ADA Preamps > Original MP-1

My MP1 arrived! Time to modify it!

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TommyVonVoigt:
My MP1 arrived today. Bought it off of Reverb a few days ago. The seller listed it as "Works perfectly. Great condition!" Which is true, except that it sounds thin and lousy and the battery is dead (counts to 128 on startup, and then gives me Error 1 2 3). Otherwise, yeah, it works perfectly! Haha 😆

This is my very first MP1, and the first time I've ever played through one, as well! I can tell right away that the clean sounds are going to check all the right boxes for me, which is the reason I bought it in the first place. I'm trying to get that super compressed 80s clean, and even in the state this thing is in, I can already hear it in there. Preset number 6 was the most telling. Clean, with tons of sustain!

Anyway, I'm going to mod this thing. I've already emailed @MarshallJMP to order parts. I'm going to do:

• 3TM (I'm a gain maniac, and I'm only interested in the Solid State clean anyway)
• Upgraded Transformers
• Noise Mod
• Battery Mod

This will be a fun experiment. I'm getting all my high gain needs from my Synergy Syn-2, for which I have SLO, Powerball and VH4 modules. But if this can give me some more flavors of high gain to play with, that would be a total bonus.

rnolan:
Cool, good to hear it's coming along  :thumb-up:

TommyVonVoigt:
My parts arrived today from MJMP. I of course dove right in.

I did the battery mod first, and that was easy. No more error codes!

The transformer upgrade was next, and didn’t give me much trouble at all.

I had intended to do the noise mod and replace the pots next, but I started to worry about that much soldering on the board. I don’t have a fine tip for my soldering station.

Somehow, though, I convinced myself that I’d go ahead and try tackling the 3TM. So I did it.

Finally, the time came to fire it up. I put in a trio of incredible tubes (RCA long black plate in V1, RCA short gray plates in V2 and V3). I wired it up. I plugged it in.

And…

It works!

Unfortunately, it was approaching midnight at this point, so all I could do is mess around for a few minutes at super low volumes. Sounded thin and needs some dialing in for sure. I won’t be able to adjust the internal trim pots until tomorrow, and I’m sure those will make a big difference! I did notice that on factory preset 1 (I didn’t have time to try any others) it plays like butter and artificial harmonics are almost effortless. This seems very, very promising so far.

rnolan:
 :whoohoo!: :thumb-up:

TommyVonVoigt:
Had a little more time this morning with the MP-1. I was also able to turn up a bit more. A couple of things I notice:

• The MP-1 is WAYYYY quieter (volume level) than my Syn-2 / Synergy modules. I know that the 3TM is quieter in general, but, still, I find it surprising. I'm sure I can come up with some sort of workaround for that, though.

• I find it a bit challenging to dial in tones right now. I'm getting the impression that it will take some time and a fair amount of fine tuning. Also, I can kinda tell that an EQ really would be a game changer, and allow me to make changes that the MP-1 tone controls won't. There is a grainy / hazy kinda thing going on in the mids that I can't seem to dial out. It's also thinner than my Synergy setup. I think either the MPE-28, or maybe a parametric, will be critical here.

• Yeah...the noise mod...once I crank this thing up, I can tell it really needs it. I'm going to have to get a fine tip for my soldering station and just do it.

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