Vintage pedals seem to always have a mysterious aura about them, whether there were only a few of one model made, or pedals made with certain inner chips no longer available, or obscure effects made famous by players who possessed them. Mu-Tron / Musitronics was known for creating incredible, state-of-the-art and technologically advanced effects back in the 1970’s, and their pedals were made popular by the likes of Jerry Garcia, Stevie Wonder, The Smashing Pumpkins and more. Today we’re going to take a look at perhaps one of their more underrated pedals, though I’m not quite sure why that is: the original Phasor.
This pedal is huge, but with a small control section. The Depth controls the amplitude of the modulation (the size of the range in which the effect sweeps) using 3 different setting (Low/Medium/High). Speed controls the rate of the LFO wave that controls the effect, with a range of 1-10 from slow to fast, letting you easily remember your settings, or where the speed sounds the best when mixed with the top Depth control. There’s also an On/Off switch as well, which I guess was necessary for the unit to function back in the day.
The Phasor is an incredible effects pedal, even if you’re not a huge phaser fan. You can get slight, slow-moving phase tones to add a little bit of girth to your tone, or you can crank up both controls and create some lush, swirling, vibrato-induced space-age sounds, creating entire new soundscapes and opening the doors of perception for a ton of sonic experimentation. Although you’ll probably have to move 2 or 3 pedals to enable it to fit on your board, the original Phasor is worth both the cash and the pedalboard real estate. Be sure to head over to the newly revived Mu-Fx website, headed up by Mike Beigel, inventor of the original Mu-Tron product line!
Specs:
Input Impedance: 390k ohm, unbalanced
Output Impedance: 600 ohms, unbalanced
Signal Handling Capability: 1V RMS, 2.8V P-P
Phasing Rate: 0.16Hz to 12Hz, continuously variable
AC Power Requirements: 115V AC, 60Hz, 5 watts
Weight: 3¾ pounds
Dimensions: 8¾” l. X 5″ w. X 3⅛” h.
Submitted by Mike B, Website
May 29, 2016
Thanks for your demo/review of the original Musitronics Mu-Tron Phasor (first model). . It uses different components to achieve the phase effect than the later Bi-Phase and Phasor 2. Apparently there is enough interest in the two distinctly different kinds of sounds produced by the different products to possibly warrant a re-issue of the “Phasor 1” as well as the others. We will be posting a request list on the Mu-FX website to see what the level of interest is, on all 3 products.
Assuming we do make re-issues, we might also scale the versatility and control complexity to suit 3 different tiers of product type.
Best,
Mike Beigel aka Mike Mu-Tron
May 29, 2016
Thanks, Mike! Honestly think all three of those pedals would be welcome as re-issues, since they’re all so coveted and fairly hard to find (in good shape, at least!). We’d love to review ’em, too, so keep us posted – cheers!