Before Eventide made pitch-shifting respectable and digital FX racks took over studios, MXR quietly unleashed the 129 Pitch Transposer: a gritty, unpredictable, slightly drunk box of pitch-warping chaos. It was the secret behind the soaring solo sound of Yes and Trevor Rabin's Owner of a Lonely Heart, but producers and synth-heads soon realised it would mangle anything you fed it. This was never transparent pitch shifting; it was a greasy, grainy jump into alternate tuning realities. You did not use the 129 to sweeten vocals. You used it to summon ghosts, bend tape space-time, and make a drum machine sound possessed.

FEATURES & PROS:

• Analog-Digital Hybrid: early pitch processing from before DSP grew up. Noisy, weird and full of character.
• Plus / Minus One Octave: a full twelve semitones up or down, and it lets you know it is working.
• CV / Gate Friendly: modulate the pitch with voltage and watch it career off the rails, beautifully.
• Touch-Sensitive Pitch Buttons: four preset intervals that come live the instant you touch them.
• Feedback Tricks: a small shift plus feedback gives those spiralling, climbing or falling pitch sweeps.
• Cult-Classic Status: chased by anyone who likes their harmonies a little mentally unstable.
• Pure Sound-Design Fuel: detuned doubling, robotic textures, and snares that hiccup like aliens.

THE WORD: BN1 Studio likens it to a vintage Eventide H910: a characterful, unpredictable early shifter that works best as an idea generator rather than a clean, clinical tool. Read more.

SPECIFICATIONS

• Year: early 1980s
• Type: Rackmount pitch transposer / harmoniser
• Architecture: analog-digital hybrid pitch shifting
• Pitch range: plus or minus one octave (12 semitones)
• Control: CV / gate input for pitch modulation
• Inputs / Outputs: mono in, mono out
• Mounting: 19 inch rack
• Power: mains