Restoration Panel for Musitronics Mu-Tron III --- Replaces Worn Out Top Aluminum Panel

This is the EXACT one of these available here now, there are several photos here that show this actual piece fitted on one of the old gray chassis base boxes (not included), and the photos are marked accordingly. This is the EXACT piece you will receive and the ONLY one available here now. This is it. If you don't like the appearance of the one shown in these seven photos, don't buy it. I'm not going to "just send another one" because there is no other one available here. This is it.

The future of this product is not known. As it has been with the ones sold in the last part of 2024, it has been EXTREMELY time consuming getting these made and fitted to an old chassis to make sure the fit is perfect. If the time spent on each one were billed as the cheapest $60/hour Synhouse lowest shop rate for Fairlight/Synclavier/etc. repair work, it would be cheaper and more profitable not to sell it at all, because it has $180-$450 worth of company time in each one. It's possible this problem will be worked out or at least lessened in future production (with revised bend tooling, different CAD drill files, different countersinking, possibly no countersinking and just doing that by hand when finishing each piece, etc.), but this product involves a lot of tooling and a lot of computer files, it's not easy/cheap to change them, and once done, a LOT of them are made with those new tools/files, so if a change is done wrong, all that money is wasted. One full production run of this was already recycled with the beer cans earlier in the year because it was not up to my standards (something I just did for the same reason two weeks ago with an entire production of one of the Synhouse overlays in a quantity larger than any of the competitors had ever done, this is what I do to make it right), and it's unaffordable to do that again.

Nobody but Synhouse is doing this because no one but Synhouse can do this, it's a lot of work and constant investment and reinvestment. Just look at the new Dolby 361 access plates, they are stunning and flawless (unlike this one which was unexpectedly much, much harder to do and get completed through all the steps without scratches), nobody else can do that. No one. All the people out there with the "you should just do this" or "you shoulda done that", those people never did anything on this level in their lives and Synhouse has done it 100+ times, so shut it. Synhouse just paid 1,800 for a CAD drawing (for another product in the works since 8/2014). No Synhouse competitor has ever done that, and another similar one is coming up. It's constant work here and constant reinvestment here. You can click on the other items listed here and take a look, in short, it's a list of what everyone else in the world combined doesn't have. As ever, only Synhouse.

The other photos in the photo gallery show various views of the new 2024 production that were all sold, and some as a comparison with the old one on the left and the new one on the right, so please refer to the several marked photos to see the exact item you will receive.

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The standard previous listing is posted below:
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Renew and improve the control panel of your Musitronics Mu-Tron III with this brand new replacement top aluminum panel from Synhouse, with 6 super vintage colors of 2-part epoxy ink silkscreened one at a time with heat curing in between color applications.

Note that this is for the main/most sought after/older Musitronics Mu-Tron III that has three side-to-side rocker switches including the OFF ON POWER switch, which may or may not have a sticker of patent numbers over the PATENTS PENDING silkscreened on the read of the panel, and not the later model with only two side-to-side rocker switches and no OFF ON POWER switch, and this is for Musitronics, NOT that "HAZ" item that no one wants (compare the recent selling prices of trashed Musitronics to near mint "HAZ", the "HAZ" will never equal the value and even new in the box seems to have been decided to be worth only half as much).

This type of item is completely new among the Synhouse products. Normally the factory is automated silkscreening precisely detailed artwork on the underside of clear polycarbonate, with adhesive applied later. This time the factory was conviced to work on metal parts and two more products of this type are in the works now.

This is a great leap forward for Synhouse, having the incredible artwork, super vintage colors, and excellent silkscreening of the famous Synhouse drum machine/synthesizer overlays now on metal panels.

In the past, all the Synhouse metal panels (mostly replacements/expansions for New England Digital systems) were like anyone else's, simple flat panels or bent panels with simple text markings silkscreened onto them in one color (white).

This time, it's metal cutting/punching/drilling countersunk holes followed by very distinctive artwork of graphics and text silkscreened on in 6 colors over two days, then the panels are formed with the deep radiused bends in several places.

Note: Some of the photos shown here now or in the past may have shown a disposable protective clear plastic film that was put over each of them leaving the factory, but I am removing that film, cleaning these, and putting them in two bubble wrap sleeves for protection instead, which is 1) much better protection (that would have avoided a good deal of the marks these have on them, especially the edge marks) and 2) keeps them clean, I found that every time I took that plastic film off (similar to what's on the screen of a new smart phone or tablet) I had to clean it and rub it down very carefully with a T-shirt rag and Windex because it had visible residue, sort of greasy looking, like mold release compound. No more, I've removed those and cleaned them perfectly, once and for all. So, you will receive this without that greasy top plastic film that you may have seen in earlier photos.

The process is not perfect, though, and the product isn't perfect, either. These are a lot of work to make, a lot of handiwork goes into them, and by the time they are done the have some wear and scratches on them, sort of like the old NOS parts that have been in boxes a long time. The press machinery doing the silkscreening is making a usually visible groove/line/scratch from side to side near the front, just above the very small brand name logo, it was like this in each of the first two productions, this is a pressed-in line, and the factory says it is the result of the press machinery process used and it has to be that way to be marked this way. Sometimes it's unnoticeable, other times you can see it very well. It can't be seen in some of the photos, in others it's very clear to see.

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About Synhouse:

Synhouse Multimedia Corporation (best known as the manufacturer of the world's #1 analog MIDI retrofit, the Synhouse MIDIJACK) has been in business for 26 years and has been manufacturing from day one. Synhouse existed for 4 years informally before incorporation,  officially incorporated in 1999. Twenty-five years later, those first products (the Synhouse Original MIDIJACK, MIDIJACK II, and Moogiestyle MIDIJACK) are still being manufactured.