix and match with my MP-1 presets for great versatility. Now, I'm missing it...YMMV

Last incarnation of my ADA guitar rack:

ADA-Main-Rack.jpg



Edit: and now I finish reading to find you did add an GEQ! ;)
Click to expand...
Yeah the eq is helping alot. Next step will most likely be a flatter / more neutral sounding speaker. My old gb loaded Marshall cab isn't the best match for it. Also being a 16 ohm cab, the power amp isn't putting out much power.
 
Greazygeo":319cy1zn said:
danyeo":319cy1zn said:
Check out the rack behind me here. That was 1991 at The Stone Pony in Asbury Park NJ. :rock:




But my friends tone KILLED mine everynight because of what was behind him. The ADA never stood up to that JCM800.
Click to expand...
Cool pic. Seems like every stage had the accumulation of duct tape everywhere. :) Looks like you had the ada cab? Was it a 4-12 or the split stack 2-12s? A student of mine had the split ones, they didnt sound very good to me.
Click to expand...

Those were the split stacks. Yes, they sounded like shit. Funny, back when the ADA came out i thought it was the greatest thing ever and i thought Marshalls were old fashioned. :lol: :LOL: I will admit though that my ADA rig did sound better when i borrowed my friends Marshall 4x12.

That club is pretty famous, it's been around for a long time. I haven't been there in years though. I remember seeing Badlands there with Jake E Lee sporting 2 full Marshall stack, damm he was LOUD.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top