ADA MP-2

I've owned two MP1s before this unit. Setting patches is time consuming, but the results are rewarding. And the process is really self explanitory. The changes are by ear. You do what "sounds" best. Not the easiest process in the world, but not brain surgery by a long shot. Like I said; more an ear thing than technical.

I agree with everyone saying that the chorus is the big show as far as the MP2's effects go. I owned 2 MP1s before this unit. When the MP1 first appeared, it was the only preamp the compared favorably to the sonic qualities of the Soldano amp head. Not wanting to mortgage my girlfriend, I opted for the MP1. I haven't been disappointed yet. And when a beer got poured through it at a show, I went and got another one. Now this MP2 is "all that and then some". Harmonics are easy, saturation is easily on par with Soldano's, sound density is ruthless but notes in chords aren't lost. I put the @#$* to it at shows and I've enjoyed fairly flawless performance. Only problems I've had with all these units is "pick dynamics". Pick hard or soft, same dynamic..regardless of the gain level or compression in / out. At ultra gain setting, don't stop playing or the feedback will kill you. I don't use the gate much as it sounds too artificial. Silky clean tones too. At triple the price, the only thing better is the Mesa Boogie Triaxis.. and then, not enough to be worth it.

Short of pouring a beer through it, this thing is unstoppable. Keep a spare set of 12AX7s with you and everything is 5 by 5. I.E. I haven't had one die on me of natural causes yet.

If you buy one of these now, you're working without a net, pal. Don't let that scare you though. They are relatively cheap now that so many other things have come onto the market. You still can't go wrong with this unit for the price. I picked mine up for $150 used. At that rate, you could buy a stack of them and throw 'em at people.

Rack gear in general is a pain in the @#*. Old school pedals are much easier, but the sonic clarity of digital gear makes it worth having. The level and room eq knobs make this unit very "venue friendly" without having to mess with your patches. Several levels of eq make tonal variations endless. Put it in front of a couple Marshall stacks in stereo: voice of God, brother!

The sounds this thing makes really are different, sound like a 60s guitar with that very thick rich Santana sound, to disco strat tones, to a very acoustic clean guitar, and go to Crazy train, and each one sounds right. Each mode is musical and just sings in its own way.

OK its finally time for me to review my mp-2. This is the most awesome amp I've found, and if the triaxis could somehow sound better, well it doesn't have as many features either.
This this has tone controls and drive controls for each of 10 different tube voicings. Each channel has a grafic EQ. This is very important becuase when I first got my mp-2, it sounded dead. Turned out that the channels I was using had the eq tones muted. It works so well that you would swear it couldn't make that much difference - but it does... Then you have the effects, a good usable tremelo sound, like an old Fender amp, a chorus, an auto wah, and a digital controlled wah - the only way to go. All these effects are not over the top and very pro sounding - AND THEY DONT ADD NOISE OR KILL YOUR TONE LIKE MOST FOOT PEDALS. Stereo out and all is fully midi switchable - just what you would design for yourself if you could!

They're gone

I've been playing 25 years and played many amps to find the right one - I have plenty of cash to buy what I want but have found nothing I like better yet. Get one and spend some time with it - you will be very surprised that you didn't have to fork over $2K for it!

This is basically a good sounding preamp, but your choice of amp and speakers is CRUCIAL!. I originally used it with an ADA microtube amp and ran it stereo into a 2-12 cabinet I had wired for stereo so I could get stereo chorus live (seemed like a good idea at the time!) It sounded pretty good and of course the convenience of being able to switch patches quickly with a midi floor pedal made it perfect. Then the ADA power amp took a dump on me and since ADA was out of business I couldn't get it fixed. I sent it off to some tech in Los Angeles (I'm in Central Cali) and he just whined about not being able to fix it because of no schematics, no ADA, etc. So I gave up and went and bought a Marshall Valvestate power amp. I think it was an 80-80 or something. This amp, with the combination of my "stereo" cabinet made it sound HORRIBLE! It was dry, with no punch, weak, and lifeless. I played like this for about 4 years and was always wondering why the other guitar player in my band sounded so good (Mesa Boogie and Marshall JMP1) and I sounded so weak. Well, this other guitar player had a Fender Blues Deville that he never used so I borrowed it one night and put the MP2 directly into the "power amp in" on the Fender and everyone's mouth just fell open. The Fender power amp section and speakers completely brought it back to life and I bought the Fender from my friend more or less on the spot. Now my tone is back and I'm enjoying playing again!! YOU NEED A REALLY GOOD TUBE POWER AMP AND SPEAKER COMBO FOR THE MP2 TO REALIZE IT'S FULL POTENTIAL, (in addition to knowing how to program it well.) Oh yeah, I'm using an Ibanez RG 570, with SD '59 in the bridge position and the standard Ibanez pickups in the middle and neck. I play everything from classic to modern rock and have been playing professionally for about 30 years.

Adequate features, I like the chorus, wah and tremelo, but I wish there was some kind of ambience effect (reverb or delay)

LED display poops out when there is a low or unreliable voltage situation from the AC, but otherwise it's stayed together now for about 10 years (I replaced the tubes once or twice).

I would definitely try to replace it if I lost it because I know what it CAN do under the right conditions. HOOK IT UP TO THE RIGHT POWER AMP AND SPEAKERS AND YOU'LL BE HAPPY!
(Sometimes I just want to plug my old "tube driver" pedal and Ibanez chorus into the Fender and just wail, though!!)

The MP-2 is very easy to use / get a great sound
Editing patches is easy .
Yes I have the manual but the mp-2 is so easy to use
the manual is still in the wrapper(will sell on e-bay for cherry kool-aid)
yes /yes

I use an Ibanez 7620 to pedal board-mp2-allesis 320 eq-sonic
maximizer 482 back to mp2 to my power amp to my mesa bogie
4x12 recto cab. the gate is incredible no noise. the only
effect i use is the chourus the rest are preety weak in sound.
I went for my sound huge,dynamic,heavy,crisp and tight .
the mp2 makes the tripple rectifier look a peavy bandit

So far it has crapped out twice on me and has been re-wired a
bunch of times .

They went out of buisness before I could call.

I play death metal and this is a great match ive been playing
for 15 years and I always check out new heads but when I do
I always compare them to the mp2 and so far nothing has come
close .To bad ada wasnt still in buisness and comming out with
the MP-200 million

It's so damn easy to use.

This is my gear and connections: Ibanez JEM77FP---Marshall JCM900 hi gain master volume amp head---amp effects loop--Alesis Midiverb 4 processor----amp to speakers---Line 6 Flextone 2125 cabinet.
The mp2 is amazing, you can get brutal distortions and great tones from it. I play lead guitar and you can get those Marty Friedman guitar solos with the mp2, also it fits very well for sounds like Vai and Satriani. The effects are good, not that great (I never use them) but the noise gate it has is a good one. I have played the mp-1 too, and comparing them I preffer de mp-2, the mp-1 is very noisy.

I have been playing the guitar 4 years, I have played other preamps like the mp-1, hafler T2 (good one), marshall jmp-1, line 6 pod (crappy solid state), and I would say that the mp-2 is the best one (for my style), and you can get one in a good price (the jmp-1 is so expensive so as the triaxis). Too bad ADA dont longer exist.
If you are looking for a real distortion, I recomend you to get the mp2.

My guitars I use/used are: A custom made guitar of my own design/shape handcrafted by John Jordan of Jordan Music http://www.jordanmusic.com , it is a solid body electric, basswood body, AAA quilted maple top in translucent red, Evans pickups (E2 in the bridge, E1 in the neck) with a push/push single volume to split the bridge p/u. I also had an Ibanez RG-320 (Downtune a whole step DGCFAD)equipped with 2ea Evans E2 pickups, & a Floyyd Licensed. It was a basswood body as well. I also used a PRS CE-3 with 2 Evans E2 pickups, and recently an ESP/LTD H-207 7stringer.
In my rig which consisted 80% of ADA gear (Except for DDL/Reverb/Harmonizer) treated me very well through those years. It consisted as follows: Furman PL8, Samson Concert Series 2 Wireless reciever, 1 "Y" cable to split signal to, 2 each ADA MP-2, 2each Digitech DSP256XL (DDL/Reverb), Digitech ISP33B Harmonizer, ADA Microcab Miked Cabinet Emulator, Roland M-120 12channel Line Mixer, & ADA Microtube 200. There was also a 4space rack drawer which store cables, strings, tools, etc...

The signal flowed as follows: Gtr to wireles, signal split to 2 MP-2's; one for clean, one for dirty, Stereo dry signal from each direct to mixer, clean MP-2 had loop sending to 1 of the DSP 256XL's for reverbs, delays, the other MP-2 sent Loops send #1 toe the ISP33B, #2 send went to the 2nd DSP 256XL. The signal was split at these processors to stereo and then their wet outputs went to the mixer.

Now, here's the answer to the question "Why did you have 2 MP-2's, wasn't one good enough?" The answer is this, One was used for clean, the other for dirty because I used the CC's to provide a Clean/Dirty "Morph" to similate the crossfade done on a mixing board in the studio. I never like the abrupt change from clean to dirty, & I never liked the volume knob on the guitar rolled back to similate clean. I like my clean to be clean & my dirty to be dirty, & this allowed me realtime & dynamic control in the transition from clean to dirty. Having the dry signals fed direct to the mixer kept my original tone intact. Having the wet signals fed direct to the mixer simplified levels by leaving all the channels on the mixer at the same "6 o'clock" setting & I adjusted the indivual preset levels respectively.

I used one expression pedal for volume, & on an individual patch basis, the wah. The 2nd expression pedal was used to fade in the harmonizer, rather that suddenly. I always thought that this sounded nicer than on/off.

The "monitor outs" of the M-120 Line mixer went to the Microcab, the "main outs" went to the Microtube 200.

My live signal as heard through the house pa was 100% Microcab. This assured me the same consistent mic emulated tone night after night, & allowed me to use my 4x12 cabs simply as onstage monitors. Occastionally, since I was using a 20 space rack, in venues that had statges that were too small to house all of our cabinets, keyboards, & HUUUUGE drum kit, I simply went completely direct, & got of my guitar given to me in my monitor wedges.

This system was Extremely quiet, in any environment it delivered, & it's sound was consistent in any venue or volume.

This amp was in preproduction in early 1993, & put into full production in the spring of the same year. I enjoyed the preamp a great deal since I was fortunate enough to have been endorsed by ADA for 7 years. Because of this relationship, I was fortunate enough to have my ideas considered, & eventually implemented into the products that eventually became the MP-2, Microcab, & Viper. I am a prog metal musician & I played in local Bay Area bands like Gateway, & Prodigal Son. The units never let me down.

Of the concepts I had that were eventually used: MP-2; Loop activation from the effects send, not the return. Return level adjustment, individually between the 2 independent loops, programmable noise gate, cab emulator out.
My input on the Microcab was in lending my ear to testing between emulation & the many cabinets that were tested. This was neat, because I was plugged into an MP1 & a Microtube 200, the signal was ab'd between several 4x12 open/closed back, 1x12, 2x12, cabs of many configurations, vintage & modern. The miked signals then went to (of all things) a Ramsa 31 band EQ, & dialed in until the graphs on the oscillascope matched as close as we could get.

I never had any problem with ADA gear or this rig for that matter, other that of my own neglegence. I was performing at BURNING MAN 98 & our entire camp & stage fell victim to a hellacious sand storm. My rack was outdoors, lids off ready for sound check & was wide open to damage.

My relationship started with my first ADA purchase, the MP1 in 1989. I was its biggest fan. In 1990 My close friend, Chris Keller, went to work for ADA as West Coast Sales Associate. I work just a few blocks from the old ADA site on Edgewater Drive in Oakland, Ca. Chris & I lived in Antioch at the time, so we rode to work together daily. He exposed me quite a bit to what was in development in ADA, & as I was asked, I offered my input & opinions.

It was at this stage that I was fortunate enough to offer my opinions which were later put into production. Lorry Marcus, Matt Bocci, & David Tarnowski (ADA Owner) were very supportive of my ideas which I felt represented the average musician & consumer of gear such as thiers. Matt Bocci wrote the software for the pedals MC-1 & MXC, & I remember one time that Chris & I gave him a ride home to the recovering Oakland hills where the fire had consumed everything. Upon dropping Matt off at his home (The one home in the neigborhood that survived), he asked Chris & I into his home, where he presented to Chris as a gift an old antique harpsicord. Chris was elated.

I have nothing bad to say about their service. It was top notch.

The demise of ADA started upon moving into the building on Lesser Dr. in Oakland.

The building on Edgewater Drive was leased. David Tarnowski purchased the building on Lesser Drive for a price that seemed reasonable, but property in Oakland was not appreciating very well if at all back then. The building on Edgewater had ample room for expansion. The building on Lesser Dr. was triple the size of the previous location, & David only was able to lease out a minimal portion of the excess space for just a short period of time to a mattress company.

His burdonsome mortgage, along with the increasing "retro" trend, caused a decline in rack gear. To offset this negative cashflow, he started laying off production people. Nearly 90% of his production assembly staff were Asian & had worked for him faithfully for nearly 20 years. It was very hard for him to let go of them, & eventually, Chris, Lorry, & additional staff were let go. This also cause a pinch in trying to keep up with prodution with limited staff & cause a flurry of backordering. Without being able to keep up with production, it just snowballed from there.

It's a sad end to a great pioneer in modern amp technology. The man who in my opinion inspired what we now know as amp modeling ala Line 6 & Johnson, is now a man without a company, a product. His product legacy lives on in his gear that is now preciously valued by those who faithfully rely upon it.

Last I heard, David is now working for a computer company. I still have contact with Chris, he works for Federal Express at the Oakland Airport.

Since the demise of ADA, & without the support of a business currently in operation, I've had to replace all of that gear. I recently (couple of years ago) switched over to a Johnson Millenium J250H Head.

I'm 37, been playing for 30 years, love heavy music, love gear, love learning about all things technical. I hated parting with my ADA gear, but since I was gigging extensively, I couldn't chance being without "replaceable" gear on the fly. I have my patches dumped into the computer, & if I ever neaded to, I could borrow another Johnson Amp & dup my patches back into it. I don't have the luxury of a lot of people around who have ADA gear to borrow from, but the ADA gear still gets my vote, & if they were back in business today, I'd still be there #1 advocate, & I'd be back to using there gear once more.

I play very aggressive metal and I am a firm believer that you do not have to turn the gain all the way up to get a heavy sound. I like the clean,I like the distortion and I think that the effects are half way descent to boot. I play a Marshall full stack,Roland srv-3030 effects unit,BBE 386 sonic maximizer and a Peavey classic 120/120 tube power amp. Jackson guitars

This thing as many cool features and can be all be usable. I dont care for half of the reviews on this page,so dont look into them to much. I think this is a very versitile pre amp and would recomend it to all.

I use the unit daily,have been since I got it a year ago. Nothing has gone wrong with it in the time I've had it.

right

I had the mp1 before this and I didnt like that one much. I was hesitent on selling that only to get the newer model. This thing is on a different level from the mp1 and do believe it is a trusty contender with the jmp & triaxis. But thats one mans opinions...who cares right? Oh I've been playing for twelve years.

Excellent ease to obtain an excellent (TONE!!!)

I am running the MP-2 to a Peavey classic 50/50 stereo tube amp - not to be confused with the 60/60 which lacks true tube amp character for some reason. I run a Digitech GSP 21 for effects (minimal) and midi-controller.

I've read the other reviews on this pre-amp and must say that I am disappointed with the responces as they are very general and lack definition. I hear alot of, "lacks low end" from eq junkies and "noisey" from the gain freaks . In plain or simple terms, any more low end out of this unit and it would be un-micable because the boom would over-ride the tone and I have never in my 24 years as a musician heard a tube amp that didn't hiss when the gain was turned past 8.

TONE is where this unit excels all others and it is very simple to achieve if you turn the compressor OFF, set the eq's flat, select your tube character (program) and evolve your sound from this point.

As an owner of several tube amps (Mesa, Fender) this unit comes unbelievably close to matching any amp and is a hell of alot easier to lug around than 10 tube heads!!!

Users such as Satriani, Vei, Petrucci, Lynch can't be wrong.

If your looking for extreme bottom end - use a solid state amp ( a tube amp will never achieve the lower frequences of solid state).

If you want to use the highest gain settings and over use the compressor - your going to lose your dynamics guys and gals on any amp, but if this is your thing - use the friggin' noise gate.

If you want nothing but pure tube tone then use the MP-2 the way it was designed - as a preamp (nothing more- nothing less) and turn down the gain and compressor!!!

Have had mine for years and am very sorry they (ADA) are no longer around (conspiracy). My fenders and boogies always needed re-tubed and overhauled yearly due to road travel which is why I bought the ADA MP-2 in the first place and got away from the BIG amps. What a blessing!

Out of buisness at this point - but were extremely helpful when they were in buisness!

I have played music for 24 years on a semi-professional level and I play many types of music from blues to extreme metal and the MP-2 covers all extremely well and accurate. I have compared it to nearly everything on the market including the POD which so many seem to love. The POD is nice for sounds on the fly - but is very lacking in tube character. The MP-s simply does a far better job and the built in ampulator is fantastic for direct recording and also does a better job than POD or any other current hype items. My opinions are my opinions and not the gospel - so please do not take it as such. I am not the first nor the last word when it comes to advise - but it appears that some guys on here simply do not know what they are talking about when it comes to the MP-2 or what sound they're trying to achieve for that matter. Do not e-mail me with any obscene or offensive e-mail as I will turn it over to authorites and your internet provider will be notified. All other inquiries are more than welcome.

I've been using this with an Ibanez RG7620 with DiMarzio pickups, and although it gets a decent crunch for metal sounds, the harmonics are not really that good. You really notice it when you put this thing next to any Boogie amp. The distortion just has a "choppy" quality to it, where a good amp will have smooth sounding harmonics in the distortion. Of course, the distortion on this thing can really roar if you're looking for a cool metal sound. You have to be carefull about your gain settings. There is a point where turning up the gain makes the sound sick and gross and only adds noise - use you ear! I really like the lead tones I can get out of this thing.

The clean sounds on this preampamp are pretty weak. I've tried for 7 years to get a clean tone out of this thing that I like, and it just won't happen. All of the clean voices sound weak and thin - no balls.

I would like to say something about the "flubbiness" of the crunch that so many people like to mention, and what I would like to say is this: Use only monster cables, put some decent tubes in it, and turn down the gain!!!

As far as the effects go on this thing, I use the compressor, the wah and the noise gate. None of them are outstanding, but it's nice to have them available. The noise gate and compressor are kind of annoying to use, but if you get them tweaked right they work well.

I'll give the distortion a 10, but the clean a 4, thus an average of 7.

It's got a compressor, wah, tremolo, chorus, stereo effects loop and noise gate - good combination of features. I was able to dig up an old advertisement for this thing, and contrary to other information I've seen, it has an all analog signal path.

I've never had a single problem with it. However, I've never gigged with it or put it under too much stress. There have been a few times when I was playing right before going to work and accidentally left it on for about 12 hours. It got pretty hot, but worked just fine.

This doesn't really matter anymore.

Overall, I like the distortion on this thing, and that's why I keep it around. But keep in mind that the 10 tube voices aren't all that versatile so I am yet one more person that believes that this preamp is for metal ONLY! I'll give this a 6 because it's really just an elaborate distortion pedal.

I play hard rock/metal/alternative/blues/classical/etc. The list goes on. I do not think it covers a wide range of musical styles. It covers rock very well minus the loud hiss this thing has. The noise can be covered up with the built in noise gate, but the gate gets annoying after you use it for a while. You begin to miss the sustain you can get without it, like on better preamps. The preamp doesn't cover the heavy crunch palm muting very well. It's more like a muddy thud, thud, than a crunch. I guess it would be ok for a cheap backup or if you have a smaller amp. I use a marshall half stack and before I tried the Marshall JMP-1 preamp, I thought the MP-2 was really good. The first time I tried a JMP-1 I put my MP-2 up for sale and bought a JMP-1. I'm now thrilled that I have the JMP-1 now. :)

It has a ton of features. More than you'd expect in a preamp. Things like a wah, tremolo, chorus, etc.

I never had trouble wih it.

It's alright if you were deprived from getting to try music gear out all the time like me. Our music stores are pathetic around hear. They rarely get anything good in. So I guess it's not that the MP-2 is a bad choice, it's just there are many choices of preamps that are better.