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[funkjazzaxe]

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

[RobbHell]

Check out the Engl Special Edition series.


http://www.englamps.de/

[funkjazzaxe]

That ENGL looks sweet- interesting that everyone isn't doing this.  ADA was way ahead of the game.  Interestingly I was paging through the latest issue of Guitar Player and noticed they reviewed the newest Rocktron preamp- they noted (in a positive way) that the preamp had controls like a standard 2-channel amp- no MIDI.  Its odd that they noted that it was a "good" thing- to me it just limits it to two basic sounds in a live setting.  Why wouldn't someone want the ability to find and store all the sweet spots on the gain/EQ from clean to screaming?  Maybe it is an industry conspiracy to keep people buying pedals haha...

[rnolan]

Hey DaveP welcome, your now lurking with intent LOL, interesting topic. I went from a'72 Marshall 50 with power soak, so 1 sound, later added a 100w Marshall artist and used a Tom Schultz rockman across both heads for lead sound, A/B/A+B switch, delay and chorus pedals, so 2 sounds (and took as long as the drummer to set up). Then the MP1 came out,  128 Marshalls. I added a Quadverb and ADA B200s an 8 ch desk and a pair of slant split stacks and never looked back. Took a little while to dial up my tones (when to say stop, that's good enough was interesting LOL) but I tuned the patches a bit over many gigs/rehearsals, heaven on a stick. Sold the MP1 to buy the MP2 when it came out, I didn't need to tweak the MP2 as much and the MXC is a much better and more ergonomic pedal. I used quite a few more patches back then as I was playing allot of covers from various styles. These days I gone really simple and turned the distortion down allot milking more rock/blues tones. I predominantly use 1 patch and the MXC CC volume pedal for 90% of the time, I have a clean patch for here and there and my old rhythm patch is now my over the top lead for once in a while. And recently I've started turning the PU vols down to 2.5 - 3 to clean it up more, sounds soo sweet with the Mullard long plate (very 3D and articulate) tubes. I'd never really used the PU vol knob on anything but full or off before, just changed patch for the sound I wanted.
I was a bit perplexed when I read recently (probably here) that rack was dead, well it isn't for me (and most here I spose LOL). Maybe it's time for a resurgence ? although we seem to be in the time of the tone clone (hey all power to them if that's what people want/like). Rack gear wasn't cheap back then, I paid around $2.5k AUD for the MP2 in the late 80s (=~$7.5k today).
Yeah lots of shredders here  , but a variety of others as well. As you say the MP1/2 are extremely versatile.
We'd appreciate it if you could post some of your MP1 patches
Cheers Richard

[funkjazzaxe]

My mp-1 is sitting at a club right now so I can't remember my exact patches, but I am keeping the EQ pretty flat- about 9/6/6/6/6 for cleans with some chorus.  I tend to use the SS channel for the pop/funk stuff and clean tube with very low gain for a warm clean jazz patch (treble/presence pulled down a bit).  My crunchy/fusion stuff (think Greg Howe, MacAlpine's CAB, etc) is clean tube gained up and lots of mids, my distortion patch is pretty much the ADA Marshall patch with a tad less gain.

The mp-1 reacts pretty well to volume manipulation, not quite as much as say a Cornford or Fuchs, but it is much better than I was expecting after reading lots of people's reviews.  It's pretty good at going from a "pushed" clean on the clean tube to a good crunch by rolling up the guitar volume. 

The mp-1 tends to get pigeonholed as the "80's pop metal" box, and it certainly does that really well (and I dig those sounds!), but it is really so much more. 

One thing I noticed, and maybe it's just my ear and being used to playing really articulate/mid range heavy amps like Cornford and Carol-Ann, but the stock mp-1 settings are REALLY bright- I tend to boost the mids a lot more, and knock the presence and treble down a bit.  I run the mp-1 into an Ear Candy Buzzbomb 2x12, stereo, with Eminence Delta Pros- those speakers are very similar to an EVM-12L.

[kawai2g4b]

Its about time someone mentioned Jimi Hazel, easily one of the most overlooked guitarists out there at this day and age and a major influence upon me.  Seriously killer rhythm player.  I had not previously heard  he used an MP1 on that album, but now I can really hear it.

DaveP, I had the same revelation about the MP1 a couple years ago.  I'm a millennial so most of the gear im exposed to is geared towards pedals. I love being able to access all those settings on those 3 amp voices, especially since my style is a melting pot depending on how I'm feeling.  I'm glad you were fortunate enough to buy into it finally, it has a way of replacing most if not all of yor dirt pedals after a while.  Like Richard I am an MP2 convert but the MP1 is a definite keeper. It's a monster with my Carvin DC200.

[rnolan]

Speakers (no surprise) make a big difference to the factory patches (as do other things, PUs, guitar, tubes). They were designed for particular Celestions which came in the ADA split stacks (MJMP (if we're lucky) may give us a history lesson of which Celestions were in which ADA cabs). Anyway, they tend to be a bit mid scooped and not as toppy as some speakers (e.g. eminence). With my MP1 I initially had 2 fender twin speakers (probably eminence) in an open backed cab (for small gigs) and also a Yamaha Quad box and needed to tweak the eq a bit as both were fairly bright. When I bought the MP2 I bought a pair of slant split stacks (built locally by the dealer here under license), I wanted the cabs to be 4 ohm to get the most from my B200s and couldn't get any 8 ohm celestions in Australia at the time and ADA cabs use 16 ohm speakers so I went with Boogie celetions (they do custom runs for Boogie et al) 90w 8 ohm. They are a bit more middy but overall they match with the MP2 presets well so I did less tweaking with MP2 than MP1. I've since picked up a single (imported) ADA slant split stack which has 2 x 16ohm 70w celestions, I have it wired to be stereo 2 x 16 ohm or mono 8ohm. Combines well with Carvin TS100 and factory patches.

[funkjazzaxe]

Thanks for the information!  Interesting about the factory EQ settings- makes sense that it was for the ADA split stacks/Celestions. 

Good to see someone else familiar with Jimi Hazel, he is definitely an under the radar player.  I actually asked him what his rig was for Gumbo Millenium and he said it was straight up ADA mp-1 into a BBE Sonic Maximizer into an ADA poweramp.  He said that he used that same rig for every 24-7 Spyz album, but I like the Gumbo Millenium alblum's tone the best.  That album is an excellent example of what an mp-1 sounds like, from thrash metal (think Bad Brains) to straight ahead rock (think Vernon Reid) to punchy clean chorus (think Prince).  Plus, that album wasn't cut at a huge studio and processed/buffed out much, the tone Hazel gets is pretty much straight from his rig.

The ADA has such a great chorus, nice and thick but never sounds cheesy or cliche to me.  If anything, it sounds fresh because the past decade guitar tones have become so dry- again, all the boutique amps are awsome but really sound a lot alike, especially in a live setting through a PA system.  I've had more compliments from people on my ADA mp-1 tone than all the other amps I've played through put together.  It is a unique sound and people really like it! 

 

[rnolan]

I haven't heard anything as good as MP1/2 yet. And same, I get quite a few complements on my setup/tone although some (allot) of it is the fingers 
I really haven't tried many of the boutique amps, although played through a nice one in the music store the other day, it was "nice" my MP2 is GREAT, anyway plenty of the converted around here LOL.
So glad it's working out for you 

[Dante]

First of all, WELCOME to the Depot!

I have dabbled in a few Funk bands in my day, and I absolutely LOVE the cleans in the MP-1. But, that said, you gotta try an MP-2 if you can. The cleans are nice there too. Look around, they pop up every now & then for cheap. It has some nice bells & whistles too.

Now that I think of it - I should not be talking...I use my MP-1 Classic more than anything  But, I ditched my rack gear for a long time, only to come back. I used a little Mesa DC-5 combo and a pedal board. I got real tired of tap dancing and thought it would just be easier to go back to the Midi stuff. I pulled out the MXC and my ol' MP-2. Since this stuff is pretty old, I built a backup rig with a MP-1 Classic. Wouldn't you know, the backup rig has become my favorite.

I love playin' Funk - you only need 2 or 3 strings  and the girls can't resist dancing to it. I played a gig in the mountains, full of cowboys, and the girls all got up to dance to Thank You For Lettin Me Be Myself. The cowboys got up to dance with them...and only their legs moved...not their torsos! LOL! just picture that...guys in tight jeans with big hats, dancing to Funk. funny stuff

You know you're playing Funk when: You make a face like something smells really bad