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The Mutron Club : only quacks allowed...

johnk_10, have you ever owned/tried the first Mu-Tron Phasor? There are some who swear it's deeper and better than the Phasor II. Have you had experience with both?

Whoever else is reading this post, feel free to give your opinion if you've tried both the Mu-Tron Phasor and Phasor II.

I had the first version years ago when they first came out, but sold it a looooong time ago. between the two versions, i've always preferred the phasor II though. I don't remember the first version having a deeper or better tone, but it's been more than 25 years since I sold mine.
 
I had the first version years ago when they first came out, but sold it a looooong time ago. between the two versions, i've always preferred the phasor II though. I don't remember the first version having a deeper or better tone, but it's been more than 25 years since I sold mine.


It doesn't have a deeper better tone. But it's a pretty great phase pedal. I messed around with mine last night more and it can be very subtle if you set it right. Some of the slower phase settings were pretty amazing.
 
I was messing around with one of MuTron IIIs this afternoon and I noticed something kind of bizarre about it. The best quack, lightsaber I could get would be when I didn't have my volume on my passive-J-bass all the way up. Yet it seems to really like a hot signal (part of the reason why Garcia developed an on-board effects loop). Anyone else notice this with there's?

When I have the volume all the way up, I get some quack but it is almost more of a filter affected overdrive sound (absolutely killer - don't get me wrong). But if I want the real Stevie Wonder, Bootsy Collins space wah sound, I need to turn my volume down a bit.
 
my friend made a clone for me. used the neutron circuit as a starting point. he purposely left the labels off the dials and switches so that i'd have to figure them out based on what i understood about the circuit =P. i've figured out upper left is level, lower right is sensitivity, upper right is Q (i think) switch on the left is up/down sweep. the rest i just fiddle with till it sounds 'right.' you can hear it used by my guitarist at a recent recording/jam session -
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he has a robot that he programs to etch circuit boards
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and here is the board in my purple box of quacky funk
circuit.jpg
 
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my friend made a clone for me. used the neutron circuit as a starting point. he purposely left the labels off the dials and switches so that i'd have to figure them out based on what i understood about the circuit =P. i've figured out upper left is level, lower right is sensitivity, upper right is Q (i think) switch on the left is up/down sweep. the rest i just fiddle with till it sounds 'right.' you can hear it used by my guitarist at a recent recording/jam session

Nice one dude. Do you want a number?
 
Hey I have a quick question for people that have the original Mu-Tron III and have used it with batteries. How long did you notice the pair of batteries lasted if you remembered to turn the unit off when you were done?

I am a bit maniacal about changing batteries and I wonder if I am wasting significant cash. Also - fair to assume that you can leave it connected and not drain battery power since it has a power switch?

Many thanks
 
Never trusted them, but I was playing 4 hr gigs 6-7 days a week for years.

So you never used them? You changed them every time? The bitch for me is that being here in Europe with 220 volt power, I need to bring a power converter to run the power supply of either of my Mu-Trons. And the light power converters that I don't mind bringing to gigs SOUND LIKE CRAP and infect the rest of my board. So that's a no go. Batteries obviously don't. Our gig yesterday meant that I didn't turn my gear off for 6 hours - it was a pretty relaxed and yet LONG affair - and the Mu-Tron still sounded fine.

SUCH A BUMMER. I can't wait to get the clone.... I hope it sounds half as good as I hope....

By the way - did you ever get a hold of Richard? I need to buy one of those power cables form him and they are out of stock on his site. That would solve my entire issue.
 
No, I always used the (now AWOL) power supply. As modified there is no battery holder - just pots and switches.

No response as of yet from Richard. I'd like a new power supply anyways - probably more reliable than one from the mid-70s.

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I dig my original Phasor II so much that I wanted to try and hand build a slightly smaller one on veroboard that runs on a standard center negative 9V supply. the trouble is with all of those chips and vactrols it was a real PIA!
I finished drawing up the vero and it's still pretty huge, and hopefully I didn't make any errors, so i'm still going to try and build it anyway.
 
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I dig my original Phasor II so much that I wanted to try and hand build a slightly smaller one on veroboard that runs on a standard center negative 9V supply. the trouble is with all of those chips and vactrols it was a real PIA!
I finished drawing up the vero and it's still pretty huge, and hopefully I didn't make any errors, so i'm still going to try and build it anyway.
BUILD TWO!!!! Please!!
 
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I don't know. this is definitely the largest, most complicated & difficult build that I've done so far. it took my hours just to draw it up so I certainly do hope that it works.
I really want to attempt this as well to complete my Mutron Clone trifecta (Octave, Filter), plus I'm looking at doing a phaser/flanger build. Couldn't find any PCBs or layouts for it, but from what I could see it looked to be pretty complicated. Keep us informed.