Mu-Tron Inc Mu-Tron III (vintage)
ID: 760
Price: $1200
Shipping: TBD
Dimensions: 12x9x6
Weight: 4 lb 5 oz
Very good condition, with some minor scratches and dings. I'm not as familiar with these pedals as I am with many others. These are a bit fussy to find good settings, and I just don't have the funk in me to really get it going on. Everything works as it should. They're just a bit difficult to use, IMO.
I can pass along some advice about these units. When I bought this one, it was cutting out and generally misbehaving. At first, not too bad then it pretty much died on me. In the beginning I even thought it was just part of the nature of the beast, and I just hadn't figured it out yet. Once I realized there was something seriously wrong, I popped it open to have a look. I also Googled around a bit and found out this was a reasonably common problem, with a very easy fix. Internally, the controls are mounted on the board. That's never really a preferred design. What happens is that as you use the controls each time, it puts a little pressure on the solder connection holding the control component to the board. This also happens each time you step on the switch, which flexes the case just that tiny bit, also putting pressure on those solder connections. Over time, the solder connection breaks. Most of the time you cannot see the break. It looks properly soldered. But inside, there's a crack in it. Sometimes it will touch and work, or work partially, or with a lot of noise or distortion. Sometimes it won't touch at all, and the effect doesn't work properly or even at all. All you have to do to fix it is re-flow the solder. Just heat it up enough to melt it and re-establish a good connection. Of course, you have to be careful not to overheat anything, so make sure you have the skills before attempting it, or just take it to your local electronics shop, explain it to them, and let them do it. There's a minor complication, though. You probably can't tell which solder joint is bad. Or maybe there are multiple bad ones. You may have to re-flow all the connections between the board and the controls. Not a huge deal, but a significant number of opportunities for something bad to happen. Just be careful. You may be able to figure out what control it is by the bad behavior, so think it through a bit and start at a likely point. Keep reflowing solder until it starts working again. But only re-flow the joints connecting to the controls. Other components can easily be damaged with too much heat, and that shouldn't be necessary anyway. Depending on the joint, you may need to add a bit of fresh solder, too. Anyway, if your Mu-Tron isn't working or sounding right, this might solve your problem. This applies to some of their other pedals, too.
Once I reheated the solder on this unit, everything came back to life. No parts were swapped or anything as part of that repair.
Actually, after writing this, I'm not sure I made this repair to this pedal. I also have a Mu-Tron Phasor II, which I'm almost certain was the one with the problem described above. So I may or may not have flowed the solder on this unit. You can't really tell by looking at it.
The MODE knob is the same style and size as the other two knobs, but a slightly different color. I think it is a replacement knob. As best I can tell, everything else looks original.
