Jerry Mutron Bypass Q

[seniorpesca]

I'm curious if Jerry modified his pedals to true bypass or kept them off for the tune's he wasn't using them to attain a clean sound. I recently built a jerry inspired pedal board pictured below




the mutron makes a pretty noticeable difference in the clean sound. I wonder if jerry kept it on the whole show or what...anyone know? is true bypass hyped up or should i go and get the MXR and MUTRON truebypassed????

either way it's my first pedalboard and took it out for a run today with a new group and it was great just some minor issues to get used to. I think i need a real phaser instead of the univibe clone hehehe

[gr8fullfred]

Jerry definitely bypassed the mutron most of the time. His effects were " in loops".

I am a firm believer in true bypassing. No need to have your signal going thru a bunch of effects each one coloring the sound a bit, even in the off mode. (unless the effects are truley "hard wired bypassed")

I promised to post a pic of my simple true bypassing box, will try to do it soon.

[seniorpesca]

I need my own personally Healy I can just play the damn thing everything else I am pretty brain dead. My father put the board together I just told him what ordering

[NSP]

Another one of the benefits of having OBEL on your guitar is to be able to bypass all of your effects with the flick of a switch (I'm guessing you don't currently have that). For certain tunes I prefer to toggle my OBEL switch rather than having to engage and disengage effects by foot.

I'd also recommend having Richard Lingenberg add true bypass to your MuIII as well as doing a re-calibration if it's still all original. He just did mine and it made a noticeable difference.
http://www.lsound.com/

If you've got some cash to drop the GCX switcher is also a popular piece of equipment.
http://www.voodoolab.com/gcx.htm

Here's my current board

[seniorpesca]

oh WOW thank you that right there was pretty much the info i was looking for. How much did your mutron mod's run you if you don't mind me asking??

[seniorpesca]

Another one of the benefits of having OBEL on your guitar is to be able to bypass all of your effects with the flick of a switch (I'm guessing you don't currently have that). For certain tunes I prefer to toggle my OBEL switch rather than having to engage and disengage effects by foot.

I'd also recommend having Richard Lingenberg add true bypass to your MuIII as well as doing a re-calibration if it's still all original. He just did mine and it made a noticeable difference.
http://www.lsound.com/

If you've got some cash to drop the GCX switcher is also a popular piece of equipment.
http://www.voodoolab.com/gcx.htm

Here's my current board

where did you get that nifty OBEL box from?? waldo??? I would love to get this mexi strat OBEL'd i just have no idea what route to take

[Pete B.]

If your MuIII needs rehab (caps, op-amps, etc), Richard is a good choice.
A possible consideration/reason to not get the True-Bypass, and the Gain-Bypass mods, is that, a True-bypass pedal will do the same thing as an internal True-bypass mod, and having the gain knob remain functional when the MuIII effect is bypassed is nice to have also.
For example, if you have the MuIII effect on, you can switch it in/out with the True-bypass pedal.
If you have the MuIII effect off, it is now a additional Gain-stage knob which can be toggled in/out with the true-bypass pedal.
One observation I have made is that the Mu-Octave Divider pedal sounds stronger when it is followed by the MuIII (The octave note actually sounds better/stronger wether the MuIII effect is in or out), presumably becaue it gets the boost of the MuIII's gain stage.
I have 3 MuIII's (best sounding one has never been modded or rehab'd in any way) and two Mu-Octave Dividers (both have been to RL for rehab and have had True Bypass mods, although I usually leave them "on" at all times, and toggle them in/out from the true-bypass pedal) and an 8-loop true bypass pedal. These observations are from my own personal test-fires, and as always, ymmv... no wadgering, please.


Here's that pic of Jer's MuIII with the "In/Out' switch. I know there was a time before True Bypass or "Ground-Control" pedals were common, whereby some guys defeated the Gain function when the MuIII effect was off, in order to not have an un-wanted Gain stage in the line. RL offers that mod as well as TB and general rehab, so you do have choices/options based on your needs.
If JG just wanted to leave the MuIII effect on all the time, and control it from a loop pedal, he wouldn't have needed that in/out switch.
http://dozin.com/jers/90srig/90srack.html

[NSP]

where did you get that nifty OBEL box from?? waldo??? I would love to get this mexi strat OBEL'd i just have no idea what route to take

I made the junction box, but the wiring schematic is on Waldo's site (thanks Mike!). Easily done if you have basic soldering skills and it will likely cost you less than $20. I added the line splitter switch to mine as well to toggle to my tuner.

http://www.wald-electronics.com/misc.html

[tigerstrat]

To be very precise, after 8/4/79 each pedal always remained in its "on" state, while the remote switcher would add to or remove from the signal chain the individual loops containing each pedal. So the pedals themselves had no need to be converted to "true-bypass" (and I assume none of them actually were), because the bypassing was all external to the actual pedals.

[tigerstrat]

Here's that pic of Jer's MuIII with the "In/Out' switch...

I just now looked this pic over (yet again) from top to bottom, got all the way down to the McIntosh, looked at the needles pegged all the way to the left in the VU meters and thought "well that SUCKS!"

[Trecia]

That's really interesting, because a lot of the most definitive Jerry mutron sounds (77) were, strictly speaking, chronologically prior to August '79. Has this been covered before? I think this would be kind of a big deal to all those famous pre-79 tones. Because, as most of you know an un-bypassed mutron iii alters (ie sucks) tone pretty significantly. Granted the OBEL was in place, but that would mean effects were all-or-none up to that point if that how it was used. Am I wrong?

[Pete B.]

To my ear, Jer's weaker Mu-III tones were during the Travis Bean years.
I describe it in my own mind as being, all Tron and no Mu.

I don't get what sucks about that pic,Tom???
The system is not turned on???
Ask Dozin' for an explaination.
What would suck for me is if I had to continually fuck around with an intermittantly functional Mu-III.

He could turn on/off the Mu-III EF effect pretty much any year that he was using the unit.
It would appear he always wanted that option, otherwise why move the on/off switch.
Anybody who has a MuIII with the Gain knob function intact can experiment, just for the fun of it.
I like this pic cuz it shows a Pedal Steel, Jer, and the Mutrons:

[TI4-1009]

...and Tiger.

[mgbills]

What sucks for me in that photo is that those Mc2300 meters aren't slammed, and Tiger (or Rosebud, or Wolf, or a TB) is not filling me with Jerry-awesomeness.

Have to agree with Trecia. Sorry Pete. The definitive Mutron era is definitely the late '70's. The Estimated's of the time were FATand architypal in the apocraphal sense ....BuWaa Ba BuuWaaa Bu BuuuWaa Ba BuWaaBuWaa

But that's just my opinion...man. Thus the apocrypha...

Peace
M

[Pete B.]

If you guys are mad at a picture (that iirc was taken at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame), you're welcome to be "Dead-er than Though", as they say.
The thread is about MuIII mods (not, I miss Jerrryyy Maaan), so I posted an exisitng pic of a MuIII mod.
The specific MuIII tone I find to be more Tron than Mu, compared to other eras in the mid to late 70's, is the Estimated MuIII tone from Englishtown NJ (that same show has one of my all-time fave Eyes, the one with the cool chord solo).
If I recall correctly, Waldo has outlined some specific reasons why the TB sounded different thru the MuIII.
No need to be sorry if you disagree me.
Throw in Dicks Picks 15, or "To Terrapin" Hartford 77, and see if you think it sounds the same as similar years when he played the Wolph guitar. To me the TB doesn't sound as quinnistential Jerry Mu.
I'm just a guy who likes to experiment with gear, and work on my chops enough to be able to play along with the Jerry on whatever instruments he typically played through the years. I play my MuIII's thru various guitars, Pedal Steels, and yes I have tried it through my Banjo, too.
Funn Stuff!


quin·tes·sen·tial
Adjective
Representing the most perfect or typical example of a quality or class: "the quintessential Mutron III Tone".