NAD: ADA MP-1 (My First Preamp!), and Questions

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MrShake
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NAD: ADA MP-1 (My First Preamp!), and Questions

Post by MrShake » Wed Jul 12, 2017 4:15 pm

I done screwed up.

Last week, there was an ADA MP-1 auction for a deal, about $150 below the going rate. I’ve been spending way too much on gear lately, and I can’t afford one at the going rate right now. But I bid up to the very tip top of my budget, was immediately and automatically outbid by someone else’s max. I had a laugh. “Eh, well, at least NO ONE will get it that cheap now! Bwah ha ha!” That was that. I forgot about it. Then, a couple days later, I see that the auction’s ending. At that point, it’s gone up a little, but not much, and still well below the asking price everywhere else.

Fueled by a combination of afternoon cocktails and romance, wandering the apartment on my phone, I bid five more dollars, just for a chuckle. Immediately outbid. Giggly and tipsy I said, “Ha! Well, FINE! I’m gonna cost whoever this is five more dollars, then I’m out. Too rich for my blood.” So I do it again, one last time. And then... nothing. I’m the high bidder. *refresh, refresh* Minutes left. Suddenly, the reality of what I’d done hit me. Damn it! My wife wandered into the room a few minutes later. We spent the last minutes cheering on any potential bidders. “C’mon, bidders! It’s still a deal! A great vintage piece of gear you WANT to buy! C’mon and SNIPE ME!!!” But, nothing.

So my new ADA MP-1 arrived today.

For background: I’m building a little rack unit, my first. I got a couple of effects (SPX90 and Midiverb II) for my regular setup, and a rack case for the two of them, and decided I was going to build an auxiliary rack unit, since I was much of the way there. I don’t have any experience with racks, or even amps that aren’t combos -- I’ve got an overhauled SF Bassman Ten that I adore, it’s my main sound. Big, rich, dark, clean clean clean, and sonically sturdy. I decided that if I was gonna build a rack, it was going to be tailored to my shoegaze/punk tastes, but I don't want to duplicate my "pedals/amp" setup. I knew I wanted something on the more “Marshall-y” end of things to compliment my Fender combo. However, that isn’t the sound I most need it for -- but more on that in a sec. So initially, I was drawn to the Marshall 9001. However, if I planned on spending a little more, either the MP-1 or Marshall JMP-1 seemed like my best bets. But the JMP-1 was significantly above my target price range. (Hence my eyeing the 9001 first.)

Anyway, I went to go see Agent Orange recently, and their sound was just blistering. I'd seen 'em before and they sounded great, but this was fire. Big, loud, blazing surf-punk. Just totally righteous, full-bodied, shear-your-head-off guitar. Right up my alley. It looked to me like Mike Palm was playing a pair of 4x12 Orange cabs with a little 4U rack on top -- with an MP-1 and a Quadraverb. (Not to mention playing with a shattered picking wrist all night!) That did it. I was sold. An MP-1 was clearly the preamp for my new rack setup. I could do clean in two ways, and could do a big crunchy Marshall-esque sound with a very particular and distinctive chorus as an option. The fact that it was popular back in the era of shoegaze helped, and that it was good enough (and common enough!) to use for consistency on an MBV tour. And finally, the fact that the MP-1 I ordered INCLUDES the footswitch, which seems to be about $100 itself online, though I realize it’s nothing special. This one's got crud and crusty masking tape with song names all over it, but it'll be refurb-able to a decent state.

I’m planning to complete the rack with a power amp and an an R2DU. My ultimate goal is to have a self-contained rack that's able to cover the majority of my “shoegaze” tones for home, recording and occasional gigs. There are really only two tones I use a bunch. The first is the “glide guitar” style into an SPX90’s reverse reverb into a Rat. So I’ll need a Rat (or some other distortion/gain unit) after the Yamaha. The other tone I use is basically just “slathered in reverb”. It can be clean or high-gain, for which I tend to use a Rat, but also want to experiment with the ADA’s distortion. I can then use the SPX-90 to candy-coat with modulation (flange, pitch shift, or symphonic chorus), and then drown it in Midiverb II. (or just double down on reverb!)

I bought a nice 6U rack case after I'd sat down and figured out everything I’d want out of a rack setup, so I wouldn’t short myself space. Which I did anyway, by not considering that I’d want a power conditioner. (Damn it.) That essentially leaves me only 1U for a power amp. Oh, well. I honestly don't plan on upgrading the case, so I'll just deal and figure something out.

1) I need a power amp, even as a temporary fix. I've got a weird old 2x12 closed-back cab from the '70s I rewired to 4ohm. Seems to work well enough, so I've got the cab covered. I need something cheap, just to get me playable until I can optimize this rack to how I like it. Does anyone have any suggestions in the bottom-barrel, lowest-end price range to tide me over until I can save up for an ADA Microtube 200 (my preferred choice at this point for a 1U tube power amp, but I'm open to suggestions in the sub-$300 range). Right now my best shot is probably a Behringer or something until I can save up for something better, I guess.

2 - I've taken some time to start learning over at ADA Depot. It's a wonderful wealth of info. But all the setting suggestions for this seem to be based on admiration for that long-haired shredder dude from Extreme or full thrash riot. Hey, that's cool and all, but I got this as a punker/shoegazer. I can't thrash for $#!+. The tube clean seems Fender-ish, the Distortion channel seems Marshall-ish (which is new to me), and the solid state seems JC120-ish. Anyone have any preset suggestions for gaze-y alternatones? Since I prefer a Rat for my gain sounds, what's the best way to set up the tube clean channel to use as a pedal platform that won't start getting dirty too early? Is the solid state sound as above-average as I've heard? I've always been a tube player, so please, enlighten me as an offsetter!

I'm already zeroing in on some of that crunchy surf-punk. And by the by, the fact that this thing can basically provide only "crunch" and "chorus" makes it about the most "'80s hard rockin'" thing I've ever heard, even with a Jazzmaster. I'm afraid to push it with hum buckers, lest my hair magically poof it's way six inches off my head.

3) I think I've got a scratchy Output Level pot, and the whole thing needs a little love, but it doesn't seem broken. But while i've been poring over the manual (the thing just arrived while I was writing this post), I don't understand why when I head to some banks of presets, I get no sound at all. Are they blank? I did a factory reset and it seems to play fine through the early presets. A lightning storm cut short my testing -- I didn't wanna die for a rack setup. If those slots are not "blank-unless-programmed", is there a setting I'm missing / something screwy I need to look at?

Anyway, thanks for reading, and thanks in advance for any advice. This is my first new amp in nine years, and I didn't expect it to be as exciting to dive into as it is. Despite my not knowing what I'm doing, and not having a proper power amp to play it through.

I've also learned my lesson. No more "spite bidding" in the afterglow of a tipsy afternoon.

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mackerelmint
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Re: NAD: ADA MP-1 (My First Preamp!), and Questions

Post by mackerelmint » Thu Jul 13, 2017 12:41 am

hahahaaa, congrats on your win!


Basically, look under the hood at the tubes. What are in there? The way to minimize big hair marshall spandex pants top end sizzle is to start with JJ tubes or something along those lines. Any sort of "less hot, tamed treble response" kind of tube is gonna go far in those things. Beyond that, you just have to put in the work with those MP units and be willing to spend some time dialing in your sounds. You're ahead of the game with the MP-1, because there are way fewer voicings and effects and variables to contend with than with the MP-2, which I had one of for years. Great preamp, I kinda miss it.
This is an excellent rectangle

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Re: NAD: ADA MP-1 (My First Preamp!), and Questions

Post by MrShake » Thu Jul 13, 2017 2:20 pm

mackerelmint wrote:hahahaaa, congrats on your win!


Basically, look under the hood at the tubes. What are in there? The way to minimize big hair marshall spandex pants top end sizzle is to start with JJ tubes or something along those lines. Any sort of "less hot, tamed treble response" kind of tube is gonna go far in those things. Beyond that, you just have to put in the work with those MP units and be willing to spend some time dialing in your sounds. You're ahead of the game with the MP-1, because there are way fewer voicings and effects and variables to contend with than with the MP-2, which I had one of for years. Great preamp, I kinda miss it.

All great info, thanks!

I opened it up today, and took some gut shots, just for kicks. As you can see, it’s ROM v. 2.00, and it’s got some 7025/12AX7WB Sovtek tubes in there. I’m no expert on tubes -- I don’t imagine these are original, I guess? If not, how would they compare with whatever was in there stock?

And as far as my weird problems, I think I’ve figured it out. After turning it off for a while, it does a “system check" at startup and it seems like a the patches get "zeroed out", settings-wise. It seems to do a full "system scan" through all 128 patches and the 3 errors most every time I turn it on, so maybe it doesn't have the juice to automatically load them from the chip? Hence my not getting any sound at times? Maybe? It’s been making it really hard to give it a proper test run. But it seems like if I do a system reset (press Store, then hold Bank and press 1), I can eventually get the stock patches up and running. When I do, it sounds great, and it’s fun to sit around in my music room playing chunky riff-rock instead of smear-y shoegaze. The high-gain/heavy chorus settings have a very, very distinctive sound that are fun to screw with for the first time.

So, I ordered a battery replacement and clip, figuring that it’s just not able to store and recall the ROM. We’ll see, but I'm hoping it should fix my issues. (The ones that aren’t “not having a power amp”.) I'm clumsy with an iron, but competent enough I should be able to handle this.

I’ve been alternately trying it though a cheap PA system’s line-in (with terrible, boxy speakers) or my Bassman Ten at low levels, just to get some air moving through cones. Though, luckily, until I finish the rest of this rig, it's mostly going to be a recording machine, so once the issues I'm having are hashed out, I figure I'm good to go. Here's some proof I'm not just making all this up.

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Oh my god... what am I doing?!?

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(Incidentally, those last settings result in a pretty "epic" tone, in one way or another.)

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