Recreating the clean channel on the ADA MP-2 with pedals

[INRI]

Good evening ladies and gents, I have a question: what amp/pedals would you use to try to recreate the sound of the mp-2s clean channel?

Ive had an obsession with it for quite some time now, but its hard to get my hands on one. Esoecially since when they are used they could die on me suddenly with no warranty. Id love to hear what you guys think would work best.

This is equipment I have, that I think could work:
AMP: Since it uses 12Ax7 tubes id guess a Marshall would be the closest. Or what do you guys think? I have a Vox AC15, which could maybe work.

Compression: MXR curspm comp
EQ: empress paraeq
Chorus: I have an MXR analog chorus, which is basically like a CE2.

My references: the clean sounds on
- Tragedies blows at horizon - Immortal
- Love you to death - Type O negstive (the end)
- Visionaire - Tiamat

[Harley Hexxe]

Hey INRI

    The MP-2 has two EQ sections one is four band parametric, the other is ten band graphic. The chorus I believe is from delay modulation, I could be mistaken about that, MJMP would know for sure.

    The MP-2 has a couple of clean tube voicings in its Crystal Clean sounds a lot like a Fender amp with boosted lows, low mids, and high mids. If you used your Marshall on a clean setting, with your compressor and EQ, it might get you close.

     You basically have to start with a clean amp that has a full range tone and boost the mid frequencies, then adjust the lows and highs to suit your taste

[rnolan]

Hey INRI, I've attached a pdf version of all the MP-2 factory settings so you can see the eq settings etc.  I colour coded the voices and sorted them in voice order (MP-2 has 10 voice settings).  As Harley says, you probably want the crystal clean as a starting point.  My main clean sound is based on crystal clean see https://adadepot.com/index.php?topic=126.0 as another alternative.  Basically tubes very clean (lower drive settings), compressor, eq and chorus.  The other big influence is PUs and guitar volume settings. 

Hope this helps get you what you want.  The Vox may work better than the Marshall as they are pretty clean amps.  :wave:

[Harley Hexxe]

Hey Richard,

    I thought about the Vox, but opted for the Marshall since the Vox is usually kind of muddy in the normal channel, and a bit shrill in the boost channel. You can dial in a fairly neutral clean tone with the Marshall at low settings, and it sounds close to a Fender but with a little more midrange. Just my opinion though.

[rnolan]

Hey Harley, I suspect you are right, I've not heard the vox, I vaguely recall an AC 30 and it was quite clean.  My '73 Marshall is very clean until you wind up the vol pot quite a bit, and then you can't be in the same room if you don't want to damage your hearing (which I've done over the years).

[Harley Hexxe]

Hey Richard,

   I know they are pretty clean and jangly on the top boost channel, but like the Marshall, in the normal channel they have a well balanced clean tone that only needs a little tweaking here and there. I've had both back in the day (1973 SL 100, and the old Vox 212 combo that I sold about 12 years ago). I never turned the Marshall up past 10:00 indoors, even though it's sweet spot was at around 1:00. We didn't have load boxes like we do now back then, but the Power Soak was a new thing at that time. I'm glad I copied my Top Boost settings in the MP-2 before I sold it.

[rnolan]

Hey Harley, I bought a Tom Shultz power soak for the Marshall, I still have it, it let me be in the same room/stage as everyone else  >:D . Holy crap it's a LOUD amp (and only 50watts, my record with that amp is my friends could hear it clear as a bell 13 Kms away (in the country through the forest/bush etc.).  But the MP-1 was my saviour (in those days).  I did an A B with MP-1 and the '73 Marshall a few years ago, MP-1 won hand down... but I digress, INRI wants a clean sound Lol.

[Harley Hexxe]

Hey Richard,

   I never bought one, or the Power Brake Marshall had at the time. I just plugged my head into the cab and went for it. I was just saying that's all there was back in the day 

[INRI]

Hey INRI

    The MP-2 has two EQ sections one is four band parametric, the other is ten band graphic. The chorus I believe is from delay modulation, I could be mistaken about that, MJMP would know for sure.

    The MP-2 has a couple of clean tube voicings in its Crystal Clean sounds a lot like a Fender amp with boosted lows, low mids, and high mids. If you used your Marshall on a clean setting, with your compressor and EQ, it might get you close.

     You basically have to start with a clean amp that has a full range tone and boost the mid frequencies, then adjust the lows and highs to suit your taste

I have a Deluxe reverb (blackface) - would that work better than the Vox amp? It is very hollow sounding because of the dipped mids, which is why I was leaning more towards the Vox at first, since the Crystal clean sounds very thick & full.

[INRI]

Hey INRI, I've attached a pdf version of all the MP-2 factory settings so you can see the eq settings etc.  I colour coded the voices and sorted them in voice order (MP-2 has 10 voice settings).  As Harley says, you probably want the crystal clean as a starting point.  My main clean sound is based on crystal clean see https://adadepot.com/index.php?topic=126.0 as another alternative.  Basically tubes very clean (lower drive settings), compressor, eq and chorus.  The other big influence is PUs and guitar volume settings. 

Hope this helps get you what you want.  The Vox may work better than the Marshall as they are pretty clean amps.  :wave:

THanks alot for that, very cool to see the actual frequencies of the Graphic EQ. I was wondering, do you know what the frequencies for the Tone control is? The four knob one... and how does this one relate to the graphic EQ, I mean I guess they could have just made a 15 filter EQ instead of a 11 filter + separate tone control. But the setup makes sense if the tone control has wider Qs than the graphic... or if it colours the tone more

[rnolan]

Hey INRI, the MP-2 Tone control centre frequencies aren't listed in the manual.  I suspect they are very similar to the MP-1: 

Bass ± 18dB center @ 180Hz; Mid ± 12dB center @ 600Hz; Treble ± 18dB center @ 1. 6kHz; Presence ± 12dB center @ 3kHz.  Note that the MP-1 Bass is +/- 18dB where the MP-2 is +/- 12dB (in 2dB increments) for all the Tone controls.  Also there is an EQ mod for the MP-1 to lower the Bass centre Freq. that some people do.

So from the MP-2 Manual: 
"The Tone controls give fast access to tonal shaping. Use the Tone controls to get a basic tonal sound and the Graphic EQ for more specific shaping needs. The actual frequencies
affected by the Tone controls sometimes change with different tube Voicings to give the best sound." 

Part of the reason the sound is so thick and full (Lush?) is probably the stereo chorus, as this is where the signal becomes (pseudo) stereo.  One channel is inverted 180 deg (regardless of chorus in/out). If your chorus is stereo out?? you could run it last and then go into 2 amps.  If you turn the rate to 0 the depth will give you a nice short doubling delay, which I use on MP-1 patches.  It tends to flange a bit when I use this on the MP-2.  If your chorus is mono?, you could make a "Y" lead and invert one of the 2 output jacks, better still run the inverted out through a delay (very short delay setting) again run into 2 amps.

[Harley Hexxe]

Hey INRI,

    You could try the Deluxe with the bright switch off. I know the midrange is scooped on Fender amps, but there are ways around that. You know, this is really unusual because more often than not, we try to get our ADA preamps to emulate our favorite vintage amps instead of the other way around.
    Richard is absolutely correct about the chorus being set to 0% for the rate and the depth at 100%, I keep forgetting about that. Also he is correct about needing the stereo outputs of the chorus to get that big sound that the Crystal Clean voice has. Two amps would give a much larger sound than one, and if you go that route, I would use the Deluxe with the Vox. I'm not sure what controls you have with the AC15, but I think you can dial in midrange more on that amp than the Deluxe. If you wanted to use only one amp for this what I would try would be to plug both chorus outputs into each channel of the Deluxe, and use the bright switch on the Normal channel but leave the bright switch off on the Vibrato channel. This is because the Normal channel is noticeably warmer than the Vibrato channel to begin with, and adjust the treble and bass controls to get close. You can fine tune with your EQ pedal. Also, it's important to note that the volume on the Fender amps should be right around 3-4 and no higher as they begin to break up past that point. This is typical with all Fender BF and SF amps circuits. You'll have to experiment with the settings until your ears tell you this is what you're looking for.
    As a further note, when it comes to chorus pedals, my choice will always be a pedal with stereo outputs. My two favorites these days are the TC Electronic SCF, and the Boss Dimension C. The Boss isn't as much a chorus effect as it is a stereo imaging effect, but it's cool. I may get the new WAZA version of the Dimension C because it has two inputs as well as outputs, which would be right after the chorus pedal.
I hope this is helpful.