ADA Preamps > MP-2

MP2 prices?

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j4q0:
Time to report back.

This past week I got some time alone with my MP2 and went through the MP-2 patches section of the site and copied them all one by one so I can use them as a good starting point to create a patch of my own.

I’ve relearned how important is the speaker cabinet and power amp for one’s tone, most of these high gain patches did not work with my rig at all, they had either too much low end or too much high end.
I also relearned how every guitar player has their own definition of clean tone  :))
Some of these patches I would never use but I can easily hear other people playing them. It always comes down to the same thing: There is no wrong tone, only different tones for every single situation.
 
As a reference, the gear I’m paring this unit is:
Power section of a 5153 modded to accept EL34,
2x12 closed back cab with Celestion K100
Custom made set neck guitar, mahogany body and neck, ebony fretboard, B&BXL500 on the bridge and SD59 on the neck
Custom made N4, mahogany body with 1/4” maple top, maple neck and ebony fretboard, B&BXL500 on the bridge and SD Jazz on the neck

So, the patches that became my starting points were Kim's 5150 and Mesa Rectogasm, as well as Dante's killer dirty and clean patches. These are the closest thing to what I hear in my head when i think of a guitar tone.
It’s a bit hard not to get lost in the infinite possibilities of tone when you have a 4-band tone stack plus a 9-band graphic eq and each of the 9 voicing has a different tone character; however, once I became acquainted with the characteristics of each voice, it was a lot easier and faster to match my reference tone and go from there.
I also found interesting that although you can get a decent tone without the need of the graphic eq, it is necessary if you want a modern tone with good note definition specially at high gain settings.
 
Having a built-in compressor is another great tool for the cleans, I don’t like too much compression so the lower settings worked great for me and were easy to set up. All the other effects are just great, good wha options, nice tremolo and of course amazing chorus, but we all knew that already.

When comparing the high gain from the head with the MP2, the head seemed noiseless, so the noise reduction does its job well done. I really like riding the knob of the guitar so needing the noise reduction was a bit annoying.

Voicing 7 has enough gain for my high gain needs even though I tend to go for very high gain settings for my Pantera fix every once in a while. Another thing I relearned is that at higher volumes the OD is more obvious and you don’t need as much as you think you need; I haven’t played live in a while so I’ve lost a bit of perspective on this point and only remembered this when I cranked the amp loud enough make the house rumble :headbanger:
The way voicings 8-9 saturate causes the tone to lack tightness and to get wooly. I really enjoy the voicing 5 as a crunch tone and all the clean tones are fun as well. For high gain, I haven’t been able to distinguish between setting the DRIVE to 90 and OD to 50 and viceversa, so I’ve kept them both at about the same setting around 7-8, this also helped me reduce the noise.

I did end up with a very good tone on voicing 7, very close to my 5153 and with the help of the graphic EQ I could bring up some mid high frequencies I think benefits the guitar tone for both rhythm and lead. I always wished when I had the MP1 classic it had a graphic eq to fine-tune it so this is definitely a great tool to have. This tone was versatile enough and the gain setting allowed me to turn off the noise reduction without being overly noisy and it allowed me to get some nice crunch tones with the guitar volume rolled back. The MP2 does respond better than the MP1 and the MP1 classic in this depertment, when rolling down the vol the guitar tone retains a bit of the highs, though not quite as well as my 5153 or my other amp. And talking about the MP1 classic I have to say that the brown voicing in that unit is just as good as it gets for crunch tones.

And as much as I love MIDI integration and MIDI control, at this point tone is a priority for me so I didn’t fiddle with either the effects loop or the MIDI real time control. Both my MP1 and MP1 classic effects loop worked great so I would only assume the MP2 was just as good with the added flexibility of having independent mix for A and B signals. Real time control is very useful so I’m pretty sure I would love to set some expression controllers for some interesting morphing tones.

Overall, I do think that the MP2 can keep up with any modern amp/preamp and can give you anything you want from ridiculous spanky overcompressed cleans to insanely crushing high gain, you just need to spend a bit of time learning its programming and tone control response.
I do think that for me, I just keep fighting the unit in the noise department and I feel more confortable playing my other 2 amps. I’m also preferring knobs these days.

So, to sell or not to sell. Keep it in a rack case collecting dust until I decide I’ve had enough of knobs or sell it to fund other new toys, oh guitar player's dilemas… :crazy: :lol:

It would be very cool for somebody to try this patch and comment back. I'd like to hear your impressions when running it though different power amp/speaker combo.

The Tone
Voicing: 7 Warm high gain
Drive: 75
Overdrive: 80
Master: 82

Compressor: Out

Tone Controls
Low: +4
Mid: 0
Hi: +2
Pres: +2

Graphic EQ
100 Hz: +6
170 Hz: +4
280 Hz: 0
470 Hz: +6
800 Hz: 0
1.3 kHz: +2
2.2 kHz: 0
3.8 kHz: +2
6.3 kHz: +8

Wha: Out
Tremolo: Out
Noise: Out (or Gate, 50%)
Chorus: Out
Loop: Out

rnolan:
Hey j4q0, nice write up  :thumb-up: , and a good way to approach learning a MP-2. The one MP-2 CC I use always is the stereo mater vol, which can only be accessed via CC pedal.  I've taken to using voice 5 for most things and rolling the vol pots on the guitar and using the CC master vol pedal to boost vol for solos.  Don't know if you tried my patches  :dunno: , but they work at stage level (where I ran them up..) albeit with ultrasonic PUs, Anderson Proam (basswood body, pau ferro fingerboard.  They also work fine with my JPLP.
If your unit is too noisy with higher gain voices, you can do the noise mod (HG is where it helps the most BTW, if you stay at voice 5 there's no need for it).

I've not played around with the MP-2 macros yet, they could be fun  :headbanger:

j4q0:
I copied into my MP2 every patch I could find on the patch page which was about 36 or so, I was being anal about it  :crazy:  :lol:
I'm 100% positive I tried some of your patches. I did play them all at fairly loud volume and a bunch of them did not work for me at all. After I really understood how to set up the unit I went back to play all the patches again and fiddled a bit with the EQ.

Since every patch (almost all of them at least) relies on the graphic EQ to get a specific sound, I realized that after a while I ended up setting the graphic EQ fairly similar regardless of what patch I was in so it would match the tone I was hearing in my head. In the end I settled for voicing 7 as liked the bit more chunky tone of the high gain, I did like voicing 5 too but wha can I say... I like high gain and I cannot lie  :banana-guitar:

I got a buyer for the unit so I'm parting with it for the time being.
And honestly, if ADA was to issue an updated version of the MP units with rotary knobs/encoders I would not hesitate one second on getting one.

rnolan:
When I first got my MP-2 I used voice 9 for most things, back then I was much more into high gain (so I hear ya  >:D ).  These days my old rhythm sound is now my over the top lead... hence I've gravitated to voice 5.  I agree, the interface could be improved, I've though about it over the years, although once you have set up you basic patches and are happy, you (I) rarely touch the patches..

Dante:
Nice writeup indeed  :thumb-up: I'm glad you were able to use some of my settings. I too run into the problem of other folks' patches simply not working for me. It boils down to all the other gear that plays a part in the tone. Your memories of the Classic are pretty spot on, I use the brown voicing more than the distortion. With an external eq (in my fx unit), I can get a good high gain and even metal tone from it, but only with the distortion. The brown channel really comes alive at higher volumes for me, and the picking dynamics are way better than the MP-2, IMHO.

Harley taught me a great deal about the MP-2's graphic eq, in that you would be surprised how much one freq can change the tone (for better or worse). Now, I just don't pay attention to what I'm seeing, I trust my ears. I've actually been playing with my MP-2 lately and trying like hell to fix up my Classic, so I may have some new updated patches very soon.

Of course, they may be useful, or useless, because I'm running the unit through my Crate Powerbloc, plugged into my H&K 4x12 cab, which seems to be a bassy rig. We'll see

BTW: don't let that unit go

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