Obtainable amps you;re kicking yourself for not buying when they first came out.

[Sirion]

Rose colored glasses. I've owned two. Really high noise floor. All those patches but it gets two basic sounds: clean and shred.

I think they are commanding high prices because ******bag streamers are using them for background props. Like having three of them in a rack gives them 80s cred.

If you want better rack pres from that era, Rocktron Piranha or Rocktron Pro Gap.

I will have to disagree on this one. I own two MP-1s, and I am having a third one reconstructed. To be fair, the channel switching thing was a bit gimmicky, but I think that their use as a mid-gain unit using the tube clean channel is greatly overlooked (IDK why, people might be fooled by the channel name?), but suffice it to say that they were good enough for AC/DC to adopt them for a while. But yeah, the unit lives on the distortion sound, and it has a certain greasiness to it that I have failed to achieve with any other unit. I can't comment on the Rocktron stuff, but I've owned units like the Peavey RockMaster and all the Marshall units from that era, and ended up selling them all because I preferred the ADA.

[Sirion]

I wish i bought an ADA MP-1 when they were selling for £100-150 a few years back. Now theyre £5-600 or have been poorly modded.

I must admit that I have a certain loathing for the modding scene here. The MP-1s are such a limited resource in the first place, and there really isn't anything quite like them. Why use THAT as your foundation to emulate a 5150, which is common as dirt?

[Securb]

Can't believe we made it this far without mentioning Sunn. I have a 90s model T 4x12 I paid about $100 to get, and a first-generation model T I paid $300 for. That head sells for more than $4k regularly nowadays.

I recently saw a Beta Lead in a little music store in NH at a decent price. I passed on it even though I was thinking about all the great tones Jon Butcher pulled out of his.

[Toe-Knee]

I must admit that I have a certain loathing for the modding scene here. The MP-1s are such a limited resource in the first place, and there really isn't anything quite like them. Why use THAT as your foundation to emulate a 5150, which is common as dirt?

Yup. Irritating. I don't mind some mods. Reducing noise etc but hacking them into a poor facsimile of a commonly available amp really bugs me.

[Top-L]

I will have to disagree on this one. I own two MP-1s, and I am having a third one reconstructed. To be fair, the channel switching thing was a bit gimmicky, but I think that their use as a mid-gain unit using the tube clean channel is greatly overlooked (IDK why, people might be fooled by the channel name?), but suffice it to say that they were good enough for AC/DC to adopt them for a while. But yeah, the unit lives on the distortion sound, and it has a certain greasiness to it that I have failed to achieve with any other unit. I can't comment on the Rocktron stuff, but I've owned units like the Peavey RockMaster and all the Marshall units from that era, and ended up selling them all because I preferred the ADA.

I much preferred the RockMaster, in fact any of the Peavy Ultra amps. The Rocktron Piranha is better imo than the MP1, it has three sounds (one with a gain stage removed), and the EQ is much more useful with sweepable mid parametric. And it has hush built in.

It has it's sound and can do a few things. But there is a reason everyone sold them off and you could get them for < $200 for two decades.

I think the MP-1 was the first of its kind, a merger of midi tech into a hot rodded marshall circuit, so at that time it was a very cool thing. In 1987 there weren't many amps that could do the MP-1 thing stock. As far a a useful piece of gear in 2022?? Like I said its distinctive look makes it popular with streamers who want 80s cred.

[LLL]

There's no real need to mod the ADA MP-1, except for the coin battery section.

Comes stock with a coin battery soldered to the board itself (which goes dead after ~20 years). Replace with a retrofit coin battery holder, new battery and you're good to go.

I have the 1.38 version, all stock except I did the coin battery holder mod... had it since 1989. Need more gain? Slap a stompbox in front (Nuno used a RAT).

[Sirion]

It has it's sound and can do a few things. But there is a reason everyone sold them off and you could get them for < $200 for two decades.

I think the MP-1 was the first of its kind, a merger of midi tech into a hot rodded marshall circuit, so at that time it was a very cool thing. In 1987 there weren't many amps that could do the MP-1 thing stock. As far a a useful piece of gear in 2022?? Like I said its distinctive look makes it popular with streamers who want 80s cred.

I think this is basically the story of a lot of eighties gear, be it MP-1s, Rockman stuff, Kramers and Peavey Vandenbergs: they got heinously unpopular for a while with the in-crowd, accumulated a niche audience of fans and exploded once the eighties nostalgia wave reached them, to the point where they are now approaching their original price and people are looking into making modern recreations of them.

For what it is worth, I'm not familiar with anything today that quite does the MP-1 thing. It has a certain smoothness to it that, for want of a more accurate description, has a very desirable sound for integrating percussive techniques and harmonics (even at lower gain) into your playing. I just haven't found any amp that makes palm muting jump out like that, and for something like Nuno's stuff that is important. Hot-rodded Marshall may be part of its DNA, but my JCM 800 or JVM certainly don't do the trick, nor did the RockMaster that I let go. So you can blame YouTubers all you want, but honestly I think that a lot of the crowd interested in them have been around for almost two decades if not more by now.

[Sirion]

There's no real need to mod the ADA MP-1, except for the coin battery section.

Comes stock with a coin battery soldered to the board itself (which goes dead after ~20 years). Replace with a retrofit coin battery holder, new battery and you're good to go.

I have the 1.38 version, all stock except I did the coin battery holder mod... had it since 1989. Need more gain? Slap a stompbox in front (Nuno used a RAT).

Agreed. I have had mine noise modded, but this is a non-intrusive affair that doesn't change the sound of the unit, and mine needed some maintenance anyway. I have a hard time seeing why anybody would need more gain than what is already on tap in them.

[Top-L]

I think this is basically the story of a lot of eighties gear, be it MP-1s, Rockman stuff, Kramers and Peavey Vandenbergs: they got heinously unpopular for a while with the in-crowd, accumulated a niche audience of fans and exploded once the eighties nostalgia wave reached them, to the point where they are now approaching their original price and people are looking into making modern recreations of them.

For what it is worth, I'm not familiar with anything today that quite does the MP-1 thing. It has a certain smoothness to it that, for want of a more accurate description, has a very desirable sound for integrating percussive techniques and harmonics (even at lower gain) into your playing. I just haven't found any amp that makes palm muting jump out like that, and for something like Nuno's stuff that is important. Hot-rodded Marshall may be part of its DNA, but my JCM 800 or JVM certainly don't do the trick, nor did the RockMaster that I let go. So you can blame YouTubers all you want, but honestly I think that a lot of the crowd interested in them have been around for almost two decades if not more by now.

If its that important to your sound, I'm certain that someone has duplicated the circuit and is selling a modern incarnation.

My belief about the MP-1 is that it doesnt have as many gain stages, but the ones it has a very hot, so rather than getting super saturated like a Peavy Ultra, it stays open.

[Metalman_666]

Back when I was getting serious about guitar and wanted to level up my gear, I had a chance to buy a used Peavey Ultra Plus head with footswitch. Still haven't looked for another or tried one since, but I have always been curious.

Ended up with the Triple XXX instead which was sweet for a few years!

Then a few years ago, I had a buddy working at local music store (Sherwood) give me a tip in advance of their annual Midnight Madness sale that a mint 6505 head was going for $550 CAD. I told him not to put it aside and decided I'd go to check it out that night. By the time I showed it up was gone!

Sent from my SM-F926W using Tapatalk

[Erlend_G]

That 15/7,5w Ampeg 6v6 combo w/ spring reverb. It was only made for a short time.

I was about to order it; it cost about 800USD. Then, I blew my money on drugs. The next month, it was discontinued :/

Got my Blackstar HT-20mkII instead; which is...fine. But the digital verb sucks.

...then, found the Ampeg used for half a fortune.

[soulforger]

I did'nt mess with that at all so I can't say. I played it briefly but it sounded phenomenal on every setting I tried.. the EQ was very responsive. Then I asked him if he'd be interested in selling it by any chance & he was'nt...so that was that. Damn.. I really did like how it sounded & felt

I had one of these! Great little amp! Dynamics and Tone are basically resonance and presence respectively. Built in pre boost based on Tony's famous treble booster and a power level feature to take it down to 1 watt and even 1/4 watt if I remember right, plus a headphone/line out, Tony wanted this for backstage warming up! Can't remember why I sold mine but I wish I still had it!