A Unique Vintage FX Box
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- Опубликовано: 4 июл 2024
- A look at the unique MXR M-129 Pitch Transposer from 1979.
Thanks to Tom for the loan!
Patreon for the music from my videos, the stems of the music from my videos, sample packs and monthly Q&As: / alexballmusic
One thing I neglected to mention was the MXR brand was later aquired by Jim Dunlop who have kept it going since the late 80s.
www.jimdunlop.com/products/el...
Tony Gambacurta's perspective on inventing the M-129 Pitch Transposer: digitonylab.com/Documents/The-...
Big Country discuss their use of it: www.muzines.co.uk/articles/cou...
0:00 Intro Jam
0:48 Quick History
2:22 Demo 1: Foxxy Music
3:17 What is the MXR M-129?
6:11 Demo 2: Large Nation
7:16 What else?
7:55 Demo 3: Syn-Pitch
8:46 Famous Users
10:19 Possessor of a friendless ticker
11:07 What became of MXR?
12:25 Outro 
Видеоклипы
Alex- I am at a loss for words. I feel honored and flattered by your awesome and entertaining review. Thank you very much for doing this. I really enjoyed it. Great work! - Tony Gambacurta
Hi Tony! Very cool you could stop by!
Wow that’s cool 😎 synth folks are an awesome community, even more tied together with technology. I think I was riding my first bike when this was manufactured 😮
My friend Tony Gambacurta hit it out of the park with this design. Squeezing this level of function and performance out of the components available at the time was a profound achievement. It is said that during certain particularly arduous portions of the design phase, wisps of steam could be seen wafting from his ears.
"Affirmative - Possessor Of A Friendless Ticker" - that song title cracked me up as much as the Italian surname Gambacurta, which translates as "Short Leg" or "Clubfoot"
No copyright was infringed. 😉
Translation - I wonder what on earth the story is there then?!
Large Nation 😆 Thank you for giving Big Country some props on this channel. A brilliant group that no one cares about enough.
They really are. Shame Stuart left the building some years back, but they were very interesting.
I've got one! It was Martin Barre's (Jethro Tull) - it came with the really retro big display. There is also a footswitch to select one of the 4 presets. One thing I used to do is set one preset to very slightly up, another one slightly down, turn regen right up and then toggle between the two presets...every time results in several minutes of absolute mayhem.
Awesome! The full set.
Even cooler that it was used by Jethro Tull.
I can imagine that the switching trick was a lot of fun. 😀
I've always just known this as that "Big Country bagpipe guitar sound", which I've always loved on their records.
I honestly didn't know this thing was that widely used! And I also want one now. Damnit...
Yep, it was the alternative to AMS and Lexicon units at the time I believe. As it was cheaper, it snuck its way in there and the rest is history.
@@AlexBallMusicAwesome. And probably a way cheaper alternative to the Eventide H910 at the time, which only the big boys could afford...
The John Foxx homage was spot on! I'm going to have to play around with the pitch shifter on my Boss SE-70 to see if I can replicate some of those Metamatic kind of sounds. The MXR Flanger/Doubler that you mentioned was also used by Soft Cell on their debut album, Dave Ball said it was how they got that fantastic sound on the track "Youth".
Chuck some CR-78 through an effect and you're well on your way. 😀
Soft Cell - didn't know that one. Thanks for the tip off.
I have to agree, that was right on the nail - I could imagine John singing over it!
I already wondered in the 80's how U2 and Big Country could make sound their guitars that special. Now I know how.
That second jam has some John Foxx vibes, dig it.
Hence I called it "Foxxy Music". 🦊
not only are your demonstrations superbly crafted, they are exactly the right length , never over indulgent, and vids do not require skipping!
Thanks!
There’s a Big Country song called Lost Patrol, where Stuart used a footswitch to step through the presets during the intro, while playing with an E-Bow. In the early days he was a major Bill Nelson fan, which makes me wonder whether Bill used the MXR with Be-Bop Deluxe too
Thanks! I'll check that out.
I had to watch this video twice. I am blown away by the profound effect of such a simple idea. It's amazing what they came up with in the 70s despite the limitations of the technology.
It's a brilliant effect, yes! You hit the nail on the head. It is simple, but yet it does so many things! Exactly what you want from an effect I guess.
@@AlexBallMusic Again, amazing what you created with this thing.
Best advertisement a company could wish for.
Thanks for all the effort you put in creating these video's.
It seems you get as much joy out of them, as we do.
The "not-covers" are brilliantly recognisable as what they are trying to avoid!
Job done. 😀
Always thought Trevor Rabin was an Eventide user, but one never ceases to learn.
Maybe one day you could do a history of pitch shifting video (once you've done some H910 and H949 demos of course) from the days of tape pitch shifters to the more powerful processors by the late 80s.
Yeah, in an interview he confirmed it was the MXR.
I'd love to cover some Eventides at some point.
@@AlexBallMusicI'd be interested in a video on that subject if you wanted to do one.
Pitch shifting effects are a bit of a fascination of mine, but the ideas I have for them are often a bit out of reach because of the expense involved.
Going from the really crude monophonic octave fuzz from the 60s all the way through to the really sophisticated stuff that Boss is putting out, such as the OC5, with all the interstitial steps between would be really interesting to see.
"tape pitch shifters" - yes, just scanning through the explanatory text in video, I thought of the original Phonogene.
Great video! I’d also love to see you cover the early Eventides 👌
I cooped at ART 2001, and got hired 2002 (though sadly was laid off 2003). Worked with Tony, Richard, and Mitch. All great product engineers, was a joy working with them if only for a short period.
Large Nation - Big country, get it! Also very Kevin Peek! This device sounds like something they would have used on the mix of the original radio series of Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy.
Yeah, a few folk are pointing out the Hitchhikers thing, probably done with a Lexicon.
I think "Large Nation" is ready to release. Get it out there!
We used one all the time when i was working for Martin Hannett
Along with the AMS units?
@@AlexBallMusic Yes
Your musicality never ceases to amaze!
Thanks!
After seeing what Korg did with their Wavestate SE release, it's important people like yourself document what real gear used to be like, not facsimiles of gear that already existed, that has declined with improvements.
You're a history channel of all gear that has existed, love it, your efforts have always been appreciated, this you already know, but their is no harm in that extra compliment.
Cheers Alex!!
I want to hear "Large Nation" as a full-blown song. That one is a real banger.
Seconded.
I was hearing big country earlier in the video and was surprised when you mentioned them but at the same time yeah that's that sound! King's X, owner of a lonely heart, I had no idea! Nice video
Honestly when you started turning up the regen on the vocal demo I immediately thought of Sir Nose D'voidoffunk. Had this not come out so much later I'd have thought this is what they used.
Being of the Foxx era, you sent me back falling, swirling and screaming in a temporal vortex to my teen years😂
Bloody marvellous track, but you were on fire with all the tracks on this video.
So good I watched it twice!
I recognise the feedback effect on a few tracks from back then.
Great job👍
Gotta love the Foxx era. I sampled that CR-78 I borrowed for moments like this. 😀
@@AlexBallMusic Spot on!
Brilliant as always! The feedback reminds me of a certain hitchhiker saying “I’ll never be cruel to a gin and tonic again!” CMOS cookbook? I feel old…
I like that band Affirmative! I believe 'possessor of a friendless ticker' was one of their biggest hits ;-)
My home town is Webster, NY, which is a suburb of Rochester (known as Rot-n-fester). A high school (class of 1983) friend's dad was a manager of some kind at MXR (sales I think). As a high school kid and guitar player, I wanted one of the green MXR analog delays desperately but they were ridiculously expensive (several hundred dollars). Minimum wage was $3.35 per hour at the time. Well, to make a long story short, somehow my friend got us in to MXR because they needed help counting parts in their warehouse inventory. They had hired a young woman who was computerizing their inventory (must have been around 1981-82). I was also interested in electronics and planning to go to University for electrical engineering. So I spent a few days at MXR, mostly counting parts in the warehouse by hand (or by weight for bins of screws and whatnot), but also getting a tour of their fab and having a meeting with Tony to talk about electronics in his office/lab. At the end of my experience, my friend's dad gave me his demo model of the green analog delay. I still have it now over 40 years later and it still works. I grabbed one of the paper manuals for the delay from the inventory, but there were no boxes. I still have the manual, too. The manual cover colors matched the paint color for each pedal... sorta.
Great story! Thanks for sharing that, I love stuff like that. I'm glad you still have that pedal, that's fantastic.
Loved the Big Country esque track!
Great band.
I loved the MXR Pitch Transposer.. Andre Cymone's cousin Bobby Dean loaned me his shiny blue one indefinitely in the mid 1980s and I used it on everything from guitar to car keys....
Large Nation reminds me of the JV-2080 demo "Short Cuts". Oh interesting unit too :]
I'll have to look that up..
love the Metamatic-inspired trackAlex' demoes are of the rare species that is really worth your time and attention -- it *does* make a difference whether a musician (who knows his chops) is demoing an instrument or someone who is just an over-indulgent knob twiddler
Stellar M8
It's like hey I want to talk about this cool piece of music tech, let me casually drop a series of extremely well-produced studio tracks. 🤙
Thank you.
That regen glisten was beautiful.
I am grateful that after all these years I finally can replace that sticky melody line with new lyrics!
"Possessor of a friendless ticker (highly advantageous compared to a) possessor of a friendless ticker..." 🎼
Alex, your videos are my favorite on RUclips. I love how you explain the details about these vintage products, and always enjoy your music at the end. But they always make me want to purchase more gear.
Ah, that regen makes it a predecessor of sorts to the Count to 5 and Rainbow Machine pedals.
Yep! Probably based on units like this.
Awesome! I wanted to work for MXR back in the 80s. I always appreciate a little history. Thanks.
Ah awesome! Was that in the later Jim Dunlop era or the OG era?
Hey Alex, great one! Dig your synth explorations but these dives into (obscure) effect boxes is really where it's at for me. So much stuff I've never heard of in that realm. Yet sometimes I do instantly recognize the sounds of those old units. Anyways, thanks for the video, good stuff!!
Cheers! Yes, vintage FX are an amazing world and make a nice change on the video front, even if they are a bit more niche.
I used to have one of these and I loved using it on drum machines. I thought always it sounded veryyy Soulwax
They probably abused one at some point in a remix.
Your enthusiasm is so infectious! Your videos always make me smile. Also, I love how you find time to respond to so many of the comments. I used to have an Ibanez HD1000 that made very similar sounds. Used it for my GCSE music project (many years ago) to do some electronic/ambient weird stuff, along with a home-made mixer that used to pick-up radio signals from local taxi companies. With feedback you could get some wild sounds. But to do that with late 70’s electronics is a serious achievement. Tony Gambacurta is clearly an OG.
Ambient electronic for your GCSE! Excellent work. I think the most elaborate thing I did was record four guitar parts into the school four track recorder.
Local taxis - I used to get that through my guitar amp. Not had that for a very long time now. Presumably, they use some Internet based system now.
I'll have to check out the Ibanez, I've not heard of it. I know they were mostly Maxon badged FX, but there's all sorts of goodies I don't know of.
Thank you for sharing! Those touch knobs are madness for the time! And the sound fx ohh, I bet some folks were on this with a quickness! Seems a little bit ahead of its time in a mountainous heap of fx goodness way.
Quite surprising for the time, definitely!
Large Nation - Great for a 90s cartoon The intro would have lyrics, Levy & Saban style, and the outro would be that instrumental.
I'm only through the intro song, and it is SO COOL I had to pause to give a like ! So fun and original little piece of music.
Thanks! Yes, the joys of finger drumming the pitch shifting values. Never used anything else like that.
@@AlexBallMusic You sure look like you had tons of fun with this effect !
Thank you for your video.
Always appreciate a Foxx-y fix, care of this channel 😌
Nice work Alex! So much amazing content from you. I bought a Blue Faced MXR 129 with the display and foot pedal years ago because I am huge fan Stuart's work in those early Big Country album. I hardly ever use the foot pedal because it's fun to just use the touch sensitive knobs. Nice nod to BC with you demo called "Large Nation", i love it!
Thanks for the discovery and the documentation as always Alex. ❤
Cheers Alex, great jams and another interesting effect unit I had no clue even existed. Some of the more extreme sounds are slightly similar to a flanger with a dying battery, a sound I was quite often hearing in the more extravagantly coiffured parts of the last century.
Dying flanger is quite the delicacy.
I'd have gone with "Possessor of a disowned fart"... but that's just me! Great stuff, Alex.
Never heard of this box, and I grew up in a suburb near Rochester where MXR were located, where MXR stuff was widespread. What a cool idea!
Your videos never disappoint man! Great history and excellent jams 🔥
amazing video as always
Thanks for another amazingly well-presented video! Listening to your initial jam, I think Brian Eno used the same sliding pitch shifts on "America is Waiting" for his collaboration with David Byrne on the "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts" album, plus for the soft pitch spirals on Harold Budd's "The Pearl" piano album. 40 years on I find myself programming similar pitch spirals with the onboard FX on my Yamaha Montage, lol.
Thank you for another interesting and amusing video about a piece of gear I've known about for a long time but never enough which you've now rectifed in this informative, ermm, video. Also thank you for saving the Trevor Rabin mention till last - love that sound and your excellent and excellently-titled tribute thereto.
The 303 sounds absolutely fantastic through it
303 responds well to most FX, yeah. Always a safe bet.
I'd be interested in seeing the original mixer!
No photos of it unfortunately, at least not publicly available.
Excellent, Alex!
That was amazing. Loved the MXR on the 303 Alex. Sounds so cool
Thanks Alex, another gem of a video. Love the way you put your tunes together so quickly. Well it seems that way but im sure it takes a lot of time and patience especially the video editing part. Truly brilliant. Many thanks.
Thank you, appreciate that! It does take time, but I've had enough practice to do it all as quickly as is possible, otherwise I just wouldn't be able to get any videos out regularly.
I’m thinking of all the artists I’ve heard use this! What a distinctive effect. High pitch with a little feedback is on so many of my 90s favourites.
As always, just brilliant track in the end! And so so cool nostalgic video, I smiled the whole time!
This was meant for depeche mode drums video but it seems like a universal comment for most of your videos:)
Cheers!
John Foxx jam is spot on !
Demo 1 is absolute fire alex
Always interesting to see what instruments you chose when doing an effects spotlight. Your choices have always been spot on, emphasizing both without letting one overshadow the others. Impressive stuff and another great vid Alex. Keep them coming.
Thanks very much!
Affirmative is my new favourite band!
😂
I absolutely adore how you do percussion :)
Steve Hackett used one, voice pitching to introduce his song Jacuzzi, and on various songs in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Song called Large Nation? Is that an acronym for Big Country? It reminded me of their sound. [edit: yep, I was correct, and you did mention Big Country, I was too quick to post]
It was indeed. 🙂
Gonna be that person on the internet and point out that I think you prolly meant "analogous" rather than "acronym". Ie., "Is that analogous to Big Country?"
...god I hate myself, but here we are. I promise I'm only trying to help 😅
@@TheActualJae yes. only your god can help you.
@@AlexBallMusic the way you perfectly played - well, it instantly reminded me of Big Country, so you did excellent here. I enyojed their 12" EP's from 80s, good times! Looking forward for your next episodes. And where is that rabbit mask you have on the wall in your studio, and the music you did for that... what was it, some kind of PSA (? if I remember it correctly) where all of you wear masks, and run? Do tell us more about your work, I'm pretty sure everyone would love to hear more (even this grammar person who I am sure has no idea of who Big Country are).
Well I'll be damned, Big Country and Trevor Rabin used these. Nice one!
Makes me think of TIm Exiles' "The Finger". Some of the best content on YT, love these videos.
Never heard of this before, wild for 1979!
Cool isn't it!
holy moly never thought it was possible to just touching the knobs to change presets before! Atleast not back in the 70s. Thats wild! 😯
Yep! Best thing about it.
@@AlexBallMusic 🙂
Capacitive buttons were all the rage, see also those lamps you turn on by touching the base
loved the 303 jam at the end
Sickest intro jam
Great demos, I immediately started hearing "At the Plaza.....giant hoardings of ITALIAN CARS!" in my head! Interesting back story too, my first digital effects processor decades ago was an ART (Multiverb LT I think) but I knew nothing about the company.
There's probably an element of nostalgia here, but keep making these awesome retro effects videos, they are just so good to watch. 😉
Nice work as always. Interesting to see what the creators of this rack went on to do after MRX closed.
When I first started out as a musician it seemed Boss and a couple others where the whole world in terms of guitar effects.
Yes, it was interesting to find out, I didn't know the story.
Boss certainly dominated the pedal world, I guess they came up with basically the perfect pedal format with the associated price. The fact that they still use that design 45 years after introducing it says a lot.
I had the MXR01 digital reverb back in the 80s.... Very 1986 sounding...
Oh wow - the intro on Shannon - Let the Music Play 12" must have used that Regen
I liked ART and Alesis - never had any MXR gear, but nice to know the heritage.... What a nice unit, love that touch preset concept... That closing track is wild!
Yep, I didn't know about ART or that Alesis was an offshoot. Always interesting to find out the story of gear.
@@AlexBallMusic almost as many gear company offshoots from amazing techs as there were band offshoots from musicians from this era.
@@PaulBoos Very true!
Superb presentation as always. Love the John Foxx'ish track 😊
Gotta get your Foxx on.
I love all the weird early digital stuff - from late 70s through mid 80s and I guess later in some areas like samplers - when compute and memory was expensive and all sorts of creative solutions were used to do things… like the Casio fz-1 filter. More of these please!
Demo 3 is my thing! The world needs more like that
Another brilliant and highly entertaining video, Alex. Slightly off topic, but interesting that you mentioned John Foxx, and although I'm not too sure who came first, but if you like that sort of psychotic Germanic electro-pop sound, then it is really German synthesist, 'Asmus Tietchens' who you should explore next. In particular 'Nachtstücke', 'Spat-Europa', 'Biotop', 'Litia' and 'In die Nacht', all of which can be found as complete albums on RUclips. Tiechens was also a fan of the Ursa-Major Space Station reviewed before, which is all over these recordings.
This sounds absolutely delightful 😮😮😮💞❤️
I enjoyed that. Thank you.
Man I love your vibe :)
Back making great music again.
Your jams are sick
Cheers!
Thanks a lot for the video. Not heard of one before. Especially liked the baseline on foxxy music. Take it easy.
Yep, I hadn't heard of it either. A serendipitous loan.
sounding good. Love my MXR bass envelope filter pedal for anything, bass, guitar, synth, vocals
I'd love to try that one.
Some of the out there effects sound like they were used on the radio series of 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy', although the initial dates don't seem to match up. Maybe they were in house Radiophonics effects.
A few folks are saying the same. Must be an earlier unit that did the same thing. Will have to find out...
@@AlexBallMusic I bought an Ibanez HD1000 pitch transposer/delay in about 1984. It was marked down in price then, so the model must have been launched a few years earlier. Maybe not early enough for the Radiophonic Workshop to have been using it in the late 70s, but it's a hint that other companies besides Eventide Clockworks and AMS were also active back then.
wonderfull i need to try it !!
That’s pretty cool!
Yet another vintage piece I will now never be able to afford because you've made a brilliant video about it and demand will skyrocket. The John Foxx thing was perfect. Alex please go back to only making Kontakt Orchestral videos where there is infinite supply of the product available and we just have to wait like chumps for the next library sale.
I thought you're going to play 'Plaza' by John Foxx for a second there on the 2nd jam lol.
Thatvpitch-shifter FX box reminds of the Eventide Harmonizer used by Brian May. That harmoniser was used to make weird synth sounds without using any synths, just guitar (the noises in Get Down Make Love, and Another Bites the Dust)
Hi! When I moved to Rochester, NY, I had no idea this was where the FX Revolution had happened. Sadly none of those companies are located here any longer. Great demo! What a nifty device! Have a great day/night/whatever :)
Ah, small world! Yes, long gone I believe.
great Ep, thanx dude :)
Cheers!
5:46 This sounds exactly like Max Headroom. Not the music but the incident.
Probably a similar effect?
The BBC Radiophonic Workshop must have had one for The Hitchhickers Guide radio series.
5:46 sounds just like when Ford & Arthur first get on the Heart of Gold and are suffering the effects of high improbability, and the mice sound suspiciously like the high pitch shift.
Cabaret Voltaire also had one of these, and besides their albums as a band it’s also very noticeable on both Stephen Mallinder and Richard Kirk’s early-80s solo albums
Yay! Love the John Foxx thing! Spot on 😮
What drum machine is that on the Foxxy Music thing?
He used a Roland CR-78 and I multi-sampled one that I borrowed for a year, so I was playing the samples from my Isla S-2400.
Finally something i bought ages before it is super expensive again! :D
Score.