![Musitronics Mu-Tron III](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/42/Musitronics_Mu-Tron_III.gif)
''Musitronics'', often shortened to Mu-tron, was a manufacturer of electronic
musical effects active in the 1970s. Founded by Mike Beigel and Aaron Newman, the company's products provided filtering and processing effects and were derived from
synthesizer
A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and ...
components. The company was known for producing high-quality products with many user-adjustable parameters, but high production costs and a failed product line, the
Gizmotron, caused its downfall.
Their best-known product was the Mu-tron III
envelope filter
Auto-wah (also known as a "Q-wah", "T-wah", "envelope following filter", "envelope follower" or "envelope filter") is a type of wah-wah effects pedal typically used with electric guitar, bass guitar, clavinet, and electric piano etc. The disti ...
, "the world's first envelope-controlled filter", first made in 1972 and quickly becoming an essential effect for many
funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in African American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of various music genres that were popular among African Americans in the m ...
musicians. It was placed back in production again, in a modified form, in 2014.
Company history
The Musitronics Corporation of
Rosemont, New Jersey was formed in 1972 by Mike Beigel
[ and Aaron Newman, an engineer who worked at ]Guild Guitar Company
The Guild Guitar Company is a United States-based guitar manufacturer founded in 1952 by Alfred Dronge, a guitarist and music-store owner, and George Mann, a former executive with the Epiphone Guitar Company. The brand name currently exists as a ...
. Beigel had been working on a synthesizer project for Guild, but the project was dropped after Guild's president, Al Dronge, was killed in an accident. The new president was less interested in the synthesizer project, and Beigel teamed up with a former Guild engineer, Aaron Newman, to save what he could, and formed Musitronics. They extracted sections from the synthesizer to make a stand-alone audio effect out of it; the result was an envelope filter, the Mu-tron III, built in the summer of 1972, which proved popular and viable enough with major music instrument retailers to build the company on. Musitronic built a plant out of a former chicken coop in Rosemont, and soon employed 35 people.
The company offered traditional effects such as simple phase shifters, flangers, and foot-operated wah pedals as well. With George Merriman, former partner of guitarist and guitar and effect builder Dan Armstrong
Dan Kent Armstrong (October 7, 1934 June 8, 2004) was an American guitarist, luthier, and session musician.
Biography
Armstrong was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He started playing the guitar at age 11, and moved to New York in the early 1 ...
, Mutronics built the Octave Divider, and later made the Armstrong plug-in effects.
In 1978 Musitronics was sold to synthesizer company ARP Instruments
ARP Instruments, Inc. was a Lexington, Massachusetts manufacturer of electronic musical instruments, founded by Alan Robert Pearlman
in 1969. It created a popular and commercially successful range of synthesizers throughout the 1970s before de ...
in 1979,[ on a royalty basis, but ARP 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 heart attack.
By 2014 Beigel returned to making effects with his new company Mu-FX, producing a "modified and miniaturized version" of the Mu-Tron III, renamed the Tru-Tron 3X.][ A few years later, the Micro-Tron 3 was introduced. Features include an extreme reduction of size (along the lines of a tube screamer or phase 90), a second foot switch for selecting the sweep up or down and the ability to run off a standard 9v adapter. Inside the pedal, there are 3 pins which a jumper can select the tru-Tron buffer (pins 1&2) or the original mutron buffer (pins 2&3). It is widely considered far & away the most user friendly out of the 3 envelope filters the company has officially released since 1972.
]
Mu-Tron III
The Mu-Tron III was based on a Guild prototypes called the Timbre Generator. Beigel said he chose the envelope-controlled filter over other synthesizer elements, such as ring modulation, because it sounded more musical; it was a more general effect that would lend itself to a variety of applications, and it was easy to use.
The Mu-tron III became an instant success and was used by a variety of musicians for a variety of instruments, especially guitar, Clavinet
The Clavinet is an electrically amplified clavichord invented by Ernst Zacharias and manufactured by the Hohner company of Trossingen, West Germany, from 1964 to 1982. The instrument produces sounds by a rubber pad striking a point on a tension ...
, and bass. Perhaps the best-known use of it is by Stevie Wonder
Stevland Hardaway Morris ( Judkins; May 13, 1950), known professionally as Stevie Wonder, is an American singer-songwriter, who is credited as a pioneer and influence by musicians across a range of genres that include rhythm and blues, Pop musi ...
, who used it on his Clavinet for the song "Higher Ground".[
In early 1995 Beigel lent his expertise to ]Electro-Harmonix
Electro-Harmonix (also commonly referred to as EHX) is a New York City-based company that makes electronic audio processors and sells rebranded vacuum tubes. The company was founded by Mike Matthews in 1968. It is best known for a series of gu ...
, creating an update of his original design, the Electro-Harmonix Q-Tron, and he also designed a Bi-Filter for E-H.[ Three other pedals, the Mini Q-Tron, Micro Q-Tron and Q-Tron+, are available from EHX as well, who now also offer the Bi-Filter, a modern version of Beigel Sound Lab's Envelope Controlled Filter, made in 1979. Michael Dregni, in '']Vintage Guitar
A vintage guitar is an older guitar usually sought after and maintained by avid collectors or musicians. The term may indicate either that an instrument is merely old, or that is sought after for its tonal quality, cosmetic appearance, or hist ...
'', noted that none of the "clones, copycats, and other attempts to bring it back...sounded quite like the real deal". But in 2014, a renewed version of the Mu-Tron III, now called the Tru-Tron 3X, was made by Beigel's new company Mu-FX.[
]
Phasers
Mu-tron Bi-Phase
Phaser effects were common in the 1970s, but the Mu-tron Bi-Phase combined two phase shifting circuits and in its time was the preferred "the phaser-lover's 'phasor'". It used technology from the old Uni-Vibe
The Uni-Vibe, also marketed as the Jax Vibra-Chorus,Harry Shapiro, Michael Heatley, Roger Mayer''Jimi Hendrix Gear'', page 120 Voyageur Press is a footpedal-operated phaser or phase shifter for creating chorus and vibrato simulations for electr ...
, with lamps and photo cells, and featuring two independent sweep generators which could be coupled, each with individual rate controls and the option to choose square
In Euclidean geometry, a square is a regular quadrilateral, which means that it has four equal sides and four equal angles (90-degree angles, π/2 radian angles, or right angles). It can also be defined as a rectangle with two equal-length adj ...
or sine wave
A sine wave, sinusoidal wave, or just sinusoid is a curve, mathematical curve defined in terms of the ''sine'' trigonometric function, of which it is the graph of a function, graph. It is a type of continuous wave and also a Smoothness, smooth p ...
s. The unit could be connected to an optional rocking foot pedal so that the effect could be operated in the manner of a wah-wah pedal
A wah-wah pedal, or simply wah pedal, is a type of electric guitar effects pedal that alters the tone and frequencies of the guitar signal to create a distinctive sound, mimicking the human voice saying the onomatopoeic name "wah-wah". The p ...
. It was used by The Smashing Pumpkins
The Smashing Pumpkins (also referred to as simply Smashing Pumpkins) are an American alternative rock band from Chicago. Formed in 1988 by frontman and guitarist Billy Corgan, bassist D'arcy Wretzky, guitarist James Iha and drummer Jimmy Chamb ...
as an integral part in achieving the "pumpkins sound" for the 1993 album ''Siamese Dream
''Siamese Dream'' is the second studio album by American alternative rock band the Smashing Pumpkins, released on July 27, 1993, on Virgin Records. Despite recording sessions fraught with difficulties and tensions, ''Siamese Dream'' debuted at num ...
'': "This is one of the secrets to our secret sound. This is the Mutron Biphase. We run everything through it - everything. It's fabulous", said producer Butch Vig
Bryan David "Butch" Vig (born August 2, 1955) is an American musician, songwriter, and record producer, best known as the drummer and co-producer of the alternative rock band Garbage and the producer of the diamond-selling Nirvana album ''Neve ...
in the video documentary ''Vieuphoria
''Vieuphoria'' is a long form music video by American alternative rock band The Smashing Pumpkins, originally released on VHS on October 4, 1994 and DVD on November 26, 2002. It was certified gold by the RIAA in late 1996.
The video consists of ...
''.
Mu-tron Phasor
A simpler design than the Bi-phase, it included only rate and depth controls. The Phasor II introduced additional functionality brought over from the Bi-Phase, as a kind of scaled-down version.
Other Mu-Tron effects
Mu-tron Octave Divider
The Octave Divider used the octave effect
Octave effect boxes are a type of special effects unit which mix the input signal with a synthesised signal whose musical tone is an octave lower or higher than the original. The synthesised octave signal is derived from the original input signa ...
, producing tones an octave above and below the input signal. There were many clones of the original Octavia around, but Mutronics' version, designed by George Merriman, had many more adjustable parameters.
Mu-tron Flanger
A bucket-brigade flanger which offered extensive control of effect parameters.
Mu-tron Vol-Wah Pedal
A dual volume and wah
Wah Cantonment ( pa, ; ur, ) (often abbreviated to Wah Cantt) is a military cantonment located in Wah in the Punjab province of Pakistan. It is a part of Taxila Tehsil of Rawalpindi District. It is the 24th largest city of Pakistan by popu ...
foot-operated rocking pedal with photo-electric controls, and a gain boost flat screw potentiometer on the side of the chassis.
Dan Armstrong effects
Between 1976 and 1978 Musitronics manufactured a series of modular, plug-in effects for Dan Armstrong amplifiers. These included the ''Green Ringer'', an octave effect, the ''Yellow Humper'', a frequency booster designed for bass guitar
The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and ...
, the ''Purple Peaker'', a similar boost effect for electric guitar, and the ''Orange Squeezer'', a signal compressor.
The Gizmo
The Gizmo, also called the Gizmotron, was a device developed by Lol Creme
Laurence Neil "Lol" Creme (born 19 September 1947) is an English musician and music video director, best known for his work in 10cc. He sings and plays guitar, bass and keyboards.
Biography
Creme was born in Prestwich, Lancashire, England. ...
and Kevin Godley
Kevin Michael Godley (born 7 October 1945) is an English singer, songwriter, musician and music video director. He is known as the singer and drummer of the art rock band 10cc and later as part of collaboration duo Godley & Creme with Lol Creme ...
of 10cc
10cc are an English rock band formed in Stockport in 1972. The group initially consisted of four musicians – Graham Gouldman, Eric Stewart, Kevin Godley and Lol Creme – who had written and recorded together since 1968. The group featured t ...
, and manufactured by an offshoot of Musitronics called Gizmotronics. The device used motor-driven plastic wheels to produce infinitely sustained notes on a guitar. The device was problematic, and Gizmotronics entered bankruptcy before very many had been produced.
References
External links
*
Mu-tron.org
{spaced ndash maintained by Mike Beigel, founder of Musitronics
Electro-Harmonix
envelope filters
Guitar effects manufacturing companies