Greetings! Long time lurker, first time poster.
I've recently built myself a small rack rig consisting of an mp-1, RSP Intelliverb, and Mosvalve 1u power amp. I control it with an ADA MPC, and power it with a Furman condition with built in tuner (PT-Tuner).
I've been on the fence about going rack rig route for a long time. I am a busy commercial player in a busy working R&B/funk/jazz band, playing ~120 gigs annually on average. The flexibility and quick setup of a rack rig always intrigued me, but I've always heard there is a compromise in tone/organic feel/etc etc.
I am not a metal player, on the contrary- I spend a lot more time playing jazz standards/fusion tunes/and pop songs than rock. Growing up in the 80's/90's a lot of my favorite tone (clean and heavy) are ADA mp-1, so many great players used them back in the day. One of my favorite ADA mp-1 albums is "Gumbo Millenium" by 24-7 Spyz, Jimi Hazel's playing and tone really influenced my sound and approach to the instrument- especially the spanky clean chorus that is all mp-1.
In my career I have had the luxury to play some really fine amps: Cornford, Carol-Ann, 65 Amps, and Fuchs over the past years. Recently I have wanted something really different- I mean, all the boutique heads out there now are really nice, but basically just varying shades of the same color. This led me to plunge into making a simple rack rig centered around the mp-1...
I have a few months and lots of gigs on it now, and bottom line- it rules! One of the best tones I have ever had, and it is really FUN to play- it feels good under my fingers. I love the flexibility and ability to dial up such a wide array of tones and colors and quickly switch via MIDI. Honestly, I feel silly for not discovering this years ago!
Why don't more guitarists use MIDI? After using the mp-1 and being able to easily dial up 128 different shades of tone (not to mention the excellent effects of the Intelliverb), having a basic 2-channel head seems so goofy and constricted now. True, a Cornford sound great- but in a live situation you are stuck with two basic channels, unless you want to augment it with various boosts/OD pedals/etc... Why don't modern manufactures put MIDI capability into the preamp sections of their heads? Imagine a Carol-Ann head with the ability to dial up 128 different variations of tone that the preamp is capable of? I don't understand why things took a huge backward step after the MIDI tube preamps came into the market.
Anyways, I really am loving my mp-1! Of course the all out drive tones are excellent, but I think the often unsung strength is the mp-1's excellent cleans and the ease to dial up very playable/good sounding low gain tones on the "clean tube" channel. Seems just about every review has the gain dimed, but I have been able to easily get some of the best low gain blues/fusion tones I have ever had with this simple stock mp-1.
Sorry for the book- just wanted to share my experiences and bewilderment that more guitarists don't use MIDI programmable preamps!! DaveP