Electro-Harmonix Small Stone USA Reissue

Simple. A rate knob, a depth switch, and a RonSound installed depth knob.

I'm writing this review with a mod by RonSound. I sent it in to get a volume adjustment and asked if he could put in a depth knob rather than the switch. The volume adjustment addressed the issues raised by other reviewers perfectly. The depth knob revolutionized the pedal. I've found that on the deeper switch, the pedal is basically unusable with the rate above 12 o'clock (i'm not into bubble sounds). Ron's mod opened up the pedal another 50%. I can know use the entire rate range and adjust the depth knob for both deep and shallow switching (i though he would swap out the knob for the switch but he kept the switch and added the knob). I'm able to really utilize the deeper levels of this pedal now. I've always loved the sound and the mod doesn't tinker with it, it simply allows you to access the range of the pedal. I'm blown away by it.

My setup is BBE Wah, Small Stone, Blues Driver (Keeley Mod), Big Muff Hair Pi (RonSound Mod), Small Clone, Voodoo Lab Tremelo, Carbon Copy, Hardwire Reverb, Boss Loop into a Genz Benz Black Pearl 2x12. I'm playing a PRS SE One, Epi Dot Studio with Classic 57's, and a Danelectro with SD Lipsticks.

We'll see. I have no reason to think it will not hold up.

Ron Rocks. He answers my late night emails, is reasonable on the prices ($15 for the volume adjustment, $25 for the know), gets the stuff back in reasonable time (three weeks door to door to door). I've sent off my small clone to see if he can do the same for that pedal as I have the same issues with the deeper switching and rate combo on that even though I love the sound otherwise.

I would strongly recommend this mod. I now use the pedal much more as a result.

Easy to use

I love the swirl and swoosh of this pedal. Unfortunately, I cannot use this pedal live! Yep, it's the volume drop. What an amazingly stupid design flaw! I simply can't use this live, my volume level just drops out too much. You'd think that EH would have reissued this with an added volume control on it? very dissapointed.

Seems to be built very well, but because of the volume drop when the pedal is on, it's useless to me in a live situation.

Like I said, the sound is great but the volume drop renders this unit unusable in a live setting

Easy.

Nice lush swoosh, we all know about the volume drop. The top of the sweep has an incredibly bright "ice-pick in the ear" quality. I didn't notice this at the music store when playing at a moderate volume, I heard it at a gig. This is unusable in a live high volume situation in its stock form. I use a Peavey classic 30, not exactly Marshall stack loud. I'm sending this to Analog Mike.

One knob and one switch makes this a doddle to use. Loses one point for having to use a screwdriver to open the battery compartment.

This is the larger USA small stone, not the new Nano Small Stone.

I use a ton of effects into a DI box with a fender jaguar.

The phasing sound is adequate. Quite warm and smooth, but adds a bit of distortion to the sound at points of the sweep. You have to be careful to set it right.

The knob adds a nice range of speeds and the switch goes from "a bit of phase" or "lots and lots of phase". You can never dial in the right amount.

There is a significant volume drop when the pedal is engaged meaning that you disappear from the mix when you turn it on. This makes this pedal useless for live use.

Not a Boss pedal, but it's got a metal case and seems solid enough. The smaller size makes it seem less fragile than most large EH pedals.

EH customer support has always been good to me. I've not a bad word against them.

I heard that the small stone was the best, warmest and most buttery phaser on the market.

It sounds alright (especially on organs) but I think the Boss PH1, DOD and MXRs are much better soundwise. Even the Boss PH2 and some plastic rockteck phasers gives a better sound than this one with less (or at least more controllable distortion).

The volume drop, and different type of AC adapter and lack of control over the sound make this completely impractical for live use. Sorry, but this pedal really quite sucks.

I have the original USA Small Stone, i bought it in # 1979 in France.
Very easy to use: 1 knob + 1 switch "color" sound

Very good sound !! with big personality, but respecting your guitar tone in the same time. I prefered it to the first MXR's Phase45.
The drawback is that there is some background "wind noise" at low levels.. and the little loss in level as someone else said also.

30 years old and still working !
I put myself an external +9Vdc miniJack.
Also, as most of these early pedals, you have to remove 4 screws to access to the 9Vbattery.

No need !

The only other Phasing pedal i bought and use, which is "more transparent" and noiseless is the TC Electronics 1980's original Chorus.
I play for 35+ years acoustic & electric guitar. I like Rock + PopUK voices music. I play on StraUS1975 (DiMarzio bridge modified), Ibanez PatMetheny PM120, MesaBoogie MarkIV & Marshall JCM900 (50w/5881 tube), and acoustic Yamaha LL16 & Marshall AS100D. Also, i own many vintageUS Pedals (EH SmallStone, ElectricMistress, MiniQTron, MXR DynaComp etc..).

Very easy to use. One knob and a two position switch. Very easy to get good tones out of this.

Was able to dial in mean Gilmore tone (Breathe). Rich analog tone and very quiet, though you can hear some pumping when not playing. I've used this through a Tweed Champ and Reeves Custom 12 so far with equally good results. Have only tried it with my Strat so far. The range of this unit is excellent; I wasn't able to find a bad tone. However, there is a slight volume drop when engaged. Not a huge drop, but noticeable.

The first unit I received had barely any effect at all on any setting. It just plain didn't work. This speaks to the reliability of the unit. I would gig without a backup, as I could approximate the tone with my Voodoo Lab MicroVibe (I think).

Never dealt with them.

I play classic rock and blues and have been playing well over 20 years. I own lots of boutique pedals and amps and play with Fender Strats and an Epiphone Elitist Les Paul. I would definitely buy this pedal again. I do wish there wasn't the volume drop but it's not a big deal for me. Highly recommended as long as the unit works!

One knob and a color switch. Battery door is accessible using a screwdriver. The pedal is very easy to use sound-wise, but I'll take one point off because of the power adapter jack. It uses a different tip, and those adapters are harder to find.

I also have a Boss PH-2. I've never heard of a Boss pedal having problems, but my Boss phaser has bad jacks and switching. I thought the sound of it was fine, but nothing extraordinary. I looked around for another phaser that was affordable, but with a more natural sound. I picked the Small Stone over the MXR Phase 90. This effect lets your guitar's tone shine through while giving you a sweet phasing sound. There is a volume drop while the effect is on; I hear that there are mods to fix it, though. I'll try to get a friend to do that to my pedal. The color switch gives the sweep a very spacey sound - it's a little too much for me, but I suppose it's useable for out-there effects. For what it does, it sounds good.

I bought the pedal used, and it's fine... but I've only had it for a week now.

No experience with them.

It's a simple pedal, and it has quality sound. I'm sure there are better phasers out there with more options, but this gets the job done. I really don't use that many effects, so this pedal is used sparingly. I would especially recommend this to people who aren't used to using effects; this pedal has no learning curve, and it's hard to make it sound bad.

A knob and a switch... what could be easier?

On my lunch break I ventured to Guitar Center with no intentions of buying a pedal... especially a phaser. I noticed a used one sitting in the window of the counter and decided to waste some time and give it a try. I've fiddled around with countless phasers... MXR... Boss... Digitech... only to be somewhat put-off by the idea of a phaser. The small stone gave me a whole new perspective. Unlike other pedals that either sqash your tone till its thin as sliced bologna, or pedals who merely add a the whoosh sound "behind" your guitars tone... this one truly added that sweet sweep you've heard on pro recordings. Every note is still crisp and clean.

I havn't owned my own for more than 2 months but its built like a tank and I dont forsee any problems

Never dealt with them.

A very sweet pedal. Very capable of adding a new dynamic to your playing. I would recommend it to experts as well as beginners and anyone in between.

As others have stated, it's got one big knob and a color switch which changes the tonal character of the phase. Incredibly simple to use.

I'll give it a 9.5 because of the slight decrease in volume as others have stated, but really it's nothing drastic and I'm afraid to send it off to someone like analogman who could remedy the issue because I'm afraid it won't come back sounding as good as it does now. I'm using either my '68 reissue Strat or my '52 reissue Tele with it through a Rivera Rake two channel head and a Marshall 1936 2x12 cabinet. It's dead silent and there's a lot of depth and variety to the phaser just by simply turning the speed knob or color switch on or off. I tried over a half dozen different phaser pedals, Maxon, Boss, MXR, etc., and IMO the Small Stone is far and away the most organic, most naturally complimentary phaser I've ever heard. Others sounded good on some settings, but they were either too complicated with too many varieties of switches, not warm enough, or it was just obvious that a pedal had been employed. Not so with the Small Stone, which just seems to surround your guitar and tone with warm, spacey, trippy phasing. The tones are instantly recognizable on classic recordings. Flipping the color switch on gives the tone a sort of auto wah effect, and with a little overdrive mixed in and the speed slow I was able to duplicate the Edge's riff in "Mysterious Ways" almost perfectly. I normally prefer the color switch off, however, and the speed slow or at 12 o'clock for that trippy arpeggio stuff reminiscent of 70's George Harrison or Badfinger stuff.

I've only had it for a couple of weeks, so I don't know how reliable it will be in the long term. It definitely feels less durable than a Boss or Digitech pedal, so we'll see.

This is a classic pedal and for good reason. It just sounds outstanding, and it's even cheaper than most other pedals. There may be more expensive boutique pedals that can do more than this simple box, but why bother? I'm not normally a pedal guy, but I bought it on a lark based on some reviews I read and I was just looking to try something different.
I found this pedal inspiring me to write and try out different progressions that would benefit from good phaser tones, so it's definitely opened up a new area of creativity for me.

Its got one knob and one switch. Unless theres somthing wrong with you you'll find what you're looking for in 20 seconds.

My rig currently goes...

Fender USA fat strat/Jap Jazzmaster- Zvex fuzz factory-Fulltone Fulldrive2-EHX Small Clone-EHX Small Stone-Boss OC2 Octave-Ibanez AD9 analog Delay-Boss DD3 Digital Delay-Korg DT10 Tuner all into a Matamp GTL 120W half Stack. I love the small stone, I bought it coz I was after a phaser and I really liked my small clone. Besides the slight volume drop when the pedal is activated, Im as happy as could be, it gives great natural sounding phase noises: if you want a nice anaolg sounding phaser just get this, dont mess about with expensive boutique pedals on ebay, you can get what you want for a lot less right here.

The only other thing I would say is that the stone never gets extreme; Ive tried boss pedals that I can make sound like flangers etc, if thats the sound youre after then this probably isnt for you.

Never had a problem with my small clone and Ive had that years, the new NYC pedals are suposed to be better too (The ones in cardboard, not wooden boxes). Also its true bypass (unlike my small clone) so if thigs do go wrong, just turn it off. Phasers are too unnecessary to warrant me spending #60 on a backup.

Never dealt with them

It sounds great. I love it. For what it does there won't be better unless you add #200 to the price tag. That said its a one-trick pony...but if that trick is a tripple backwards somersault and then landing on its hind hooves with extreme grace, ellegance and beauty....then thats not bad for 65 quid