New Preamp Day - A/DA MP-1

  • Thread starter Thread starter War_in_D
  • Start date Start date
War_in_D
War_in_D
Well-known member
Found this MP-1 listed on FB marketplace locally, and picked it up. Just got done doing a battery swap, and installing a battery holder so future replacements will be a lot easier. I had an MP-2 back in the day, don't recall ever having the MP-1 though. It's the early version, but I've got the upgraded ePROM on the way.

ADA MP-1.jpg
 
Congrats on the find. I'd say do the 3TM mod as well. Takes the MP-1 to a whole new level. Mayne check out the "noise mid" as well to replace old caps and parts that cause noise issues with the Mp-1 due to old parts.

Cheers
 
Bash_Man said:
Congrats on the find. I'd say do the 3TM mod as well. Takes the MP-1 to a whole new level. Mayne check out the "noise mid" as well to replace old caps and parts that cause noise issues with the Mp-1 due to old parts.

Cheers
Click to expand...

Yeah, that 3TM mod is on the radar. I watched a Leon Todd video where he was comparing a stock MP-1 to the 3TM modded one, and it's a definite improvement. What little bit I've played with it, it doesn't seem to too noisy at the moment but I was running it through the power section of one of my heads. As soon as the upgraded ePROM gets here and I can put that in and button it up, it's going in the rack with the Quardraverb II and the Power Station so I can really test it out.
 
I had an MP1 and also put a 3TM in it. Those are getting really hard to find anymore it seems. I’m itching to try out a JMP1 myself.

Congrats on the NRPAD!
 
War_in_D said:
Yeah, that 3TM mod is on the radar. I watched a Leon Todd video where he was comparing a stock MP-1 to the 3TM modded one, and it's a definite improvement. What little bit I've played with it, it doesn't seem to too noisy at the moment but I was running it through the power section of one of my heads. As soon as the upgraded ePROM gets here and I can put that in and button it up, it's going in the rack with the Quardraverb II and the Power Station so I can really test it out.
Click to expand...
Video below of my 3TM into my Spawn Nitro's loop return



Cheers
 
glpg80 said:
I had an MP1 and also put a 3TM in it. Those are getting really hard to find anymore it seems. I’m itching to try out a JMP1 myself.

Congrats on the NRPAD!
Click to expand...

I had a JMP-1 and the MP-2 mentioned above at the same time. Honestly, stock for stock, I'd have to give the edge to the JMP-1 as it sounded a little more "organic" to my ear. The MP-2 was the typical 80's "highly processed" sound that we all know and love from that time period. LOL
 
glpg80 said:
I had an MP1 and also put a 3TM in it. Those are getting really hard to find anymore it seems. I’m itching to try out a JMP1 myself.

Congrats on the NRPAD!
Click to expand...

Here is a VERY old video that I had made when I had both the MP-2 and JMP-1 at the same time, kind of giving my "thoughts" on the JMP-1 vs. the MP-2. Unfortunately, this isn't a comparison of the two together, but only the JMP-1 running through an Alesis Quadraverb II and a Peavey 50/50 (el84) power amp. I may have had a BBE in the signal chain, but I can't remember if it was on or not.

I had some videos of the MP-2 as well, but it looks like those got deleted at some point.

Please forgive the crotch shot, all the jabbering and the very poor attempts a humor. :p




Dang, I guess the MP-2 demo didn't get deleted. I just wasn't looking in the right place for it:

Again, more jibberish and poor attempts a humor. This were some videos that I made back when I was frequenting the old Kramer Forum and there was a guy named Warren that was building guitar bodies and these were kind of showing the bodies that I had him build for me.

 
Yes, ADA was my main rig for guitar and bass back in the day.

I had the full ADA stack back in the day, MP-1, MQ-1, B200S, and four of the 2x12 vertical split stacks. Eventually replaced the MP-1 and MQ-1 with an MP-2. Also had the full ADA bass rig.

This was my consolidated ADA rack: MP-1, MQ-1, MP-2, B200S; sold everything except the MP-2:

ADA-Main-Rack.jpg



And the bass rig, MB-1, B500B, also sold:

bass-rig-1.jpg


bass-rig-rack.jpg
 
War_in_D said:
Did you do the mod yourself, or was it already that way when you got it?
Click to expand...
I had actually sent the unit to Marshalljmp and paid the difference for a fully modded unit. This is back when he offered that service... And it didn't cost an arm, leg and firstborn to ship back and forth internationally.

If you're handy with a soldering iron, it shouldn't be too much of a hassle to do yourself.
 
Last edited:
I ran an MP-1 rig for years. I loved that thing. I had it modded with the 3TM mod and it was the WORST. It completely wrecked the crunch channel and the distortion channel became a hot mess. It ruined the preamp for me. I completely regretted doing. I sold it and bought another but t, the second one was the MP-1 "Classic" model, which I did not feel sounded like my OG stock MP-1.

So I ended up moving on rig-wise.

The bone stock MP-1 has PLENTY of gain and is a true classic, IMHO. Give it a chance on its own before you ruin it. I still GAS for one every couple of years.
 
Yeah I had a 3 tube mod first, and then a stock one. I’d rather the stock if I was to go down that road again.
 
Good to know. The only thing I've done to it currently was update the eprom to the latest version. I've been testing it through the power section of one of my combo amps, but need to get it mounted in the rack and put it through the PS2 and see how it really sounds.
 
I had all 3; MP-1, MP-2, and the Classic.. The original MP-1 was the best for straight guitar tone and seemed to go best with EL34's..
 
Get ahold of MarshallJMP and put the MDRT transformer in it, big improvement, I A/B'd an MDRT MP1 and one with the stock trasformer, the MDRT sounded 3D while stock sounded 2D, I don't know how else to describe it. https://www.marshalljmpmodshop.net/miscellaneous_parts_and_replacement_tubes.htm

Always been curious about the 3TM, would love to hear a shoot out between 3TM and simply boosting a stock MP1 which is how I use mine. But I will agree with Elric that a stock MP-1 has all the gain you'd ever need and then some, boost it and it does tight chugga chugga all day.

I once mod'd an MP1 to v3.666 specs and was underwhelmed. It's supposed to make it like an SLO/Recto. It sounded like an SLO & JCM 800 had a baby but not in a good way, it was just kind of noisey messy distortion, difficult to EQ and it sounded bad with a boost.

Used to have an MP-2, never in my life had such a hard time dialing in a decent rhythm tone but the clean was excellent. Mp-1 clean is damn good too though.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
 
Back
Top