DESIGN ICON: MXR audio effects in the 1970s

MXR Innovations began making their first product, the Phase 90 phase-shift pedal, in the early 1970s.

(web source)

Phase-shift is an audio effect which adds a gentle ‘swirl-y’ motion to a sound.   The sound of a clean electric guitar picking through a chord progression with a phase-shift effect is one of the truly definitive sounds of 70’s rock music.  Listen to the rhythm guitar part in this long-haired chestnut and you will hear what I am talking about.

MXR did not invent the phase-shift effect, but their Phase-90 did more to popularize it than any of its predecessors.  MXR’s real ‘innovation’ was the high-quality, small physical size and indestructible nature of the device.  In contrast, previous phase-shift pedals tended to be bulky, noisy, and not especially durable.

BTW, the MXR phase 90 is still made today, 40 years later; and it is still in wide use.  MXR Innovations no longer exists as a corporate entity; the brand-name and trademark were sold in the 1980s to the Jim Dunlop Corp, who now manufacture Phase 90 pedals in various subtle varieties.

A book could be written on the history of MXR, and it is not my intent here to share that long and fascinating story.  If you are interested in the details, I highly recommend Tom Hughes’ excellent book “Analogman’s Guide to Vintage Effects,” which features candid long-form interviews with a few of MXR’s founders.  This book is a must-read for anyone who uses audio-effect processors in their work.  Thorough and essential.

Anyhow, let’s just take a moment to celebrate the incredible and powerful industrial design and graphic design of the iconic MXR brand.  In a previous post, I included a scan of one of the early MXR ads.  It still looks beautiful and evocative today, 35 years later.  Everything that these guys did in the 70’s was done with care and attention to detail. Consider these c.1980 MXR dealer-support materials, including a full scan of the circa 1980 full-line catalog (16pp).

DOWNLOAD THE FULL CATALOG: MXR_c1980_catalog

From the Hughes book, in the words of MXR founder and Phase 90 creator Keith Barr (later, founder of Alesis (!)):

“I mean, to me, MXR was an art project.  Yeah, it was a business, and yeah there was the little game to see how cheap we could make a unit, but still make it reliable…Richard was the guy who was really into the sound, I was the guy who was into clever design, Tony was the guy who was into digital circuitry, and all of us were into…that’s why they ended up calling there company ART, A-R-T.  We had this idea collectively that what we were doing was an artistic expression; it was the way this thing was packaged, the way it looked, the way it felt- all these little things made up what it is” (Hughes, 234).

Oh yeah… in case you were wondering… not only did Barr go on to create Alesis (the company that literally changed the world of home-recording forever with it’s ADAT digital 8-track),  the other MXR designers Richard Neatour and Tony Gambacurta created ART, arguably the most innovative guitar effects company of the 1980s and 1990s; and Mike Laiacona, MXR’s first salesman, created Whirlwind, which is still one of the major forces in meat-and-potatoes basic pro-audio hardware.  Incredible.