ADA MP-1

if you cant figure how to work this thing ,by a stomp box
A little tricky to get the right sounds but so are all the other units I have tried
the manual are out there on the net...

wery good distortion,but be aware how you set the values compared to each other...the eq`are a little weak...
My setup is Ada - (with a Alesis midiverb3 and Boss ge 21 in the effectloop) - Marshall 9100 - Marshall 4 * 12 cab
I used Ibanez rg guitars ,mainly rg 560 7620...

I bought my first one 11 years ago,sadly it died on me a few month ago...but I have used it almost daily...
I have never brought a backup ,never needed ,but maybe I should

no offical ada site but there are a coupple sites out there...
tried a local place but they could not fix it...still trying!

I play mostly metal,some hard rock gothic rock etc...
I have been playing for about 15 years and I have tried alot of different equimpment,sometime I wish it had a little better eq and a little more distortion ,but if you have a guitar with good pickups its no proplem,,but an equalizer is recomended!
I have a special sound wich many guitarists have noticed..and the Ada is the heart of that sound!!!...I bought 2 others when my first one broke down,it was not easy to find belive me...at this price it is simply rules!!!
I have tried Marshall jmp-1,different kinds of Rocktrons,Mesa Boogie triaxe.and a few Digitechs...
the triaxe sound cool but to nice...I guess I would by a Rocktron Piranha it sounded great but will cost you more than an Ada...

Easy to edit, easy to program, easy to control via midi. Found the manual on the web after 1.5 years workign with it - so self explanatory.

Top notch overdrive and distortion if programmed rightish. , Difficult to understand why the overdrive just kicks in at high values.
A bit noisy, you'll need to use a denoiser with it (I use a Rocktron Hush CXII).

Very solid very reliable built like a rock.

No Ada anymore

I use it in the effect loop of my Spirit Folio SI to add a smooth overdrive to my Hammond and E-Piano sounds and this works out perfect! I love the midi capabilities and the sound is better than anything else for this. If stolen I'd desperatley look for another one. It would be perfect if the noise bit would be better.

I'm just going to give a quick review for the MP-1. Editing is a cinch. Manual is easy to understand.

I love this thing. I've used Ibanez and Music Man through my MP-1. Chorus is nice, especially when used in stereo.

Never needed a replacement.

These thing kick all ass. I bought mine in 1988 and it has NEVER had a problem in 15 years. Anyone who can pick one of these up for cheap should. I paid $550 for mine back when they were new. It has served me well over the years.

I figure one of these days it will die on me and I'll probably go buy a Tech 21 rackmount distortion unit. I've never heard it, but if it's anything like the other TECH 21 products, it's gonna be great.

It isn't particularly intuitive how to save patches above #9. No, I have not RTFM. Shouldn't have to.

This is where the MP-1 shines! It does every tone I could want. With a bit of tweaking, it does those super heavy, saturated modern tones, too. (I play blues, classic rock, and pop rock. SRV, Rush, REO, Deep Purple, Cars, Bowie, Sting, Alan Parsons, Pink Floyd and the like.)

I play straight into the MP-1 (except when I use the Wah), through an Alesis multieffect, and into a matched pair of solid-state combo amps, in stereo. (I'm using the LINE-IN on the amps so I go directly to the power amp stage.)

I have an American Std Strat (From bridge to neck: SD Hot Rails, Duckbucker, JBJr), Les Paul (Stock), Washburn A5 (SD 59/Jazz), and an Ibanez RG (SD Custom, JBJr, 59). The MP-1 has so many patches that I can use a range of settings for each guitar.

The clean tube channel is where I spend most of my time. If you push it a bit, you get the vintage tube overdriven tone -- no problem. The distortion tube channel is where you get your more extreme stuff. I only have a handful of patches that use it. The solid-state clean channel is *very* clean, even with high gain. On this channel, you generally need more extreme EQ to get the sound you're looking for. But the ss clean channel is what makes this preamp so well rounded--clean means clean.

No unexpected problems here. (It has tubes, so eventually you'll need to replace them.)

These are < 150 on eBay. I'm glad I don't need one of those expensive "modeling" things. The MP-1 does what the modelers are trying to model in the first place. Talk about value. (These were much more money when they first came out. I think it was 87 or so.)

excellent sounding unit. the high gain tones are superb. I had a Triaxis until I bought this unit. I can 10 of these MP-1 units for the cost of the Triaxis. Don't get me wrong, the Mesa Boogie unit is very versatile, but too pricy when you can afford an MP-1.

the ADA channel switching is louder than the Triaxis. An audible pop can be heard, no big deal though. just want to be clear.

lot's of features, read the other reviews.
wish the output selector (line or instrument) was mounted on the back, not on top of the unit...seems silly.

I don't use the chorus as I use a TC Electronic G-Major for effects

no problems. just regular wear and tear (tubes replace, volume knob replaced because it wore out....heck, it's over a decade old)

haha, no more ADA... *SIGH*

great unit for the money. if you want bang for the buck, here it is.

I use this with a 70's strat and 2 Les pauls, one with carvin pickups. with hot pickups, it screams, with lesser outputs(like on my strat) it has a real nice growl. The clean channel stays clear all the way, but with the gain controls you can get a lovely AC DC style crunch. The Distortion channel is way over the top, with almost too much gain, that ranges from hard edged hard rock souns, that really lets you dig in, to full on saturated heavy metal crunch.The noise on the solid state circuit is sometimes really annoying, but I use some hush from a rocktron intellifex(which is the perfect partner for the ADA;the belong together)and it cleans right up.

The mp1 was made in the late eighties, is fully midi programmable, has controls for 3 gain stages, an fx loop, 3 band eq and a very nice sounding stereo chorus. you can choose from 3 seperate voicings for each of the 128 presets- clean tube, distortion tube and solid state circuit with compression(modelled on a roland JC-120). other features include a headphone output and midi in, out and thru.
paired with the right power amp, its loud enough for any gig, and the 2 12AX7 tubes give it beautiful tone on any preset, making it perfect for warm jazz tones, blues rock, heavy metal and especially hot rod californian shred sounds(my favourite)

This is the most reliable piece of gear, its been gigged for about 10 years with several owners, has never had replaced tubes or been serviced, and still looks and sounds like its brand new.

Its a bit of a worry ADA no longer exist, so you cant get it serviced by a proper tech, althuogh there are plenty of 'third party' sites on the net that can do the job.

If this got stolen, itd be unreplaceable. I use it with a boss graphic eq , a rocktron intellifex and a marshall power amp. Compared to a boogie triaxis, its way cheaper and sounds just as good with my rig, and also preceded marshalls JMP1. Ironically, I believe it recreates marshall and boogie tones almost better than the companies themselves! They are pretty rare, and itd be hard to find a replacement.

Badass! I own 2 of these preamps. They both just crush! Those people looking for the Mesa Dual Recto sound would have been disappointed.....UNTIL NOW!!! Yes, the MP-1 can be modded to have the Mesa tone, and better yet, ITS CHEAP AND EASY TO DO!!! Info can be found at www.adadepot.com Check it out, you may just wet yourself! (Unless of course, you paid the big bucks for the Mesa as well. In which case, you probably will be so angry, as you didn't even get a kiss or a pat on the head for that nasty buggering you received.....)

It slices! It dices! It already knows even before you do when and where you like it rough and when and where to be gentle! And now for this unlimited time offer, this amazing preamp will even light your cigarette and "just cuddle and talk" with your significant other/lover/sex pet after sex FOR YOU! ;)

Other than that, you know what this preamp has for features.

I beat the hell out of my MP-1 preamps and make them be my bitch every single day for 4-8 hours a stretch. Sometimes you may find an MP-1 with minor issues, as nothing is perfect and time does take its toll on everything, but mine are always obedient and just keep getting up for more. I only have to change the tubes every now and then (about every 4-6 months) and "Please, may I have another?" is what I keep hearing after the violent floggings I regularly dispense with sadistic intent.

They must like it by now, I'm sure.

ADA has been out of biz for quite some time now, due to the usual corporate takeovers, leadership differences, or financial maladies that threaten all the innovative and successful businesses. Actually, I had heard that ADA had a huge fire at their factory and decided to just call it a day after that, but I can't confirm this as I wasn't there. (I was on the opposite side of the country when I was into torching stuff back then. My attorney said I shouldn't say that, but what the hell, the statute of limitations has long since expired...... ;)

No matter, www.adadepot.com is the place to go for support.

Like I was saying, you know all the features and facts about this awesome preamp. I'm here to tell you that this thing can be modded quite easily to kill a Mesa Dual Recto at 20 paces as well. I am not dogging on Mesa in any way whatsoever, but as that overused saying goes, "Show me the money!"

The going rate for an MP-1 is about $100-120 USD used on ebay. I paid about $120 for each MP-1 I own. You will not, I repeat, NOT find a Mesa ANYTHING anywhere for twice that price! At about $1500 for the Mesa equalivant, it works out to be about $375 for each letter in the word "Mesa". Thats what you're REALLY paying for, after all. And besides, SOMEBODY has to financially make it up to the companies that give away their products to the ungrateful artists using their products....(successful artists who can already afford to buy dozens of the product, I might add. The rest of us poor folk pay our own bills) Add about $5 for the parts needed for the modification, and some real basic electronic skills, and viola! Something you can be even prouder of than you already are! The folks who spent all that money for their Rectos will hunt you down out of pure jealousy, then simply resort to crying in their hands. Go for it! VALUE DOESN'T GET ANY BETTER THAN THIS!

DISCLAIMER: I do not own any company, nor am I a part of any corporate decision for anything. I neither buy nor sell anything on a commission, and I have absolutely NOTHING to gain with this posting. I also do not own or maintain the website I mentioned or any other site for that matter. I am a person just like so many of you who have needs, but little means. The Tipster just wants you to know that you CAN have a Ferrari or Viper for the same price as a Yugo or a Kia. And to entertain somewhat while I'm bending your ear is good, too! (come on now, you didn't honestly think that I wouldn't want to be "cuddled and talked to" afterwards now and then, did you?) ;)

Features: Tube Preamp with Three "voicings" (I think of them as channels, I dunno if they are or not, technically). Solid State Clean, Tube Clean, Tube Distorted. On board 3 band EQ + Presence (Low,Mid,Hi,Presence) and built-in Stereo Chorus. MIDI Program Switching with 128 presets. Basic Straight-up preamp. I like the on-board EQ, Chorus, and the MIDI switching features. Could benefit from on board noise gate, more EQ bands, and FX.

Creating patches is easy and intuitive. Could probably be understood without a manual. The MIDI implementation is straight forward/understandable.

I upgraded my firmware to 2.01 for MIDI based patch editing.

Just an up front note: I've owned this for almost two years now, so I've had time to fall out of that new-gear-honeymoon-phase during which most HC reviews are written :)

As some others have mentioned, I think it's important to remember this is a preamp. By design, it's not an all in one unit. It's a key component in your tone, but you will need to surround it with quality components to get your ultimate tone. A minimum is a good guitar, power amp, and cab. See more notes below on outboard gear.

I'm using it with a Boss OD-20 overdrive in front of it (sometimes I use the Fulltone FD2 model with the MP1) with a Boss VF-1 for EQ and FX and a Behringer UltraFex II as a Maximizer. I use a Rocktron Hush IIcx for Noise Suppression. For live power, I use a Peavey Classic 30 as a power amp and for recording I go through an ADA Microcab (awesome piece of gear!!). Guitars are home-made strat (main axe) w/ Duncan Demon and Dimarzio Air Norton pups, and a PRS Custom 24.

Tonewise, this thing's surprisingly versatile. The reputation as a hair band/shredder tool the MP-1 got in the late 80's was really misplaced (although, admittedly it does nail that tone easily :).

Here's the basic run down for the "channels":

SS Clean: The Solid State Analog clean channel is really, really, nice. Combined with the onboard chorus it's got a very "Roland JC-120" thing going on. I love this crystalline clean sound. Some people will probably hate it for being too 'HiFi' sounding but I think it's exactly how a clean channel should sound. This was a really pleasant surprise for a 'Heavy Metal' preamp.

Tube Clean: As many have mentioned this channel begins to break up quickly. The break up is musical, though, so I kind of consider this a feature since I like the SS channel for pure clean tones. I think of this as the Bluesy/Fender channel. You can get a lot of nice blues and classic rock stuff going here. You *can* get a 'Warm' pure clean tone from the MP-1 but it requires quite a bit of tweaking for your setup (like turning down your guitar volume knob) and some people will find it frustrating. This is probably it's biggest weakness. Like I said, I love the SS Clean, so this is a non-issue for me.

Distorted Tube: And, of course, the main reason people are interested in a preamp like this, the tube distortion channel. This unit has gain to spare... Like many here have observed the responsiveness is very good and you really can get a great shred tone. I personally have not had much trouble getting this thing to do everything from classic heavy metal and modded Marshall tones all the way to Hyper Dark/Death/Satanic stuff. It does have a more 'Hot Rod Marshall' signature to it than some other preamps (but that can be a beautiful thing :).

It does the 'Liquid' High Gain lead sound that everyone is looking right out of the box. The Rhythm tones can get into the truly devastating range and can made to go right over the top with extra EQ and a slightly boosted input signal (Tubescreamer and/or Active Pups).

In fact, with the outboard EQ you can get this channel to cover just about any high gain territory you can think of (except maybe pure harsh industrial solid state distortion (get a metal zone or some other solid state stomp box for that ;)).

I find the MicroCab (for recording, which is my primary scenario) actually wants a little more gain/EQ than the Peavey Amp (Live). The MicroCab filters some of the Heaviness, so I actually find myself using the OD and EQ less when going to a real power amp/cab. The tube power amp on the Peavey may be playing a role here too. If I were using the MicroCab less I probably wouldn't use the external overdrive much at all.

Chorus: I like the Chorus, it's got a great sound, especially with the clean channel. I consider it kind of a bonus, since like I said, a preamp's first function isn't FX. ADA did their best to make the chorus versatile and it can be used as a notch filter, flanger, tremolo, etc, wi

So far mine has been reliable but ADA is out of business and it's a tube based unit, so it's got to be a little bit of a concern.

Like everyone here has mentioned ADA tanked but there are a lot of netters willing to help.

Been playing around 17 years and like I said, I've owned this unit long enough to be over the 'Gee-Whiz' phase.

I really love heavy guitar parts. So, IMHO, the main purpose of a preamp is to serve up vicious liquid tube gain. It's got to be able to deliver tight rhythm crunch, searing gain, and singing lead tones. The ADA does all of this and delivers crystal clean, and broken up tube blues, too. This unit has the capability to be the tone cornerstone for an ultimate high gain rig.

I'm really finally happy with my tone now and the MP-1 is really the key to it all. My tone is probably better than I'd ever imagined it being given that I never expected to be able to justify the cost of a unit like the MP-1.

The street price that these things go for nowadays makes this unit just an unbelievable value. There's really no other way to get this sweet a tube preamp with this great a tone in this price range. It's unheard of really. If this product were still being manufactured, I'm sure it'd certainly be in the same price range as still-current competing products (ie JMP-1 and friends, at least 5x what MP-1s go for on eBay). Even if you consider a gate and an outboard EQ a requirement to bring it more in line with new products it's still a killer deal! My *entire rack* including the MP-1, maximizer, microcab,
and VF-1, cost less than a single JMP-1 or Triaxis (the only competitors worth mentioning) do new.

I sent the mp1 to trace to have him add somemore gain & tighten up the bottom end some.The original ada was known for haveing a hotroded marshall tone, which I guess is why they were so popular at one time.I felt as a stand alone unit they fell just a little short as far as gain and fullness went.(kinda thin)
After Trace`s modification I have to say it sounds 137% better than before.To me it sounds like a jcm 800 with quite a bit more gain.It is much fuller than before with a good thick tubey distortion.It can now do some good heavy sounds.(priest,hammerfall,maiden,ect.)Which is what I was more after.
It is just shy of the superthick bottom mid-scooped thing.You know ,the palm mutes that burst blood vessels.I believe he could have took it there, but the unit had no space for an additional tube.Make no mistake though, he did squezze a bunch more gain out of it than before.The cleans sound rich & harmonically balanced also.
For me it fills that missing marshall void.Perhaps the amp they should have made?
If you have an mp1 & like it send it to Trace.You will like it more when it returns.

Most know all the features of the mp1.

Trace is very professional & a cool dude too.I had been stringing him along for a year or so, claiming I would soon send him something to mod for me.He always answered my emails & was a gentleman thruout.When I finally did send something I was kept up to date & it was back to me in a week.And he followed up to see how I liked it as well.Thats good service!!
Trace I will soon be sending you all kinds of older tube preamps to see what you can do w/ them.

$165.00 to make the mp1 kick tail...Can`t beat that!I`ve owned a bunch of stuff over the last 20 years of playing.This modded mp1 fills a place of its own.If they had sounded this good at first maybe they would still be in buisness.

This is where this sucker kicks in. I use a Jackson Dxmg, to a crybaby, to the mp-1, then to a Marshall 8008 valvestate power amp w/ Avatar 4x12 cab. I use this mainly for heavy metal use, aka metallica, slayer and ozzy. But, it gives great cleans, quite posibly better than any fender ive heard, especially with some chorus in the mix. It is a little noisy, but its not very bad at all. And its only noisy when you have the gains all the way up. I have presets on that sucker for Clean, to metal,and great leads. I can get a very Vai'ish lead on it. If you want a very versitale pre-amp, get this, it doesnt matter what style you play with it.

Basically : 3 modes, Dist tube, Clean Tube, Ss. with Stereo Chorus. you get 128 presets to work with. What more do you need!

I replaced the tubes when i got it. I put new groove tubes in there, to be exact, they are russian groove tubes. There is a slight problem with the input jack, but if you just keep the cord up, it's fine. Not a big deal.

Umm....... They are no longer with us.

Overall, this is the best pre-amp out there. Comparring it to "digital", which = shit, the ada kicks ass. it is equal to the tri axis, but hell of a lot cheaper. Ive been playing for 3 years, and i have had all kinds of amps and gear. This was the best investment i made. If some moron were to jack this from me, i would chase that fucker down and beat him till his jaw bone breaks into little tiny pieces.