Mutron Phasor II

[Travis]

Just scored a Mutron Phasor II for $30 in not-working condition. Only took 10 or 15 minutes to repair and sounds completely amazing! One word: LUSH

[Chris60601]

Now that is an absolutely awesome set of Philips screws by the stomp switch ;)

Well done, my stompin' brotha.

[Travis]

lol yeah the previous owner has pretty much stripped out all of the screw heads. The hardest part of the repair was just opening the enclosure and putting it back together after

If any of you guys are looking to build a phaser, pick this one! It is the best!!

[IvIark]

Wow what a score!

[motterpaul]

I tried building the one here and it is a "bear" (as many people note in the comments). You are very lucky to find one you could fix so easily - the original designs seem to have very tight specs (especially for the LDRs) which are hard to duplicate.

Hang on to that!

[Travis]

Yeah I've built the layout here as well as a PCB version. I will not be doing another on stripboard, that's for sure. The amount of links and cuts took hours, and debugging is a nightmare.

I didn't have to replace any components, so this is still 100% original. The original has all of the LDRs and the light source enclosed in a single package that solders to the board in a DIP 8 pattern. It's really cool. It also has an ungrounded power cord and a transformer inside to convert to 9V+/- DC

Also for what it's worth, the buffer on this is pretty good, and there is no LFO tick or other noise in bypass. The bypass switch actually has shielded wiring coming straight out of it. No solder lugs. I thought that was cool too

As far as the sound is concerned, hands down I've never tried a better sounding phaser. The fundamental sound is just beautifully voiced, and all 3 controls go from as mild as you want to extreme. It can mimic a Leslie or Univibe beautifully, or just be an awesome "normal" phaser. It has plenty of headroom as well. I have a couple of other vintage phasers that will be collecting dust now

[Muadzin]

The Mutron II really is a good phaser. Got me a klone from a board that somebody made on the Madbean forum. Really small too, fits into a 1590B. You could build it with 1 LED and 6 Tayda LDR's. I've tried many phasers over the years, including the Pigtronix Envelope Phaser, or drolo's Liquid Mercury, but this one is in my top 3. If only for its simplicity. With modulation effects I firmly believe less controls is more. Depth and Rate is all I need. The third Feedback knob is already pushing it.

[Travis]

Yeah I have the krypton phaser boards too and with a diffused yellow LED and Tayda LDRs it sounds close to the original. Huge props to the dude that designed that PCB! Now what I want to do with my extra PCBs is make a biphase. I think I could just make a stripboard daughter board to include the extra functions

[Muadzin]

Travis wrote

Yeah I have the krypton phaser boards too and with a diffused yellow LED and Tayda LDRs it sounds close to the original. Huge props to the dude that designed that PCB! Now what I want to do with my extra PCBs is make a biphase. I think I could just make a stripboard daughter board to include the extra functions

[Luke51411]

$30?!?!??!! thats a great score! I bought a broken one for around $60 and thought it was a steal!

[Travis]

Don't worry Luke, I've spent more than $60 on a broken pedal before. This was just luck.. The guy said he broke his 70s crybaby and replaced it with a new Dunlop. I told him I would repair the old one for him or buy it. He agreed to sell it, and while I was chatting with me he offered me some other broken pedals he had including this mutron for $30. I would have probably offered $50 but he came out with the $30 offer so of course I took it

[M. Spencer]

Too cool. I have the original (amazing sounding) Phasor II with a broken  Rate pot shaft and incorrect knobs. As far as collectors and vintage values go, would replacing that pot be a no-no?

I already have the krypton on my pedal board so functionality is not an issue.

Also, if you have any more details for turning two krypton boards into a BiPhase I am all ears!

[Travis]

The pots in this are an unusual 4 pin PCB mounted type. If you get another type it may not fit the board correctly, and since the board is secured to the enclosure via the pots I wouldn't want to replace it with a different type. But if the pot is already broken, you're not gonna hurt the value by replacing it. Try and find the correct replacement if possible


My plan is to make a stripboard layout for the biphase mod but I haven't looked into it too much yet. Been a little distracted

[M. Spencer]

Thanks for the tip