Using the MP-1 Classic rig live

[Dante]

I gotta say, that lil' Classic is giving my H&K Grandmeister a run for it's money. Been dialing in tones and ended up using the Brown voice for my 'light gain' and my 'modern' sounds...in H&K terminology it'd be the Drive and Lead channel. My Distortion voicing is the 'Ultra' but honestly, the distortion voicing makes a great Modern tone too...just dial it back. Lots of overlap between the voicings of the ADA MP-1 Classic

Also, tube choice makes such a world of difference in these - I'm running the old stock MP-2 tubes (which I also have in my MP-2). They are unbranded, Chinese I believe, big red letters 12AX7 turned sideways. They're pretty glorious, and I spent a good amount of time & $ on some boutique tubes, only to return to the ones in my parts box.

I'd love to push these speakers with this rig, but have yet to get the opportunity...flakey musicians don't wanna practice - haha

[rnolan]

Hey Dante, good to hear the Classic is getting a run  .  I'm also a fan of the original tubes.  Wouldn't it be great if we could get them made again.  Or even locate a stash of NOS replacements from the old ADA dealers, they must have kept some spares....

[Harley Hexxe]

@ Richard,

      I seriously doubt if any of the old ADA dealers would have any of those old Chinese tubes laying around. At least around my part of the world, many won't even carry tubes because they don't sell very often. I think the best bet would be to look into some of the currently made tubes and try to find something close to what we used to get back in the day. From what I've been reading about in my search for tubes, Ruby Tubes seem likely to be the best candidate to find something like that.

@ Dante,

      I thought about doing that with my smaller rack rigs lately since I've been getting into building pedal effects boards, but I'm still going to use my Split-Stack cabs. The single 12" cabs I find these days just don't seem to have as much of a throw as the larger cabs do. I suppose I could build a pair of cabs, choosing from one of two designs that would work best for a single 12" speaker, I would just have to decide if I want an open back or closed back cab. The closed back  cab would be larger because it needs 3 cubic feet of  of internal air to optimize the 12" speaker. The open back would be smaller, with more sound coming from the back of the speaker and might not have as much "thump" as the closed back. All of the single 12" cabs I see these days are too small to really project that big guitar sound we all love to hear.
    I do like the idea of a 2U rack for the head part of the guitar amp, even the Microtube 100 would work just as well. Cool rig man

[Systematic Chaos]

...
Also, tube choice makes such a world of difference in these - I'm running the old stock MP-2 tubes (which I also have in my MP-2). They are unbranded, Chinese I believe, big red letters 12AX7 turned sideways. They're pretty glorious, and I spent a good amount of time & $ on some boutique tubes, only to return to the ones in my parts box.
...

That's the "old" Chinese "Nationals". It's basically the Shuguang house brand. There's a couple of current production tubes that are virtually the same.
The TAD 12AX7A-C (RT001) was that tube, just on a tad bit (no pun intended) of steroids.
The Ruby 12AX7AC5 HG+ will also get you 99% there.
And a very very close alternative is the PM 12AX7HG.....
See pics, left ist red labelled 12AX7, right is PM 12AX7HG. Only noticeable difference is the square getter in the National vs the halo getter in the PM as well as the thicker glass of the PM:

[Dante]

Thank you Magnus 

I can't imagine these tubes being on steroids, but I sure can try ;) Ima do it as soon as I get a chance

@Harley - I totally agree. The small cabs are the beamy ones - shoot a beam of sound straight out the front but the drummer keeps telling me to turn up. Cut a hole in the back and your problem is solved. I like the idea of using the oversized 1x12 cabs I have, but I need some beefier speakers. Each cab is low wattage, like 40w, designed for my smaller tube heads. I need a bigger set of speakers that also works with my heads - H&K GM40 and Peavey Classic 20mh.

I'm shopping, but in no hurry. The little Yamaha cabs are great, beamy or not, they're lightweight an powerful (150w). I wanna try making some smaller back panels to allow the open back experience to breathe and see if that solves all my problems

[Harley Hexxe]

Dante,

     Are those cabs open back? If they are, there may be a trick you can do to help. I don't know if you can do this with your cabs, but it may be worth a shot. With open back cabs the main complaint is usually that the bass response in the open back cabs is pretty weak, especially with the heavier tone settings. Fender had this problem with the Cyber Deluxe just before they released it. What they did was they put an extra board on either side of the speaker to stiffen up the baffle. It's just a 3/4" thick 3" X 15" piece of wood on either side and that worked. Maybe something like this might help your cabs out?

[Dante]

Mine are sealed...I'm considering making some smaller backs to open them, but I am reluctant (as you mentioned) about losing some bottom end by doing so

[rnolan]

Here's a video of the inside of the Messa cabs (I have 2 x P112, so 12" and a tweeter) great cabs for bass, guitar or PA (go figure)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxojJXBWJmQ 

The design is so elegant, no screws just a couple of staples to hold the tuning port triangular thingies.  The P112's I have have tweeter control (crossover freq and vol) so you can turn the tweeter off or I use cab sim outs of MP-2.  They are 300w 8ohm.  My P112's are the older Birch 7 ply (7/8"), 12" has ceramic magnet.  The newer Subway version (my bass player bought) are Poplar 7 ply and the 12"s magnet is neodymium so they are much lighter and 400w 8ohm.

I plan to build 2 cabs for a pair of 15" Altecs (4218h-lf) I inherited when my Dad passed, still new in the box.  So the 15" (P115) is square front with 2 ports, P112 are rectangular with 3 ports.  I don't need/want tweeters in them and then they'll sit perfectly under my P112's or I can use them with the PA to add some bottom end.

[Systematic Chaos]

Mine are sealed...I'm considering making some smaller backs to open them, but I am reluctant (as you mentioned) about losing some bottom end by doing so

The bottom (closed back) half of my old (late 80s/early 90s) Mesa 2x12 Halfback has its front baffle ported left and right...oomph plus dimension. Maybe something you could do with your 1x12s

[Harley Hexxe]

Looking back at the pics of your cabs, they seem just big enough to house the speaker with maybe an inch or two on either side. I seriously doubt if there is enough room to put up the extra wood I mentioned earlier, and as far as porting the cab goes, I think you need a certain amount of enclosure space to get the benefit from a ported cab.

Most cabs on the market are undersized for a single 12" speaker, but that's for the sake of portability. Your Peavey cab is probably a better candidate for porting or baffle bracing. One thing I can say about an open back cab with baffle bracing is that the bass response is there, but it's tighter than an open back with the speaker mounted on the baffle only. The ones without the bracing get flubby, or even a bit farty when you drive a lot of low end chunk into them.

If you're adventurous enough to build your own cabs, and select your own speakers, (depending on your power requirements), you could get what you're looking for. I would recommend no less than 1.5 cubic feet of enclosure space for 75W speaker or higher, and definitely reinforce the baffle. Even if you decide to port it, that kind of power will definitely rattle the baffle. The internal baffles like Richard is looking at, will work to help direct the air flow if you port it

I recall Genz-Benz made some really nice ported 2X12 and 4X12 cabs. I don't know if they made any 1X12's like that, but didn't ADA have something like that?

[Dante]

I built my own 1x12 cabs once....once. They turned out great, were very heavy, and a bit large because I made them 2cu ft. I used a dado blade to cut a trench in the 4 sides, put the baffle in that trench, glued & screwed it together. It will never come apart. I don't have them anymore, I traded them for some smaller Thiele 1x12 cabs. I still have one, it's small but mighty....mighty heavy.

Even with the ports, the Thiele cabs were always pretty beamy too. Just the nature of small 1x12s I think.

My bigger 1x12 cabs (the Peavey Classic and Valve King cabs) project better, but I don't see myself dragging both to a gig. I would bring the little Yamaha cabs and still be running direct into the board in stereo. Been doing that for years now, why change? haha...Besides, the Peavey cabs have low wattage speakers in them (for the small heads), I'd have to put new speakers in them if I really wanted to do that.

Bah! I'm way too lazy for that

[Harley Hexxe]

Hahahaha

    At least you're honest about it.
There is another thing too that helps with the sound dispersion that I forgot to mention...front mounting the speaker. But unless my ears were playing tricks on me, I think you lose some of that low end doing that.