- Mutron
The Musitronics Mu-Tron III is an
auto-wah effects pedal produced byMusitronics . In 1972 Mike Biegel and Aaron Newman decided to extract some sections from a synthesizer and see if they could make a new product out of it. First, they hooked up an opto-electronic-based envelope-controlled filter, tweaked it, and turned it into a product. Digital audio pioneer (and former AES president) Barry Blesser also participated in its design. It was first called the Auto Wah and then marketed as the Mu-Tron III. Synthesizer inventor Bob Moog's affidavit helped get the patent. The Mu-Tron III became quite popular thanks in part toStevie Wonder ; who helped immensely by giving free publicity and allowing the use of his name.In 1978 Musitronics was sold to ARP (a synthesizer company that was in the process of imploding financially with a guitar synth called the Avatar) on a royalty basis, but they folded before the original owners of Musitronics could ever collect any money. Musitronics became Gizmo Incorporated and continued to try their hand at products, but it ended when Aaron Newman suffered a heartattack.
Modern Equivalent
Although rare, the original Mu-Tron III can still be found being sold for somewhat reasonable prices on online marketplaces such as eBay. A reissue pedal made by HAZ Laboratories, called the Mu-tron III+, comes the closest to the original Mu-Tron, although it lacks a Gain control in favor of a Depth control. In early 1995 Mike Beigel was commissioned by Mike Mathews (owner of EHX) to reinvent the sound of Mu-Tron. Today, EHX still sells that sound as the Q-Tron. Two other pedals, the Mini Q-Tron and Q-Tron+, are available from
Electro-Harmonix as well. Although Biegel worked to create these pedals, they suffer from reliability issues and do not accurately recreate the original Mutron III sound.External links
*http://www.mu-tron.org/
*http://www.beitec.com/stomp.htm
*http://www.ehx.com/ehx2/Default.asp?q=f&f=%2FCatalog%2F19%5FFilters
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