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[Iperfungus]

My only issue is with the title of the thread. Is a rack ever truly "complete"?  Even with my limited experience, I have noticed that racks are never complete, they just go through periods of stability. 

+1

I was thinking the same... 
And, sad but true, it applies to pedalboards as well...

[DannyjoeCarter]

What about QV GT Noise Gate? Is a smooth working gate?
Do you feel any improvement compared to the pedal noise gate in MP-1's loop?

Can you post your MP-1's settings and QV gate settings?
I would compare with my setup.

Currently I'm testing with a TC Sentry noise gate pedal between guitar and MP-1 and then the GMaj's noise gate after the MP-1.
Results are interesting...I can fine tune the gate action...complete SILENCE even with very high gain settings while not playing and 100% dynamics.
The Sentry is to be put in the pedalboard, but I've another small XVive noise gate that works pretty good...and I could keep it for this application...
I just have to try the noise gate in MP-1's loop and compare the two solutions.

About MP-1's send, there's the extra level control of the loop you can use to fine tune or boost output signal...maybe that's the plus! 
I will try that this evening! 

And there's also the stereo phones out...with its own eq and output level pot...with a Y signal splitter...

Definitely the MP-1 is a complete tricky unit, where you can easily find standard or no-standard solutions to match your taste or needings.
Its plenty of 100% usable features and if you find a 100% working unit you can have fun for a whole life.
I tested MIDI on mine and now I know it's 100% working fine...yes, I've been lucky! 

Good idea to send some of your MP-1s to MJMP for service! 

 No problem here are my settings Bro -

 MP-1
OD1 6 | OD2 6 | MASTER 6.5 | BASS 4 | MID -12 | TREBLE -6 | PRESENSE -6 | DEPTH 30 | RATE 1.0 ( I set the internal chorus trim pot all the off, counter clockwise )

QV Graphic EQ and Delay setting with Delay at left 625 mill - 10 % repeat and 650 and 15% on the right.
In the preamp section I have the gate dimed at 16. Now the trick is to use the input control of the Quadraverb at about 10 o'clock so that the gate does not sputter and is smooth and DEAD quiet! The little Mooer Noise Killer pedal is extremely cool but having the gate, delay AND graphic EQ in one unit is INCREDIBLE!! But at a later time I will use the little Mooer Repeater Delay and Noise Killer in a little pedal board I'll put together.

 Now a little more on the QuadraVerbs gate - It never cuts off the notes and now I never have to even turn my guitar down between songs, just stop playing!!  No sputter or loss of notes either - and if I decide to lower the guitar volume for a particular part of the song, still NO drop off/out! 
 This is incredible for a unit I paid $88.00 in mint condition!!! The other one came today and it was $100 with shipping - my Mooer pedals cost more than that 

 

My only issue is with the title of the thread. Is a rack ever truly "complete"?  Even with my limited experience, I have noticed that racks are never complete, they just go through periods of stability. 

+1

I was thinking the same... 
And, sad but true, it applies to pedalboards as well...

 Yeah there is truth to that - but for me truthfully Mike what you see in this pic is it for me; even back in the 80's this is the identical rack I had with the exception of the Mesa Boogie 50/50 instead of the 2:50.   

Go DjC  . up and working, now the fun begins  .  I have some patching suggestions I'd like you to try and let me know your thoughts.
With your current rig - use both main outs (not Fx send) into QV, turn on MP-1 chorus, set rate = 0 and depth 100, and toggle chorus on/off to compare, let me know how that compares to your current setup.
Then repeat above but with your other best MP-1 (I'm trying to sus out if there is something not quite as good as it should be in the chorus > main out circuits).
Also with your cabs (maybe do this first ?) move them apart at least the width of one of the quad boxes (stops infinite baffle coupling across the 2 of them) and will (should) greatly enhance the stereo definition (and all round wow factor).
The last may be a bit harder, use a small mixer with 2 Aux/Fx sends, plug MP-1 Fx send > ch1, MP-1 out A/B > ch 2/3, use Fx send 1/2 to QV, return Ch4/5 (or a stereo return ?), mixer main outs > Amp... and again play with the chorus trick above (just adds a nice short doubling (analogue) delay). To me this last one is the ultimate setup, you can adjust the mixer input channels to get the best blend of MP-1 (Fx out/main out) and Fx.

 OK actually my Buddy Jason did this one with the chorus set rate = 0 and depth 100 and while cool, just a little washy for me. Also with the cabs separated in creates a slight dead spot and breaks up my "Wall of Sound" so to speak. But I will give that a shot again and see for myself what I think Richard 

 

[Iperfungus]

 No problem here are my settings Bro -

 MP-1
OD1 6 | OD2 6 | MASTER 6.5 | BASS 4 | MID -12 | TREBLE -6 | PRESENSE -6 | DEPTH 30 | RATE 1.0 ( I set the internal chorus trim pot all the off, counter clockwise )

QV Graphic EQ and Delay setting with Delay at left 625 mill - 10 % repeat and 650 and 15% on the right.
In the preamp section I have the gate dimed at 16. Now the trick is to use the input control of the Quadraverb at about 10 o'clock so that the gate does not sputter and is smooth and DEAD quiet! The little Mooer Noise Killer pedal is extremely cool but having the gate, delay AND graphic EQ in one unit is INCREDIBLE!! But at a later time I will use the little Mooer Repeater Delay and Noise Killer in a little pedal board I'll put together.

 Now a little more on the QuadraVerbs gate - It never cuts off the notes and now I never have to even turn my guitar down between songs, just stop playing!!  No sputter or loss of notes either - and if I decide to lower the guitar volume for a particular part of the song, still NO drop off/out! 
 This is incredible for a unit I paid $88.00 in mint condition!!! The other one came today and it was $100 with shipping - my Mooer pedals cost more than that 

Nice tips mate! 

I will cross information from you and rnolan to run some more testing with my stuff.
I find that to use 2 noise gates (a pedal in front of MP-1 and the internal noise gate of the FX unit) allows smoother response and a more natural sound, since you can let a more clean signal from guitar enter MP-1 and then you've not to crank the FX unit noise gate to max, so that dynamics stay good and decay more natural.

I've to say that I use both a TC Electronic pedal (Sentry) and FX unit (GMaj): both gates have a DAMP parameter that, combined with threshold, allows a very good gate fine tuning.

You could attempt with your pedal noise gate, anyway.

[rnolan]

The whole time I used a MP-1 I never used (or needed to) a gate  . Now MP-2 is a different beast, lots more gain  and its high gain voices need a gate... Also I get why you need a gate (or 2 as MJMP does) for 3TM (but you've added another 2 gain stages with the additional tube (more gain = more (louder) noise  )). But f your MP-1s "need" a gate, maybe they just need the old caps replaced ? or also the MDRT as it also helps reduce noise and really opens up the MP-1 dynamics.

[Iperfungus]

Well...one thing I would love to do in the future is to send my MP-1 to MJMP for service, recapping (noise mod) and new transformer.

I would not do any other mods to it, since I love the original tone and its gain amount is more than enough for me.

[Iperfungus]

Some interesting tests tonight. 

Danny, you're a tricky guy...signal from SEND is strong and powerful, even if I do prefer (as Richard) the stereo signal coming from MP-1's outputs.

But...but...did you try to run a stereo config where one regular output and SEND are both used???
In that way you've separate outputs with separate output level controls: the front output level pot and the level pot of effects loop... 
Try that...results can be interesting...

Then I created a patch with your settings and tone is awesome.
I also like chorus setting suggested by Richard: I tested with my settings and your settings and final sound is cool a lot.

I love the MP-1: a tricky preamp for tricky people! 

[DannyjoeCarter]

Some interesting tests tonight. 

Danny, you're a tricky guy...signal from SEND is strong and powerful, even if I do prefer (as Richard) the stereo signal coming from MP-1's outputs.

But...but...did you try to run a stereo config where one regular output and SEND are both used???
In that way you've separate outputs with separate output level controls: the front output level pot and the level pot of effects loop... 
Try that...results can be interesting...

Then I created a patch with your settings and tone is awesome.
I also like chorus setting suggested by Richard: I tested with my settings and your settings and final sound is cool a lot.

I love the MP-1: a tricky preamp for tricky people! 

 Yeah the whole hotter signal thing for me is the key more so than being stereo. To my ears and hands, from the send "feels" like an amp head.
 Stereo is always a problem for me because unless I'm in one spot all the time I lose the "Sweet Spot" and it gets washed out! The rest of the band doesn't really get to hear the stereo effect and it has always bothered me when I'm hearing the longer delay cabinet as opposed to the dry one.

 So my rack is set up like a complexed head and I need it that way.

 As for a gate, I agree with you Richard the stock MP-1 is very quiet on it's own but back in the 80's I got very spoiled with having a dead silent rig like it's on standby and then hit a chord and it blows the room away 

[Iperfungus]

 As for a gate, I agree with you Richard the stock MP-1 is very quiet on it's own but back in the 80's I got very spoiled with having a dead silent rig like it's on standby and then hit a chord and it blows the room away 

I agree.
The MP-1 gets "noisy" on high gain settings, but that's normal...there's nothing dead silent at high gain and high volume levels.

But if you want SILENCE...a noise gate helps a lot!
The main "problem" is to find a good one and learn how to use it in a proper way to avoid killing signal and dynamics.

PS. by the way, I LOVE MP-1 stereo outputs over all! I've to agree with Richard about this point!

[Kim]

OK All Done Guys - RACK IS FINISHED!!!!! 

 I haven't been on much in the last week because I have been finishing my rack! I want to thank all of you for the great suggestions for FX units and as you can see I chose the Alesis Quadraverb GT! 

Badass Achievement Linear Level Status:  UNLOCKED

 

[DannyjoeCarter]

 As for a gate, I agree with you Richard the stock MP-1 is very quiet on it's own but back in the 80's I got very spoiled with having a dead silent rig like it's on standby and then hit a chord and it blows the room away 

I agree.
The MP-1 gets "noisy" on high gain settings, but that's normal...there's nothing dead silent at high gain and high volume levels.

But if you want SILENCE...a noise gate helps a lot!
The main "problem" is to find a good one and learn how to use it in a proper way to avoid killing signal and dynamics.

 Yeah the Quad GT has one of the best gates I have ever heard because it doesn't respirate  or sputter. Once you get your input signal matched with the input control you're golden!! 

[DannyjoeCarter]

OK All Done Guys - RACK IS FINISHED!!!!! 

 I haven't been on much in the last week because I have been finishing my rack! I want to thank all of you for the great suggestions for FX units and as you can see I chose the Alesis Quadraverb GT! 

Badass Achievement Linear Level Status:  UNLOCKED

 And I'm guessing this is a praise then Kim so thank you!

 

[rnolan]

The patch really worth trying IMO is combine Send out + Main A/B outs into a desk (or whatever) 

[Iperfungus]

The patch really worth trying IMO is combine Send out + Main A/B outs into a desk (or whatever) 

 

[DannyjoeCarter]

The patch really worth trying IMO is combine Send out + Main A/B outs into a desk (or whatever) 

 This is a great suggestion Richard because this would allow me to run the send to the house PA or where ever, recording desk ect. and still have my main cabs as my monitors!!!!!!
 Awesome suggestion - will try out soon!! 

[rnolan]

Hey DjC, as I said now the fun begins  .
When you start considering sending direct to full range systems (PA, recording, foldback wedges, headphones etc) you have to reduce the top end in the signal sent to them as your MP-1 patches are setup for 12" guitar cabs (which obviously don't have a tweeter and are not full range (and roll off around 5khz).  Cabinet simulators do the job (and ADA have just released their new version, GCS5), probably the most fundamental thing all cab sims do is filter the top end.  The MP-1 headphone out has a couple of caps in the circuit to filter the top end (so it sounds ok in the full range headphones) and can be used as a basic cab sim for sending the stereo signal to full range systems.
Mike has the ADA GCS3 cab sim in his MP-1 loop, he makes 2 identical patches, one with loop in ie cab simmed to use for recording, headphone amp or plugging directly into my studio setup, and the other with the loop out for normal amp > cab use (which he uses mostly).

With my hybrid rig (MB=1 for bass and MP-2 for guitar (and bass  ) I use Mesa P112 bass cabs which have a tweeter but are not "flat" full range cabs.  So I take the MP-2 main outs and  2 cab sim outs (MP-2 has cab sim option built in) into my mixer (AM802) and blend them together.  The MB-1 is full range so I take its full range out into another channel (and mix in stereo Fxs using Aux sends and returns).  I can then split the bass PUs neck into MB-1 and bridge into MP-2 and mix it all together.