Hey mate, your catching up LoL. Good to hear you are enjoying the MP-2, they are great preamps and very well appointed (albeit a bit complicated for some
). Do you have a midi pedal to switch it ? It supports a bunch of midi CC commands/controls (not just patch change like the MP-1), the one I always use is the stereo master volume.
You may find R611 (noise gate chatter) is already done
, it was mostly the very early units that needed the mod as it became stock after they released the fix. To check, read the mod notes, locate R611 (middle/front of PCB (check layout chart)) and check the colour bands on the resister. But get MJMP to include one for you as well as R913 in the kit. Also what EPROM version is it (displays on startup), the last firmware EPROM upgrade was v1.41, if yours is earlier then also grab one of those from MJMP AND a new front input jack (he knows the correct switchcraft part number (longer thread)), and if you're up for it a new display (they fade over time) (may as well get it all in one postage).
All the high gain voices pretty much need the gate, these days I'm using V5 (warm vintage) mostly and I find it's got plenty of gain for most things and doesn't need the gate (a couple of my patches are in the MP-2 patch area). These are stage ready patches BTW.
You'll need a decent stereo multi Fx processor for delays and mmmm reverb. You can run that in the MP-2 stereo parallel loop. And the cab sims work very well for recording or DI into desk (I use the 2 x 12 setting, I find the 4 x 12 a little less "open" for how I play these days). You can also plug other preamps (eg MP-1) into the MP-2 Fx returns and just use the cab sims, works well.
Cheers R