Electro Harmonix Small Stone

It's a good phaser pedal. I really liked solos with prominent phaser mixed with distortion, delay and some reverb, like Van Halen's Eruption and, specially, some from Jeff Waters (Annihilator). I firstly discovered that sound in a presentation of his Annihilator V guitar and I was intrigued by it.

When I discovered that it was a phaser and tried to emulate it with a flanger, with moderate success, I searched for a good not expensive Phaser. The most used to get that sound was the MXR Phase 90, but it was too expensive for the few occasions in which I planned to use it. I decided to look to the EHx nano series, because I had an amazing experience with a Neo Mistress.

I found this one and the Bad Stone and, since I thought the rate control was everything I needed, I opted for this one.

I am happy with my purchase, I can use it to do the lead effect I was after, to make a creamy sound paired with a flanger or to inject live into a slow distorted part. But the minimalist controls makes it not very customizable, although very versatile, since the rate knob is really effective in going from annoyingly slow to furiously fast and the color switch makes the effect more pronounced if needed. The pedal sounds very good, although sometimes it feels to subtil with the color switch off and to intense with it turned on. Contrarily to what I read about other phasers, this one doesn't make picks or drops in volume along its sound wave, at least with a clean sound and before distortion, after distortion I really don't like the sound, not only of this pedal but phasers and flangers in general.

It is a very competent pedal, but it lacks some magic that, for instance, the Neo Mistress has despite being a miniaturized version of a more complex pedal. I wonder if the Bad Stone goes that extra step from good to great. The Small Stone, though very good, is a small step away from greatness.

The small stone is one out the 3 classic phaser sounds and as such is beyond opinions. Is true that minimal sound differences exist between all successive iterations, but in this case (which I did wait for, since this black box looks killer, at least to me) is impossible for me t/o find any /difference, no matter how minimal, compared A/B to the 2017/18/19 versions.

The simplicity of controls border the absurd. Just a know for rate and a brigthness mini switch and will deliver the tones you expect, as your are used to hear in records from 1974, which is no other than the classic sound of a 4 stage phaser. Please note that both the MXR Phase 90 and this Small Stone are both four-stage phasers, which is easily distinguishable from others offering two, three, six, ten, 12 or 16 stages. In this case, more is not necessarily better, just different sounding, and chances are that the sound in your head when it comes to phasing is that of a 4 stage (think classic Van Halen).

Pedal is not dead quiet, but not annoyingly noisy. If your juice is fine, this will not be an issue. Construction overall is impeccable and the unit seems indestructible.

I am plenty satisfied with this one. With its new looks, is something you gotta have is phasing is your thing.

I bought this product because it is used by Kevin Parker of Tame Impala for their very iconic sound.

Pros:
- Very nice tone, the phase is psychedelic and smooth
- You can switch between "color" modes - up makes the phase much deeper with higher cuts to lows. Down makes it more smooth and equalized.
- Durable and doesn't take too much space

Cons:
- Requires sufficient power or it will produce weird sounds and crackles. It work weirdly with some of the adapters I've tried.
- I've tried two of these pedals in various setups, and with the color set to up, it produces huge volume boost at the top of the phase which is very irritating. Even if I put it before the compressor.

One thing to note - set the color to down if you want to use it with heavy distortion. If it's set to up, it will sound ugly.

This is in my experience the first phaser that sounds good. I've not played around with any that I liked the sound of before. I've spotted it at a concert - one of the bands was doing some trippy solos with it. Couldn't resist, bought it. No regrets!

Ok, down to business:
The metal casing is sturdy and the 2 controls available will never confuse you. It also seems to provide a sort of a boost on some frequencies, that helps add a punch to a solo when switching it on.

The knob:
The rate range is very wide, and goes from sloooow to superfast. There's no troublees controling it tho.

The color switch:
When down, phaser seems to affect less frequencies and generally is friendlier. When up though, it will go all out, encompassing the whole range and really putting the psy into the psychedelic :D

I've had no troubles with it what so ever. I see why it is deemed a legendary pedal! Plus the fact that it's much smaller than its predecessors is a superplus, since it really doesn't take up too much space on the pedalboard.

I decided to buy this pedal after listening to a lot of different models. I was searching for a phaser that could give different tonal shape possibilities with a very simple layout and vintage flavor. Also, i wanted a phaser that could be used in different musical contexts, from metal guitar craziness to lush ambient synth soundscapes.
When I plugged it in my amp for the first time, i was blown away by how awesome it was, both in rhythmic playing and soloing! I then tried it with a novation mininova synth, and that helped me understand how actually cool the color switch is. It gives you a much deeper and washy phaser effect, perfect for getting Jean Michel Jarre-like timbres.
In a metal guitar context by the way, I suggest to disengage the color switch, because it creates a very deep phase shifting that could give less definition .

Pros:

Excellent Sound
True Bypass
Easy to use

Cons:

In my personal experience, none.

This is my first phaser ever, and I am really happy about the sound I'm getting out of it.

It sounds very 70s which is my kind of things so yeah it is perfect for me.

My only complaint which might be my own mistake, cause I'm dumb, maybe, would be that when I put this after my big muff (while the muff is on) then turn on the small stone, my signal loses volume considerably.

This is not sexy at all, so I came up with a workaround plan. I set my dirty channel to sound pretty much the same as my clean channel from my amp, the only difference is that I cranked up the master volume of the dirty channel, so what i do is that every time I am playing my big muff on the clean channel, and I want to turn on the phaser, I stomp on the phaser and my amp footswitch to change to the dirty channel at the same time. All this alleviates the issue, and now it's kind of sexy to switch from muff to muff+phaser

Anyway this is not a deal breaker at all, maybe it's normal for phasers or maybe I'm doing something wrong, who knows, I dont know.