Hey Gang,
I'm glad to have shared this story with all of you. I believe if Todd had ever had the time to get on a Forum like this one, that he would have loved this community.
@ MJMP,
Todd was a very great guy to deal with, and loved creative ideas. If you shared an idea with him, that you had, he would think of something else almost instantly, and share it with you too! You would have loved dealing with him because he was a very creative person, and I know for a fact he would have loved talking with you too.
@ Danny and MJMP,
The 3TM was something Todd was still working on because it wasn't exactly what he was looking for. He was able to get the enhanced distortions from it that he wanted, but he was trying to get the clean tube sounds to become more enhanced as well. The problem was in the design of the circuitry. Todd was trying to come up with a daughter board to attach to the MP-1 to incorporate the additional circuits, and make the cleans more beefy. The original 3TM design would have ended up being a 2RU, and Dave Tarnowski wanted to keep the MP-1 and any other preamp design in a 1RU format. That was something Dave insisted on. The daughter board never became a reality because it was difficult to get it to fit in the MP-1 in the physical location where it needed to be, and also, from a marketing standpoint, the mod wasn't something the consumer could do. It wasn't practical from their point of view to have the MP-1's sent in to ADA to have the mod done, and they would lose money like that.
But, the tones of the 3TM did inspire the team at ADA to come up with the MP-2, and that's when the design work began on that.
@ Max,
Todd was no mythical figure at all my friend, he was a very down to earth person, and very easy to talk with. I remember the feelings of excitement I would have after he and I would bounce ideas back and forth, and I could see some of the crazy ideas I had were actually very do-able. Todd had a way of taking an idea that seemed like a fantasy, and explaining how it could be done in reality. Which after I would get off the phone with him, I'd sit down at my desk, and draw out flow charts and exact diagrams, then I'd mail them to him. He would add new ideas to it, or suggest a better way of doing it and either mail it back if he had the time, or just call me and tell me about it.
I'm flattered that you hold me in high regard with Philippe and Richard, but I don't deserve it. I'm just an ordinary guy who loves the Depot and all the cool people and ideas that happen here.
@ Dante,
I'm a bit surprised you never met Todd yourself. After all, he was a great guitar player, and his band, (Kamikaze), was very popular around the Bay area. Even though your playing styles are very different, I believe he would have liked your direction. He was very open-minded like that.
Harley