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Author Topic: A question for Harley Hexxe  (Read 1144 times)

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DannyjoeCarter

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A question for Harley Hexxe
« on: Time Format »

Hey Harley!


 I have too many threads to read though to find this, but you mind sharing the story of Mr. Langner, I don't remember his first name, but how he came up with the MP1 or what his role was in the creation of our beloved preamp?


Thanks Harley!  :wave:
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Harley Hexxe

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Re: A question for Harley Hexxe
« Reply #1 on: Time Format »

Danny,

     Actually Todd (Langner)didn't come up with the MP-1, Dave Tarnowski did, but he worked with Todd to help develop certain functions and listened to some of his ideas during that development stage. I don't know all the ins and outs of every stage of development, but it was a collective team effort at ADA, which involved more people than I can name, to come up with the final product.

     What Todd did after the MP-1 was complete, was he developed the 3 Tube Mod for it and installed it in his own MP-1 which he used with his band at the time, Kamikaze. That is the 3TM that we are using currently.
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Re: A question for Harley Hexxe
« Reply #2 on: Time Format »

Danny,

     Actually Todd (Langner)didn't come up with the MP-1, Dave Tarnowski did, but he worked with Todd to help develop certain functions and listened to some of his ideas during that development stage. I don't know all the ins and outs of every stage of development, but it was a collective team effort at ADA, which involved more people than I can name, to come up with the final product.

     What Todd did after the MP-1 was complete, was he developed the 3 Tube Mod for it and installed it in his own MP-1 which he used with his band at the time, Kamikaze. That is the 3TM that we are using currently.


Harley thank you for sharing this! I didn't even know the ae Dave Tarnowski until you just mentioned it but have heatd Todd Langner's name for years in association with ADA.


At any rate this technology was brilliant and I would love to see the MP-1 remade but from everything I have read it's impoosible
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Harley Hexxe

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Re: A question for Harley Hexxe
« Reply #3 on: Time Format »

Danny,

    Todd had been with ADA for quite a while before I became acquainted with him, and I vaguely recall him telling me he had been more involved with the development of new products early on, but there were a lot of tech heads coming into ADA over the years and pitching ideas at Dave for various things. Many of these guys were just visiting, but a few stayed and the company grew.
   By the time I had come to know Todd, he was heading up the service department at ADA because he was by that time a working musician, and that position had a lot less pressure than R&D for new products. Plus, he was coming up with his own ideas for a guitar amplification system. They would still have him sit in on the brain storming meetings for new products though. This was before the MP-1 came out, so I'm sure he had technical input on that to a certain degree. Todd was a very modest guy, so he didn't like to toot his own horn, but he was proud of everything they made at ADA.
    He was with ADA up until they disappeared, and then he was hired by Harman Group and worked for them at their service department. I happened to find him there when I had an issue with a pair of dbx 463x noise gates I owned, (I use these with my MP-1s), and we chatted for quite a while. So before anyone asks, I did ask him what happened to ADA, but he was pretty tight lipped about it, so I know what everyone else knows about it.
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DannyjoeCarter

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Re: A question for Harley Hexxe
« Reply #4 on: Time Format »

Harley this is great info amd I'm sure others know here ae going to enjoy this as well!


Now here's the 64 thousand dollar question; us there ANY chance of another company resurrecting the MP-1?
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rnolan

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Re: A question for Harley Hexxe
« Reply #5 on: Time Format »

Hey DJC, ADA as A/DA did start up again but making stomp/pedal things, as that's the current fashion (so it seems).  But recently it seems they have died again.  They were making a re-issue of their original flanger pedal, the App1 which was a 2 channel SS preamp but as a pedal and expanded their line of Cab Sims, GCX-3, GCS-5 and the stereo one GCS-6.  They made the MP1 Channel (tube), also a pedal which basically gave you 2 MP-1 patches which was supposed to provide the "legendary" MP-1 tone.  So that's the closest they came to making a modern MP-1.  We all wanted them to make a MP-3, and one of their guys was visiting us here from time to time (Monty IIRC). 

It's not impossible to make a modern MP-1 but would the economics stack up?  They obviously didn't think so and went the pedal route (which weren't cheap), which also has now folded.  It's a very saturated market and also you'd be competing with all the modellers and cloners which is all software driven.
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DannyjoeCarter

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Re: A question for Harley Hexxe
« Reply #6 on: Time Format »

Hey DJC, ADA as A/DA did start up again but making stomp/pedal things, as that's the current fashion (so it seems).  But recently it seems they have died again.  They were making a re-issue of their original flanger pedal, the App1 which was a 2 channel SS preamp but as a pedal and expanded their line of Cab Sims, GCX-3, GCS-5 and the stereo one GCS-6.  They made the MP1 Channel (tube), also a pedal which basically gave you 2 MP-1 patches which was supposed to provide the "legendary" MP-1 tone.  So that's the closest they came to making a modern MP-1.  We all wanted them to make a MP-3, and one of their guys was visiting us here from time to time (Monty IIRC). 

It's not impossible to make a modern MP-1 but would the economics stack up?  They obviously didn't think so and went the pedal route (which weren't cheap), which also has now folded.  It's a very saturated market and also you'd be competing with all the modellers and cloners which is all software driven.


Hey R thank you for this great info! It saddens me a bit because now that I have made the MP-1 the central tone unit in my system I fear something happening to eventually. As you know first hand I bought 11 before and they were a mess but this one is my Holy Grail and think I need to find a back up just in case  :-[


 Now that being said; what's was your opinion, as well as others on here, how close did the pedal sound to the MP-1? Close or not really?


 
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Harley Hexxe

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Re: A question for Harley Hexxe
« Reply #7 on: Time Format »

Danny,

    For another company to produce the MP-1 would mean purchasing the patent and manufacturing rights to it, or at the very least, get licensed to manufacture, as I'm certain Dave Tarnowski still holds all the legal rights to his products. That's one.

   The second thing is, so many of the components that were used to build the MP-1s, MP-2s, MB-1s, and Classics, have long been out of production, and some were proprietary. Plus, any established musical instrument companies would rather toot their own horn about their own products rather than build copies of anyone else's old products.

   We at the ADA Depot are just a small voice in the choir, so I doubt if anyone would hear us. That's just my opinion. For someone to resurrect the MP-1, or an MP-1 styled preamp, would have to be a group of crazy tech-heads looking to launch their own start up company.

    With the current trend in musical gear for guitar players, everyone is looking at pedals for all their tonal solutions, and many of them,(self included), are looking at amp-less rigs for gigging out. I know around here, most places won't even let you bring an amplifier of any size in the door these days. I loathe trend followers.
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DannyjoeCarter

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Re: A question for Harley Hexxe
« Reply #8 on: Time Format »

Danny,

    For another company to produce the MP-1 would mean purchasing the patent and manufacturing rights to it, or at the very least, get licensed to manufacture, as I'm certain Dave Tarnowski still holds all the legal rights to his products. That's one.

   The second thing is, so many of the components that were used to build the MP-1s, MP-2s, MB-1s, and Classics, have long been out of production, and some were proprietary. Plus, any established musical instrument companies would rather toot their own horn about their own products rather than build copies of anyone else's old products.

   We at the ADA Depot are just a small voice in the choir, so I doubt if anyone would hear us. That's just my opinion. For someone to resurrect the MP-1, or an MP-1 styled preamp, would have to be a group of crazy tech-heads looking to launch their own start up company.

    With the current trend in musical gear for guitar players, everyone is looking at pedals for all their tonal solutions, and many of them,(self included), are looking at amp-less rigs for gigging out. I know around here, most places won't even let you bring an amplifier of any size in the door these days. I loathe trend followers.


Okay great information to know Harley thank you! And I actually love the idea of being a member of the crazy Tech head club! :green-banana-smiley-emoticon:
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Re: A question for Harley Hexxe
« Reply #9 on: Time Format »

Hey DJC, I made a place for the 2 more recent preamp offerings when they came out.  There's some review comments in those.

MP-1 Channel   http://adadepot.com/index.php?board=55.0 
App1 http://adadepot.com/index.php?board=41.0
Probably the best option to future proof your MP-1 desires is to go the same or similar path that SC did recently.  I.e. get a reasonable unit and replace everything you can in the audio path, e.g. caps, resistors, maybe vactrols?, opp amps, diodes, tube sockets.  SC went as far as to source the original transformer as he preferred the sound compared to the later one they used. 

But having a spare definitely makes sense, and the main reason I started buying MP-2s a while ago. 

The App1 has an effects loop which, if I had one, I would put the MP-1 Channel in.  The App-1 manual included a good guide of what to set various guitar amp eq to get it flat (ish) 

But the only way to buy either of these now is 2nd hand (unless you can find a re-seller that still has stock)
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DannyjoeCarter

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Re: A question for Harley Hexxe
« Reply #10 on: Time Format »

Hey DJC, I made a place for the 2 more recent preamp offerings when they came out.  There's some review comments in those.

MP-1 Channel   http://adadepot.com/index.php?board=55.0 
App1 http://adadepot.com/index.php?board=41.0
Probably the best option to future proof your MP-1 desires is to go the same or similar path that SC did recently.  I.e. get a reasonable unit and replace everything you can in the audio path, e.g. caps, resistors, maybe vactrols?, opp amps, diodes, tube sockets.  SC went as far as to source the original transformer as he preferred the sound compared to the later one they used. 

But having a spare definitely makes sense, and the main reason I started buying MP-2s a while ago. 

The App1 has an effects loop which, if I had one, I would put the MP-1 Channel in.  The App-1 manual included a good guide of what to set various guitar amp eq to get it flat (ish) 

But the only way to buy either of these now is 2nd hand (unless you can find a re-seller that still has stock)


Hey Harley thanks for posting this; I checked out the link and there didn't seem to be any reviews on the Channel but a few messages about people able to get ahold of support.


I'm currently looking right now for another MP- because of how much I love this thing - again! It's everything I remember about the way I felt about it clear back in 1988!
 I thought my ears would have changed and I would almost laugh at the MP-1 but not at all! This thing is amazing and I'm hoping to get a few years out of it and get a second one in case this one goes down!
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Harley Hexxe

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Re: A question for Harley Hexxe
« Reply #11 on: Time Format »

Richard,

    I don't believe Monte ever worked for ADA. He was more of a fan of EMB Audio, and he was collecting those Wah Pedals.
    He did manage to track down Matt Bacchi, and put me back in touch with him after almost 20 years. I think Matt may still be living in Phoenix. Matt by the way, is the man who designed the wah circuit in the MP-2.

    The only reason Monte and I spoke so much was because he found out from Matt that I own the one and only Intelligent Wah/Panner that Matt ever made. I believe he was interested in seeing if I would consider selling it. I still own it.

    Matt Bacchi and his company EMB Audio gained notoriety in the 80's for building custom made rack wah units for high profile guitar players. One of the most notable of these is Steve Vai. I found out about EMB Audio from Steve's guitar tech at the time who was Steve Schiller. He told me about that piece of gear. It wasn't until about a month later, that I was talking with Todd Langner and mentioned that wah set up to him, that he told me about Matt, and they were friends from UCLA. SO Todd hooked me up with Matt, and he and I conferred for about 3 months while I drew up the plans and diagrams for what I was looking to do with this wah pedal, and he started building it for me. If you recall, I mentioned a long time ago, that it was Todd's idea to take one of my faulty S-1000s, and modify it to interface with this wah unit, which we did.
   Small world eh?
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Re: A question for Harley Hexxe
« Reply #12 on: Time Format »

Harley you have an interesting back ground my friend! What do you currently do?
You seem to have the inside on many thing ADA related  :banana:
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Harley Hexxe

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Re: A question for Harley Hexxe
« Reply #13 on: Time Format »

Danny,

    My background may be somewhat interesting, but I'm nothing special. Just your ordinary average guy who loves to play the guitar and get a wide variety of great tones from it. I think that pretty much applies to all of us, especially here at the Forum. It's obvious that we love our ADA gear because it gives us the flexibility to get all these great noises in one small package, or in my case as many others on here, several small packages.
    I've always loved being able to call up some kind of great amp tone that would normally require a different amplifier with just a press of a button. The MP-1 pioneered that. With the MP-1, you didn't need to be like Joe Perry and drag a wall of 22 amplifiers everywhere you went.
    As for the people I've become acquainted with along the way for my search for tone, that has a little bit to do with the old saying "Fortune rewards the bold," and a good bit of luck. Establishing good rapport with Todd was just luck because of a faulty circuit in an effects box that made three trips back to ADA and back to me again without anyone ever figuring out what was going goofy with it. But we eventually figured out a good way to make it work in a completely different design than it was meant for.
   Getting to know Matt, and having him build me a one-off custom rack mount wah, was once again a bit of luck since Matt and Todd were friends. Matt was still attending classes at UCLA when he built my unit in 1988.
    The bold part come in when I had to do some detective work, and follow the DLR tour until I was finally able to track them down in Wisconsin, and I managed to finagle my way backstage and get to the guitar pit to meet Steve Schiller. I got a lot of good technical info and a few phone numbers from him.

  As for what I do today, I have been a Quality Control Inspector for Kenda Tires USA, for the past three years. The funny thing is, I don't bother with the tires, just the machined hardware we make or import for wheel assemblies. Nothing special, but it pays the bills. In my spare time, I kick it with my guitars and amps. From time to time, I might take the occasional gig if it interests me.
  There you have it.
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DannyjoeCarter

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Re: A question for Harley Hexxe
« Reply #14 on: Time Format »

Danny,

    My background may be somewhat interesting, but I'm nothing special. Just your ordinary average guy who loves to play the guitar and get a wide variety of great tones from it. I think that pretty much applies to all of us, especially here at the Forum. It's obvious that we love our ADA gear because it gives us the flexibility to get all these great noises in one small package, or in my case as many others on here, several small packages.
    I've always loved being able to call up some kind of great amp tone that would normally require a different amplifier with just a press of a button. The MP-1 pioneered that. With the MP-1, you didn't need to be like Joe Perry and drag a wall of 22 amplifiers everywhere you went.
    As for the people I've become acquainted with along the way for my search for tone, that has a little bit to do with the old saying "Fortune rewards the bold," and a good bit of luck. Establishing good rapport with Todd was just luck because of a faulty circuit in an effects box that made three trips back to ADA and back to me again without anyone ever figuring out what was going goofy with it. But we eventually figured out a good way to make it work in a completely different design than it was meant for.
   Getting to know Matt, and having him build me a one-off custom rack mount wah, was once again a bit of luck since Matt and Todd were friends. Matt was still attending classes at UCLA when he built my unit in 1988.
    The bold part come in when I had to do some detective work, and follow the DLR tour until I was finally able to track them down in Wisconsin, and I managed to finagle my way backstage and get to the guitar pit to meet Steve Schiller. I got a lot of good technical info and a few phone numbers from him.

  As for what I do today, I have been a Quality Control Inspector for Kenda Tires USA, for the past three years. The funny thing is, I don't bother with the tires, just the machined hardware we make or import for wheel assemblies. Nothing special, but it pays the bills. In my spare time, I kick it with my guitars and amps. From time to time, I might take the occasional gig if it interests me.
  There you have it.


Man these stories are so great to hear from you guys Harley, thank you for sharing!


 It seems to me currently we have just a few members on here but I'm grateful to you guys that are here for all the info!

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