I love phase shifters. Unfortunately, their heyday was about forty-five years ago. So, you’ve got to find ways to fit them into your music. Or fit your music around the phase shifter sound. The early Cure comes to mind. Phase shifters aren’t subtle.
Lucky for me, I am the proud single owner of one of the greatest phase shifters ever produced, The Mu-Tron Phasor II, manufactured by a company called Musitronics from the NYC area. If the Script Logo MXR Phase 90 is its nearest competitor and by far the most popular phaser, the Mu-Tron is perhaps the more storied, mythical, and outlandish. And you can easily buy the custom shop version of the Phase 90 Script logo now for $140. Of course I have one and it sounds delicious.
What does the Mu-Tron sound like? See the above video for a demonstration. The quality that most comes to mind is thickness of sound. It has a rich, warm, analog tone that runs through all the settings. And it only gets fatter as you turn up the depth and feedback. There’s an incredible range of sounds that come out of the three knobs, and many of them are beautiful. Others can get downright weird and even scary. It does a creditable Univibe sound, no mistake, as well. And it’s very psychedelic looking, or even a kind of '70s modernism, which I am crazy about.
The story of how I came upon my Mu-Tron is serendipitous, despite the rough treatment I got when I went to Manny’s music in its glorious, celebrated ‘70s hustle and bustle. I was fifteen years old, and the salesmen would never give me the time of day – wouldn’t let me try out anything and they wouldn't even demo it. Totally different from today, but maybe they were busy actually selling stuff. Anyway, I think I said I wanted a phase shifter and they said, ‘well there’s the MXR and there’s the Mu-tron.’ Me: “lemme see ‘em!” Them: “You can’t try ‘em!” Me, thinking: “Fuck!” Them: “Which one do you want?” Me: “Wow! The Mu-Tron sure is gorgeous! I’ll take the Mu-Tron!” Them: “Sold!”
I didn’t really know what to do with it. Although I was a huge Rolling Stones fan, “Shattered” was at least a year away. And another one of my favorite bands, Pink Floyd, was totally out of style. A couple of years later, it broke down and I put it in the closet. I probably tried to get it fixed to no avail. In the early nineties, I was working in a music store in SoHo and a brilliant technician named Takeshi fixed it for me. He laughed as he told me how all he had to do was replace something called an IC chip which cost $2. It was alive! Check out this interesting article about a Mu-Tron Phasor II restoration.
It sounded incredible to my more experienced ears. I played it at CBGBs and it filled the room with a lush, sweeping breath of fresh air. It was like a fifth member of the band. I used it on a demo recording where it seemed to bleed onto all the tracks, making the song sound fabulous and unified. I cranked it up in another studio where it blew the engineer’s mind with its soaring texture and tone.
Then it broke again. Back in the closet. But a few years ago, I brought it into the music school/store where I worked, and the owner tried to fix it. For a second or two, there was the amazing sound! But then it seemed to fail, sending unaffected sound through. *Sob* I took it home.
More recently, I gathered all my pedals in an effort to consolidate and see if any could be sold. I tried a bunch and was thinking of taking some to Main Drag where Takeshi now works. I saw on their website that they had a Mu-Tron Phasor II for sale for $500!! Hold on! After all the other pedals, I plugged it in. It… Sprang to life! It’s alive! I will never live without this pedal again. -Christian Botta