Mike Pope Design MPP-1 Review

[JimmyM]

I'm glad your first impressions are what they are. That's a good sign! I think this thing is really clean without being sterile.

One thing regarding your comment about paying so much for so little equipment (after your peek inside). I want to point out that making something that's complicated work well isn't nearly as hard as making something very, very simple work well. I've spent a lot of time trimming fat out of this design. The tiny circuit board is a huge part of why it sounds as good as it does. The traces are really short for the most part...and relatively wide. So inductance and capacitance don't build up where they don't belong.

This is a good point that's often lost on people used to "more more more." More isn't necessarily a good thing in a signal path. Everything the tone of your bass has to pass through adds capicitance and is just one more obstacle between it and your tone. I know that if I were buying a preamp, I'd be way more impressed and would want to pay more for a preamp that sounds great with a minimum of parts than stuffing a bunch of crap in there just to make the perceived value go up.

 

[wonkey cat]

This is a good point that's often lost on people used to "more more more." More isn't necessarily a good thing in a signal path. Everything the tone of your bass has to pass through adds capicitance and is just one more obstacle between it and your tone. I know that if I were buying a preamp, I'd be way more impressed and would want to pay more for a preamp that sounds great with a minimum of parts than stuffing a bunch of crap in there just to make the perceived value go up.

I totally agree.
What we want is the purest line from fingers/picks to speakers.No slowing down of the attack, no labels or expectations, just the sound from our souls. To find that will take a lot of hard work, I've found mine with an Aguilar DB680 into a QSC PLX 3120, into a Tech XT 610.

 

[kringle77]

Mike, thanks for taking my comments for what they are. I know that you probably would prefer folks not poking around under the hood so to speak but, I just had to see what was in there. I'm an electrical tech (high power) by trade and noticed how thick the traces are by the way. I know better than to be too curious and void the warranty. Im going to play some gigs with the preamp but already know that it's a keeper. At gig volume, Im pretty sure that I won't even have to dial in the low mid bump that I have had to summon with my other amps and preamps. The natural tone of my attitude basses are pretty burly. If after many gigs I feel the need to change something, I'll let you know. Please accept my compliments on MPP-1, it's the best pre that I have ever used. Actually, the more time I log with this red box, the more Im getting hooked on it. More reviews and pics of the rack will follow in a few weeks.

 

[NickyBass]

Oddly enough, I'm the only one who found this preamp to be 'plug-and-play.' Don't get me wrong, there are a TON of tonal options, and alot to explore, but it is very very easy to get a good tone out of the pre.

 

[emjazz]

You guys aren't helping.....

 

[freebeer]

I am the lucky guy who recieved the MPP-2. Sadly, I have not even fired it up yet. Been a busy weekend, but none the less I will get going on setting it up tonight and hopefully be able to spend a lot of time with it in the next few days to get the initial feel of the thing.

As for appearance, Mike described it already. It looks great, very clean, very well put together and is laid out nicely.

I am going to start with a QSC RMX2450 power amp for now but may switch it out for a lighter one in the future.

I'll post up a review and pictures if anyone wants to see it or if Mike hasn't done so already.

 

[Jazzdogg]

I am the lucky guy who recieved the MPP-2. Sadly, I have not even fired it up yet. Been a busy weekend, but none the less I will get going on setting it up tonight and hopefully be able to spend a lot of time with it in the next few days to get the initial feel of the thing.

As for appearance, Mike described it already. It looks great, very clean, very well put together and is laid out nicely.

I am going to start with a QSC RMX2450 power amp for now but may switch it out for a lighter one in the future.

I'll post up a review and pictures if anyone wants to see it or if Mike hasn't done so already.

Does it look as though it will be easy to see the controls and adjust them quickly on a dark stage? It's hard to tell from the pictures I've seen.

 

[kringle77]

FreeBeer, How can you wait like that?

 

[chadds]

FYI, I spent some time with the Berg IP's recently because people had been suggesting them as a good mate for this preamp. That little 112 is killer. I actually liked the 212 better than all of them, but he has apparently discontinued them. It's a shame because that's one bad a$$ cabinet. Anyway, the 112 is great, BUT I really hated the DSP in it. Jim tunes the cabinet to "flat" with the DSP front-end which seems like a good idea. But in practice it sounds FAR better just running with the DSP off...or "amplifier flat" and not trying to compensate for the natural sound of the speaker. It's a great sounding and musical cabinet...it doesn't need the help.

You might have been putting too much of that illustrious pre into it. Les Izmore is really the trick with IPs. It took some of us a while to figure it out. The cabs sound great. The DSP allows them to accomplish greater spls while delivering that great reproduction. The reason some folks are using eq less channel strips is because you don't need to tweak the IPs to adjust for intrinsic weaknesses.

 

[thepontif]

Believe me when I tell you that I know how to pragmatically test a piece of equipment. Just because I build and design preamps, etc., doesn't mean that I have some wierd propensity for using obscene levels of EQ or something. Quite the contrary.

I'm not putting the IP's down! I loved them...particularly the 212. I just didn't like the DSP. I wouldn't make any comment about any piece of gear unless I had given it a fair shake. I always start with any piece of equipment flat when I'm assessing it. My preamp is really flat when it's set that way...within a small fraction of a dB from 20 to 20k. Accomplishing greater SPL's is great, but it my opinion if that's the goal, you need more speakers and/or amplifier power. The DSP is probably a great solution given the compromises being made, i.e. size and weight, but it's a compromise. Loud doesn't mean much all by itself.

I remember playing with Sanborn once at Jazz Alley. Bass northwest graciously provided an Epifani 410UL cabinet for me. While it was plenty loud, it was unsatisfactory from everyone's perspective because the low end wasn't extended enough. I had to put a 15 under it to make the system work from a musical standpoint. Being heard wasn't the problem at all. I played there again with Dave a few months ago and I used a 212UL which does not deliver the SPL's the 410 does. But it hammered the gig all by itself.

The other thing is, and I know people are going to argue with me on this, but there is NO SUCH THING AS A FLAT TRANSDUCER. Transduction is literally a convolution. The voltage trickling out of the end of your PU is a very, very loose analogy for the movement of the bass string...and from a very narrow perspective relative to the whole picture of the vibration of that string. By the same token, trying to convince yourself that a piece of paper attached to a coil moving back and forth in a magnetic field is going to make a larger version of the compressional waves in the air that are produced by a vibrating string is an exercise in superstition IMO.

Flat makes a lot of sense when you're talking about a low level front end. You're taking a relatively weenie signal and jacking it up to a higher voltage and providing some drive current in the interest of dumping a more robust duplicate of the original stream of electrons into a more demanding load. This is a pretty linear relationship and given careful layout and design it can be very, very nearly realized in an exact way. That's the one point in the chain you really have a chance at not screwing up the signal between the input and the output.

And don't think I'm not saying the IP's aren't great. They are, in every way except that the DSP doesn't help make them sound more musical. It helps in other ways, but if it's not a musical improvement, I don't care about it. I'm a musician so I guess that makes sense. Either way, using EQ to compensate for the natural sound of a speaker doesn't make sense to me, because I've never heard it work. The TONE of your speaker is what it is and is as much a determining factor in your sound as the inherent sound of your bass, IMO. If the system totally misses it without any serious electronic intervention, you need to look at changing the chain at the ends where the convolutions are.

It's like an artist mixing colors. If you want purple why would you start with orange and try to filter out yellow, then mix it with lavender that you've tried to darken by adding black? It'll probably look kind of purple-gray.

I'd suggest you spend some time playing through the IP with the DSP off and an absolute minimum of intervention. Try running straight from your bass (provided it's active) into the IP and compare with the DSP on and off. Do it on the gig, though. Not at home. That's where all of this really matters.

And please don't feel that I'm trying to condescend or something. I've had these same conversations with bass players who are at a very, very high level in the biz. It's all part of the never-ending development process as musician/performers.

Trust me, I don't over-do this stuff. I take a conservative and pragmatic approach to these issues. It would have been in my best interest to gush over the IP's without qualification, but I'm more interested in being real. I may not make as much money in the short run that way, but I've always been a big picture guy like that.

 

[KJung]

Hey Mike,

I agree with most of the above. Some IP users seem to confuse the 'I really like the way these sound' (which is perfectly reasonable) with 'these are the first pure, flat, totally accurate bass cabs ever' (which I surely don't hear). This becomes clear when you hear how different the 112, 310 and 212 sound.

However, I will just push back a little, little bit on the 410UL versus 212UL example you use. It's all about the mix and match. I always thought that about my original 410UL when I was using my Walter Woods Ultra with it. It sounded great, but just didn't quite have a 'presence' in the low end (my ear hears the 410UL as having very deep bass extension, but a bit of a hole in the lower mids which can make it sound a bit thin with some heads). When I switched to another brand of head, which while not having the wattage spec, seemed to deliver more 'ooomph' down low (especially in the low mids), the 410UL became a low end monster.

Some pairings bring out the best in each piece of gear, while others (IMO, the WW/410UL) seem to bring out the worst... i.e., matching frequency bumps and holes in the head with similar frequency bumps and holes in the cab.

Just IMO and IME there.

 

[emjazz]

Believe me when I tell you that I know how to pragmatically test a piece of equipment. Just because I build and design preamps, etc., doesn't mean that I have some wierd propensity for using obscene levels of EQ or something. Quite the contrary.

I'm not putting the IP's down! I loved them...particularly the 212. I just didn't like the DSP. I wouldn't make any comment about any piece of gear unless I had given it a fair shake. I always start with any piece of equipment flat when I'm assessing it. My preamp is really flat when it's set that way...within a small fraction of a dB from 20 to 20k. Accomplishing greater SPL's is great, but it my opinion if that's the goal, you need more speakers and/or amplifier power. The DSP is probably a great solution given the compromises being made, i.e. size and weight, but it's a compromise. Loud doesn't mean much all by itself.

I remember playing with Sanborn once at Jazz Alley. Bass northwest graciously provided an Epifani 410UL cabinet for me. While it was plenty loud, it was unsatisfactory from everyone's perspective because the low end wasn't extended enough. I had to put a 15 under it to make the system work from a musical standpoint. Being heard wasn't the problem at all. I played there again with Dave a few months ago and I used a 212UL which does not deliver the SPL's the 410 does. But it hammered the gig all by itself.

The other thing is, and I know people are going to argue with me on this, but there is NO SUCH THING AS A FLAT TRANSDUCER. Transduction is literally a convolution. The voltage trickling out of the end of your PU is a very, very loose analogy for the movement of the bass string...and from a very narrow perspective relative to the whole picture of the vibration of that string. By the same token, trying to convince yourself that a piece of paper attached to a coil moving back and forth in a magnetic field is going to make a larger version of the compressional waves in the air that are produced by a vibrating string is an exercise in superstition IMO.

Flat makes a lot of sense when you're talking about a low level front end. You're taking a relatively weenie signal and jacking it up to a higher voltage and providing some drive current in the interest of dumping a more robust duplicate of the original stream of electrons into a more demanding load. This is a pretty linear relationship and given careful layout and design it can be very, very nearly realized in an exact way. That's the one point in the chain you really have a chance at not screwing up the signal between the input and the output.

And don't think I'm not saying the IP's aren't great. They are, in every way except that the DSP doesn't help make them sound more musical. It helps in other ways, but if it's not a musical improvement, I don't care about it. I'm a musician so I guess that makes sense. Either way, using EQ to compensate for the natural sound of a speaker doesn't make sense to me, because I've never heard it work. The TONE of your speaker is what it is and is as much a determining factor in your sound as the inherent sound of your bass, IMO. If the system totally misses it without any serious electronic intervention, you need to look at changing the chain at the ends where the convolutions are.

It's like an artist mixing colors. If you want purple why would you start with orange and try to filter out yellow, then mix it with lavender that you've tried to darken by adding black? It'll probably look kind of purple-gray.

I'd suggest you spend some time playing through the IP with the DSP off and an absolute minimum of intervention. Try running straight from your bass (provided it's active) into the IP and compare with the DSP on and off. Do it on the gig, though. Not at home. That's where all of this really matters.

And please don't feel that I'm trying to condescend or something. I've had these same conversations with bass players who are at a very, very high level in the biz. It's all part of the never-ending development process as musician/performers.

Trust me, I don't over-do this stuff. I take a conservative and pragmatic approach to these issues. It would have been in my best interest to gush over the IP's without qualification, but I'm more interested in being real. I may not make as much money in the short run that way, but I've always been a big picture guy like that.

Thanks for the comments Mike. I for one have gone back and forth on buying an IP cab. While I like the idea, I also think that I'd be just as happy with one of Jim's extremely well designed cabinets and a separate power amp with a powerful preamp to dial it all in for each gig.....I just wish you could get a poweramp like Jim has in his IP's that's one space but sounds just as good. For me that would cut down on the weight of the cabinet and allow me to sling a two space rack over my shoulder. This way I could also bring the rack with me to gigs where a cabinet is provided. I'd also be able to use different Berg cabs for different gigs. This is what makes the most sense to me.

 

[thepontif]

Hey Mike,

I agree with most of the above. Some IP users seem to confuse the 'I really like the way these sound' (which is perfectly reasonable) with 'these are the first pure, flat, totally accurate bass cabs ever' (which I surely don't hear). This becomes clear when you hear how different the 112, 310 and 212 sound.

However, I will just push back a little, little bit on the 410UL versus 212UL example you use. It's all about the mix and match. I always thought that about my original 410UL when I was using my Walter Woods Ultra with it. It sounded great, but just didn't quite have a 'presence' in the low end (my ear hears the 410UL as having very deep bass extension, but a bit of a hole in the lower mids which can make it sound a bit thin with some heads). When I switched to another brand of head, which while not having the wattage spec, seemed to deliver more 'ooomph' down low (especially in the low mids), the 410UL became a low end monster.

Some pairings bring out the best in each piece of gear, while others (IMO, the WW/410UL) seem to bring out the worst... i.e., matching frequency bumps and holes in the head with similar frequency bumps and holes in the cab.

Just IMO and IME there.

Interesting. I haven't tried any other head with that 410/212 comparison. I guess I should.

 

[KJung]

Interesting. I haven't tried any other head with that 410/212 comparison. I guess I should.

There's just something not quite right with the Ultra and the UL's. You would think you could fatten up the lows with the semi-parametric EQ set to the lower mids/upper bass, but I never could quite make it work. Nick E. always suggested that you boost at around 250hz, but it never 'spoke to me'.

Interestingly, with the new Tech Amp Puma heads, the low mid is set at a center frequency of 250 hz, and just a slight boost there just totally fattens the low end and punch of the 410UL to my ear. So, it seems Nick is right (duh!) but maybe the Walter's semi-parametric mid has too narrow of a Q (I assume that control was designed with DB feedback in mind.

 

[chadds]

I didn't mean to suggest that the DSP in the IPs is to just get a lot of SPLs out of them. Nor did I think that you Mike might be going crazy on the eq.
They aren't magic and I know no matter what the gear one piece works better than another for each musician.
To the specifics I love the way the IPs sound direct, bass in but I like the DSP. I use so little eq it's crazy and I see why the line driver was a possibility. Except when you need it you need it.

 

[Andrew Jones]

Mike..


Do you use the on board EQ on your bass as well as the Pre's EQ or...?


Aj

 

[thepontif]

Thanks for the comments Mike. I for one have gone back and forth on buying an IP cab. While I like the idea, I also think that I'd be just as happy with one of Jim's extremely well designed cabinets and a separate power amp with a powerful preamp to dial it all in for each gig.....I just wish you could get a poweramp like Jim has in his IP's that's one space but sounds just as good. For me that would cut down on the weight of the cabinet and allow me to sling a two space rack over my shoulder. This way I could also bring the rack with me to gigs where a cabinet is provided. I'd also be able to use different Berg cabs for different gigs. This is what makes the most sense to me.

Well they're definitely worth the money. It's not like the DSP is a deal killer by any means. If I had one I'd just turn it off. No biggie. I played through the 112IP combined with the non-powered version of the 112, whatever that's called. It totally killed! Great rig, light, not TOO expensive, and still pretty flexible with the capability of hammering out some demanding gigs.

 

[thepontif]

I didn't mean to suggest that the DSP in the IPs is to just get a lot of SPLs out of them. Nor did I think that you Mike might be going crazy on the eq.
They aren't magic and I know no matter what the gear one piece works better than another for each musician.
To the specifics I love the way the IPs sound direct, bass in but I like the DSP. I use so little eq it's crazy and I see why the line driver was a possibility. Except when you need it you need it.

I get ya..."you betcha"....sorry....any time I'm at all colloquial I can't help but get all Palin on myself.

At the end of the day, what works works. No need to fix what's working. I just love to philosophize!

 

[thepontif]

Mike..


Do you use the on board EQ on your bass as well as the Pre's EQ or...?


Aj

I tend to use my rack pre to address the ends of the spectrum more than anything else to get it sounding big and open. I deal with the "color" parts at the bass EQ more, to be honest. The new Fodera internal is tuned really well to suit that purpose. The adjustments are always small. Always better to work into a good sound from a point of inconspicuousness than to work back from offensiveness IMO.

 

[John D Harris]

Thanks for the comments Mike. I for one have gone back and forth on buying an IP cab. While I like the idea, I also think that I'd be just as happy with one of Jim's extremely well designed cabinets and a separate power amp with a powerful preamp to dial it all in for each gig.....I just wish you could get a poweramp like Jim has in his IP's that's one space but sounds just as good. For me that would cut down on the weight of the cabinet and allow me to sling a two space rack over my shoulder. This way I could also bring the rack with me to gigs where a cabinet is provided. I'd also be able to use different Berg cabs for different gigs. This is what makes the most sense to me.

You might want to look at the PowerSoft amps.