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vintage mutron III

groooooove

groooooove

Supporting Member
Dec 17, 2008
9,047
6,894
Long Island, NY
#1
ive been becomming a bit of a filter connosour lately. obviously, every filter ever made, is being compared to the original mutron III...

is the mutron III hype just because it was the first, the one that everyone used, or is it really THAT good? ive never plugged into one, but obviously have heard tons of recordings with it, be it jerry garcia, bootsy, stevie, what have you.

considering how many great filters can be had for ~$200 im not sure if it would ever be worth it to drop $500+ just to have "the one" that will consume half your pedalboard and need custom power..

so in short, to those of you who have one/have used one, is it worth the hype?
 
#2
Is it a great filter? Absolutely. Is it worth it to you in terms of price/board space/possible maintenance? Only you can answer that. I know that I still kick myself for not grabbing markjazzbassists lsound modded (TBP) Mutron III when he listed it here.

It is a much more versatile filter than I first thought it would be and it just has this great smoothness and warmth to it. On the other hand, I got an original DOD FX25 and a Maxon AF-9 for quite a bit less and was nearly as happy with those two for wet, funky sounds. It's all a matter of taste.

One thing I will say is that I have been disappointed with a lot of vintage pedals I've tried, even ones that many people frequently praise. But the Musitronics stuff has lived up to the hype. Their octave, filter and phaser (the phasor II anyway, haven't tried the original Phasor) are all amazing IMO.

The only one that disappointed me was the flanger. It was fine, but really it's only valued because of its rarity. As flangers go there are quite a few that I think are better.
 
#3
But the Musitronics stuff has lived up to the hype. Their octave said:
how does that octave track on the lower notes, lets say below the "A" string.




of course the mutron III is in a class by its self. to say its better is up to you sound wise. it is versatile and unique. but for a lot less you can have similar sounds with more reliability and space savings.

i have settled into using the q-tron and occasionally my aw-3 or syth-wah for smaller pedal boards, but at a reduced sound quality.
unless a pedal is not tracking or not working the sound it makes is subjective to ones own ears.
i like some cheap pedals because of that low-fi sound they put out. other times i want to hear clarity and tone.
Click to expand...
 
#4
IMO the Mutron III is worth the hype and the price (within reason), it really is that good, and that much better-sounding than most of the modern competition. That said, they are frequently found in disrepair and out of spec, sounding dirtier and fartier than you'd expect. And the bypass is poor. So a recapped, cleaned, calibrated, and true-bypass-modded Mutron III is worth its weight in gold. I ended up selling mine just because I didn't have the patience for having it reworked, and the only company that could do it that I know of at the time was in the UK. Since then I've learned that there are other more local options, and more people have started offering that type of service, and in fact I could do it myself. So in the long run I shouldn't have sold it.

All that said, my old '80s Ibanez AF-9 and UE-303B were pretty dang close in quality and flavor.
 
#5
TheBigO said:
Is it a great filter? Absolutely. Is it worth it to you in terms of price/board space/possible maintenance? Only you can answer that. I know that I still kick myself for not grabbing markjazzbassists lsound modded (TBP) Mutron III when he listed it here.

It is a much more versatile filter than I first thought it would be and it just has this great smoothness and warmth to it. On the other hand, I got an original DOD FX25 and a Maxon AF-9 for quite a bit less and was nearly as happy with those two for wet, funky sounds. It's all a matter of taste.

One thing I will say is that I have been disappointed with a lot of vintage pedals I've tried, even ones that many people frequently praise. But the Musitronics stuff has lived up to the hype. Their octave, filter and phaser (the phasor II anyway, haven't tried the original Phasor) are all amazing IMO.

The only one that disappointed me was the flanger. It was fine, but really it's only valued because of its rarity. As flangers go there are quite a few that I think are better.
Click to expand...

i've been using my lime green DOD fx25 for wet and funky stuff too. i have a fear of it tearing the life out of every speaker i play it into, though. gotta set the "range" kind of low to be comfortable playing it into my cabs, or get a compressor- wich takes away the funky character IMO

so its plausable to think that the original mutron really is the king, and its not just hype? (sound-wise)
 
#7
bongomania said:
If the compressor is designed to be an effective peak limiter, then it should not affect the funky character.

My favorite filter to date is the old FX25 through an Xotic X-Blender into a nice peak limiter.
Click to expand...

Yeah, somebody on this board was going to build an FX25 clone with a built in blend and limiter. I wish I could remember who that was . . .


;)
 
#8
I have owned 2 of these vintage Mutrons.
The first I bought in Vienna, Austria (a city crammed with music shops) for $150.
This was an earlier unit that came without a power source. It sounded ok at first but got progressively dirtier sounding with use. Without true bypass the initial volume spike was painful. At one point I dissassembled it and couldn't for the life of me reassemble it.
These early units chow 9 volt batteries - and the device takes 2 of them. It also has a really arcane 3 pin input jack for the external power supply.

I have a local electronics wizard who can read schematics like I read english. He was able to reassemble it, and advised me that the circuit in this thing was an ancient oddball that takes 9 volts pos off one battery and 9 volts neg off the other. I had assumed it was an 18 volt power supply - but I am clearly not a technical electronics geek. Anyway - he had that arcane 3 pin jack in his parts stash and after I went online and found the right circuit (which I ordered) he crafted an external power supply for me.

Once rigged, my first mutron III sounded ok - pretty rich, but still spikey and a bit tough to control.

I sold this unit to someone in Chicago for $300 a few years ago.

In the interim, I found another for sale in SF via Craigslist for yet another $150. This one had problems in that the envelope only worked one way. Instead of wah it sorta went "owp." This one was hard wired with a built in power supply and I think was a coupla years younger than my first.

My tech friend was able to make this thing fully operational and the richness and consistency of it is remarkable. It did crap out on my once in the last few years and had to have an IC replaced but it's all good now.

I also own a 30 yr old Ibanez AF pedal and it's pretty darn good too - but not quite as silky and warm as the Mutron.

I use it in my effects chain for both bass and guitar. I play a Dlx American J Bass > Mutron III > Boss OC 2 (Octave) > Subdecay QuaZar Phaser > TC Electronics Chorus > Digitech Whammy IV > Danelectro Fab Tone (Distortion) > Carl Martin Compressor > Eden WTX 260 with 210 XLT cab.

The Mutron is huge fun and very vowelly - but from my experience, I'd say the Carl Martin compression is key to making the Mutron sound good - as when the compression threshold is tweaked right, the warm, juicy vowelliness markedly increases.

My .02
Silvertone
SF, CA
 
#11
I bought one expecting to be slightly underwhelmed, given the hype. I wasn't - it blows the other 5-6 filters I own out of the water. Many filters take too much tweaking to find a usable filter tone but the Mu-tron III is usable on just about any low pass setting.

The Haz labs version is a really good unit too, but it just doesn't have the class/funk of the original.
 
#12
On the inexpensive side of things, one that I actually like is the Boss Dynamic Filter FT-2. NOWHERE NEAR A MUTRON III...(none are!)...but very simple and unique sounding with bass. There are a few sweet spots. It can also be dialed back to add a nice, subtle effect especially on the "down" sweep. The Q-Tron is pretty cool, too, but the FT-2 definitely has a sound of it's own (and can be found really cheap; well under $100).
 
#13
I really didn't care for the FT-2... now, TW-1, that was fun :) But for not much more, I got an Ibanez AF-9, which is the best filter I've had. I have to tweak the trimpots a bit more, for the down sweep, but I got lovely up sweep possibilities (in the LP mode) - from DUB to quack. I really don't care much for the BP and HP modes, but maybe I need to tweak it further, to make them usable... if someone wants to be cheap, I'd say a DOD FX25 or Guyatone BR-2 is the way to go...

I'd love it if Maxon made a "vintage series" filter pedal, un upgrade from the AF-9, make it 18V if necessary and basically a Mutron sounding Mutron clone, hehe

which is a good question - why are there no Mutron sounding Mutron clones? what is so special about the original that no-one can copy?
 
#14
sikamikanico said:
which is a good question - why are there no Mutron sounding Mutron clones? what is so special about the original that no-one can copy?
Click to expand...

If I had to guess, it is probably due to subtleties of the old original components. It's in the same category as how some guitarists hunt for vintage pedals with germanium transistors, looking for that germanium sound...

As for me and filters: I already have a Bassballs, but it is somewhat limited, and I'm not going to take out a second mortgage to get an original Mutron. With my financial limits in mind, I am currently debating between either one of the Q-Tron family (though the talk about volume spikes scares me) or a EBS BassIQ.
 
#15
NortyFiner said:
As for me and filters: I already have a Bassballs, but it is somewhat limited, and I'm not going to take out a second mortgage to get an original Mutron. With my financial limits in mind, I am currently debating between either one of the Q-Tron family (though the talk about volume spikes scares me) or a EBS BassIQ.
Click to expand...

if volume spikes bother you, i have a feeling you should try the BassIQ
 
#16
I might be offering one for sale, I just rebuilt it and cleaned the pots and it sounds great again. I used a midi connector to replace the old 3 pin power supply. I did have to replace 2 knobs since it was sitting in a to be repaired box for several years.
I have no idea what I should ask for it though, any clues?

On another note I used to have the octave pedal too and while it wasn't great on the low E but on everything else it sounds tremendous and tracks like a dream.
Dirk
 
#19
you know, i was really hoping for people to post saying they tried it and diddnt like it.

just when i thought i was happy with my lime green DOD, if you guys say its worth the hype, i may need to start looking.

how hard is it to mod for true bypass? i have a friend in mind who might be able to do it.

what is the actual value of them these days? they seem to sell for 400-600 ish, is that about right?
 
#20
The Groove Regulator from 3 Leaf is another filter you should try. No volume spike, no tone suck, and filled with ooey-gooey-funky-stunky-munky-juice.:D
NortyFiner said:
If I had to guess, it is probably due to subtleties of the old original components. It's in the same category as how some guitarists hunt for vintage pedals with germanium transistors, looking for that germanium sound...

As for me and filters: I already have a Bassballs, but it is somewhat limited, and I'm not going to take out a second mortgage to get an original Mutron. With my financial limits in mind, I am currently debating between either one of the Q-Tron family (though the talk about volume spikes scares me) or a EBS BassIQ.
Click to expand...
 

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