ADA MP-1

Not difficult if you are willing to READ THE MANUAL. Although this is not a one-button device, it's plenty easy to use once you get your sound "patches" input and arranged.

I never give anything a TEN, so this gets a NINE. But it's a BIG NINE. I am originaly an electric bassist and own an MB-1 but as I've also got a Chapman Stick and several guitars (as well as stereo basses) I decided to add the MP-1 to two of my racks. I boght them both through Ebay and have not regretted it fir one minute.

If there is a "sound" you cannot get with this preamp, blame the person pushing the buttons- it's not the preamp's fault.

The MB-1 I bought new from ADA has never failed, and the two used MP-1's I bought through Ebay were real sweethearts to repair. I was impressed with the PCB layout and circuit design topography. I've been tempted several times to start offering repair work on the MP-x and MB-1 but all I need is more work. Besides, the only ones I'm likely to see are those that have been poorly maintained or stricken by some unfortunate event. They're just well enough designed to have few "normal" failures.

I do my own.

I wish ADA was still in business- I'd seek a position with them.

I'm not going to ramble on about how wonderful the MP-1 (And MB-1) preamps are- you can read the other reviews for yourself and get all that.

If you want a workhorse that won't become outdated, get an ADA preamp.

I basically use two guitars: Ibanez rg 3120 and Jackson Custom (both with DiMarzio
pickups), through ADA-MP1 (I have two units) + Rocktron Intellifex (for reverbs and delays) + Mesa Boogie 20/20 all
tube power amp + 2 cabinets (Marshall 1912).
I have bought the first MP-1 in 1993 and even today I continue to think, that under the sound characteristics
It still be the best preamp on the market.(On my taste)
I tried anower ADA's preamps (MP-2, MP-1Classic, MP-1/3TM), but any of them does not possess that unique
distortion which has original ADA MP-1.
I tried some other units, like SansAmp PSA-1, Carvin Quad X, Marshall JMP-1(Big Joke), but all of them sounded
like dying cat in comparison with ADA MP-1.
Unique worthy competitor - it MesaBoogie TriAxis (I have one), but it is not better,
and besides very expensive.

Read all the other reviews.

Built very well. No problems.

WWW.ADADEPOT.COM

I've been playing guitar for 20 years.If You want the sound of Paul Gilbert,Nuno Bettencourt,Marty
Friedman,Jason Becker,Metallica,Testament and many others,who used and still use the ADA-MP1,go and buy it.
But remember,what it just preamp and You will need some
other stuff,like good guitars,power amps and cabinets.

I use it with an Ibanez JPM100 P2...

My main rig is:

Ada MP-1 --> Rocktron Intellifex (Black face) --> Rocktron 300g Compressor with Hush --> Peavey 50 + 50 Poweramp (not the classic one, the other with the gold stripes) and Ada Mc-1 as a midi pedalboard.

I play most of all progressive metal / rock a la Dream Theater, but I like to play also Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, blues and a little of jazz too. This Preamp has got a lot of distorsion inside it... yeah it is really noisy but with my compressor 300g who has the HUSH system I can filter the noise... One important thing is to use the right tube with this unit otherwise u won't be satisfied. Now I use PM guitar tubes (12ax7HG, and HG stands for High Gain) and this unit rocks ^_^ Avoid low noise tube, they'll eat all sound and character. You can do a lot of modding into this preamp, one is installing a polipropilene condensator for reducing the noise (I think they use this "escamotage" for reducing noise also with the 3 tubes mod) or, always with a good technician, you can increase the distorsion amount in the first dist channel. I think this unit is good, who says it's shit is only a fuckin' noob :)

Fully programmable midi preamp, three voicings (solid state, tube clean, tube dist) and really customizable :) Quite easy to use, for some aspects it might be better reading the manual :)

Reliable :)

Ada died, instead Adadepot are really quick and kind ^^

I play guitar from 11 years, my kind of music requires a really good equipment. Let me say that if have some patience and you tweak it a little, this preamp is really awesome. I know it can't satisfy every person but give it a chance, it's a good unit ;)

rig as follows, hand made mahogany guitars with various Dimarzio pickups, MP-1, Rack EQ, Marshall JCM 800, THD, Hotplate, 4x12 cab with vintage 30's. Arion sch-1 chorus and EH memory man analog delay in effects loop of Marshall. I've played for 30 years and have owned alot of gear I like heavy rock and play alot of different stuff. Priest, Rush, SRV, also some of the new stuff, Foo Fighters, Velvet revolver, etc. The MP-1 is very versitile. The first thing to know is that it's only a part of your overall tone. Guitar woods, pickups, power amps etc, play a huge roll.This preamp has the ability to either sound like Gods rig or total shit. It depends how you set it up, which I found easy without a manual. I run mine into the front of the marshall. My unit has the small output switch on the top and it's on the low setting. I've come to find that you need a good balance between pre-amp distortion and power tube distortion. At high volumes, the speakers will take on a different tone too. So when your tweeking, Play at live levels. You can find your tone at low volumes and then it will sound like crap loud. I can go from Angus young, (lots of power tube distortion) to Zak Wilde, (lots of pre-amp distortion) pretty easy. I'm sure I could get simalar sounds from other pre-amps but for the money this does what it should and sounds great doing it. My other guitar player has a line 6 Pod. It sounds good but sounds like a processor to my ears. This sounds like a guitar. He is always asking me how I get my tone. Well, Get an amp rig, not a computer! I have EH tubes in mine and they sound great. I never have the gains past 6 on any of the presets. You loose tone with high gain. Good tone comes from pushing the power tubes. High pre-amp gain gets lost in a live mix. This preamp heats the marshall up and gives me good , useable distortion. Listen to some old priest and realize they are damn near clean but loaded with power tube distortion. I do plan on getting another one in case this one craps out but in 8 years, it's been bullitproof

read all the other reviews

no problems

na

great unit. If you get one, you will need to spend some time with it. You can't plug it in and expect to find what you want.It's Extremely versitile. But know that it's only a part of your sound. Alot of tone can come from the player too. If I play my rig, I sound like me, If Kirk Hammet plays my rig, he'll sound like Kirk Hammet. If I play his rig, I'll sound like me.

The sounds I get are amazing, when paired with a digital or analog effects processor, for shaping and noise surpressing, the effects that I paired with it is a peavy profex II efects processor and a korg digital tuner as well as line voltage conditioner. The peavy efects processor takes care of the noise gate and colors the sound with a good aray of effects like noise gate/aural exiters/and three types of equalization settings, and the other effects like phase pitch shifting etc. that give the mp-1 from extreme crunch to soft and suttle over drive tones, the only modifications that I did to it was replace the original tubes with groove tubes of wich a little noisy buy ok. Throughout the years I have fried the voice coils on my 412 cab, not by the volume but by exeeding the tone and saturation that the speakers can handle, by the way the cabinets are 1990 yamaha 412's mated to peavy MX tube power heads that I use for their great clean tube gain (clean chanel only) and colored with the effects processors.

The features are standard for this pre-amp, I puchased it back in 1990,

The only problem I had was that the front 1/4" input tended to give signal loss, but I solved the problem by removing the top cover and found out that unit wasn't cooled properly and was desodering a location that was conected to the input, my solution was to soder the location back in the circut board and provide a small fan in the rear of my rack case.

Well you know the company isn't here anymore, but like in life companies make bad management decisions in which it affects companies like wise. And like in any buisness spend money on R&D to keep fresh on products and with new inovations and marketing.

I use it on my Ibanez RG270DX into M&B 2:50 poweramp, with that set tone takes me to heaven and above. I wanted to get the solo tone of Gilbert and i sure got it with ada mp1. It has everything i ever wanted, from soft distortion to great&crystal clean to hard metal distortion. The perfect tone i get with ADA depends a lot from my distortion level (i use 80% of gain). IT'S THE BEST SOUND I CAN GET FOR PLAYING 80S MUSIC !!!

Really easy to use, the manual i got from adadepot.com was not needed, but if someone wants to check all the details, it's all well explained in it :). I bought my ADA MP1 preamp because of Paul Gilbert's Racer X sound he had in 1980s, and i sure got the tone i wanted. I use it for home use as well for the gigs. It's really the best i could ever get.

I use it for 8 years now and it has never been broken, i only placed new tubes twice in that time. I play with it on gig without any backup, because i never saw a piece of equipment reliable as ADA is. It is A W E S O M E.

I never had any problem, so i can't give any argument on that as well. Even that ADA company does not exist anymore, on net you can find www.adadepot.com with TONS of useful info, sets, etc... for that i give them 100% support :)

I've been playing for 12 years, and as i said for half of my guitar life i've been looking for that Gilbert tone .. and i found it with my ADA. That's it!

Distortion? Tone? Well yes I am a metalhead and have never tried to get the tone of Led Zep's "Communication Breakdown" and don't think that's what ADA had in mind when designing this unit. I've been playing in a Metallica Tribute for the past 5 years. I have 2 of these, one very old and one as new as you can get. Both sound great. The old one has a switch for instrument/line level. Found a problem here as I like to use the rear input and whether the switch is line or guitar level the rear jack is much quieter than the front. The new one, both inputs are exactly the same. They did away with the switch.

I don't know why some of you are displeased with the way the MP-1 sounds. All I can say is that you either got a lemon or had bad tubes. It will not get every sound you may be after but it also does not sound like a beehive either as some have stated. Remember the power amp is very important too and not all tube amps sound the same. Be sure to check out Eurotubes.com for alot of info about Mesa, Peavey, Marshall, etc. and how they come from the factory set up completely wrong. I use a Peavey Classic 50/50 power amp. A workingman's amp. Very rugged and decent sound. Plus you can change its voicing depending on what power tube rating you choose, being from 1 to 10 from groove tubes (EL84) which are made by JJ Slovakia. Enough about power amps. This preamp comes as close to old school Metallica as you can get, but it does need a little help from an EQ after it. I use an Alesis Quadraverb (again with the old school, not as old as Supro on the other hand so why does no-one ever complain you can't get Metallica out of one of them?) for added EQ. It has a very good 5 band parametric, however you can only run 1 other effect with it (delay) but for Metallica rythem you don't need it. I have found some outstanding lead tones from this and my style is from Hammet to Friedman. I also like Priest, Maiden, UFO, Satriani, Johnson, Rush, Dream Theater, Queensryche, ets. all opf which san be achieved with this preamp as well as Disturbed, Godsmack, Megadeth with the right power amp, EQ, and speaker cabs. There are thousands of different guitar amps out there and no single amp cam sound like all of them. This one however sound great in most cases. As for gain I don't have mine set past 6 and my rhythem guitarist is set at 7 and there is plenty of gain to spare if you need it. The 3 tube mod does not seem necessary to me, but to each his own...and that the key. If your not sure of your tone ask what your fans think. I have had hundreds of people come up to me after a show and say how great I sounded, ask what I'm using, some surprised some not.

Very easy to use, I have never had a manual (bought used) but had no problem editing programs. I have used alot of rack gear in the past however, and if you can get through a Quadraverb or a Rocktron Prophesy this unit is cake. The Prophesy is a very well featured processor, The MP-1 is a very well featured preamp. Sure it's great to have all in one, but sometimes the it's best to leave reverb and delay to guys that specialize in it.

Input jack on front panel of older unit became scratchy. Had to make a tool to bend the tang back to make contact. Contact cleaner helped too. No problems otherwise whatsoever

Much better service than Peavey, That's for sure, I paid very little for my 2 MP-1's but you can get one on ebay all the time for a great price, and, it will beat anything costing as much as 3 or 4 times as much. Check out adadepot.com for manuals and specs.

I have been playing guitar for 30 years. Jackson V's and Les Paul's are my choice of guitars with EMG pickups; 81,89,60. I also use a 3630 for gate and a tiny bit of compression. You can't go wrong with a set of JJ tubes in this thing. They have standard as well as high gain tubes and have alot of character/dynamics.

I would buy another one if lost or stolen. I want to try the MP-2 as it has a more powerful EQ section, but I don't know if it retains the same tone.

My good friend bought a Rocktron Prophesy back when we played in a Def Leppard tribute and have to say it is a great sounding processor. Costs much more but has everything along with great distortion. Takes a long time to set up though. I am still searching for that elusive bright never ending sustain like Creaping Death but, I probably just don't have the right balance of EQ/preamp yet.

I'm using a maverick guitar (newish british guitar company) with this pre amp and it goes well. This unit was designed mainly for heavy rock/ metal genre's (just look at the artists that played these things, mainly shred and metal). This thing is very good at shred type leads and i was pleasently suprised at the rhythm tones too although they are more marshall than mesa but you can get mods for them to sound like a mesa at ADADEPOT.com
The distortion can get pretty darn brutal with some good high gain tubes. Im using EH 12AX7's which work very well. I tend to prefer clean distortions so that when at gig volumes the distortion doesnt sounds muddy and meshed and this thing sounds very clean.
The clean channels are pretty good but will sound awsome with a good rack FX unit.

Pretty good feature for its age. 128 presets etc. You know it by now. Very versatile. I'm pretty glad it doesnt have delay reverb etc because i normally find that if a company design something just for the distortion they normally get it pretty good. Like here.

Well ive only had it a few months and has worked fine. I am from the UK and ordered it from US so i had to buy a step down transformer which works fine.

ADA GONE! Nuff said.

ADADEPOT.com knows everything you need to fix it if it broke.

Ive been playing nearly 5 years now and have always played line 6 type modelers which are great for home use and PC recording.....but for live use...NO WAY! They lack the soul of a good tube tone. The great thing about rack gear is that you can add things to improve the sound of it. Ive played this on its own and it sounds great but with a great cab and FX it will sound AWESOME!!!!!
The only other things that are close to this is Triaxis and JMP-1 which are way way WAY more expensive. Great pre amp.

I'm just giving a quick review. I bought mine new in 1989 and and used it with NO problems ever since. I don't push the volume too high because I can get all the volume I need out of my Eventide and amp. Therefore, in 14 years, I've only changed the tubes one time, and that was just as an experiment, not that I blew any.

I basically have 4 sounds programmed. Clean, crunch, distortion with heavy mids, distortion scooped a bit. Everything else I can taylor through my effects. I've tried switching from rack effects to going all pedals, but I have yet to find any distortion pedal that even has half the gain and response the MP-1 does.

If you have a good processor after it, you can run line levels out of it and not have to push the tubes as hard.

Read below for other features

14 years. no probs.

never had to deal them for repairs. I did get an upgrade a LONG time ago.

Been playing for 19 years. Many guitars and many effects. If this thing ever breaks down, I'd probably try out the Tech 21 PSA-1 rack distortion next. There nothing wrong with a little change here and there.

What a amazing piece of shit. If you have been playing guitar for a while and have been looking for a shitty distortion that sounds a like a dying cat, then buy this. The tone is 100% generic. It almost sounds good through my mesa strategy 500, but nothing near to my triaxis or hughes and kettner access. A true waste of money and time. I can't belive I have owned and used this piece of crap for so long. Don't belive any of the reviews that say it sounds good. Spend a little more money and get a sans amp or a jmp-1

The usual stuff- fx loop, midi, a really shitty sounding chorus, not bad

I wrote this review today because it finally died. This thing is old and has been through hell and back. It has toured with numorous metal bands for the last 10 or so years.