Review Demo - Electro-Harmonix Bad Stone Phaser

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If the Electro-Harmonix Small Stone phaser is one of the EHX family’s favorite sons, the original Bad Stone is the brilliant but eccentric cousin who disappeared to some mountain cabin after a failed attempt at prep school.

While EHX produced an early FET-based version, the Bad Stone most players know debuted in 1975 and remained in the EHX line till the early ’80s. It was a relatively ambitious phaser for its time, with six phase-shift stages (the Small Stone had only four) and a switch that enabled players to lock in on a particular point in the phase shift and rock that weird filtered frequency all night long.

Like so many pedals in EHX’s history, the Bad Stone was quirky and original, and it provided something players didn’t even know they wanted. Thankfully, EHX’s quirky urges have never gone away, and now the Bad Stone has been resurrected in a nano-size package with the same functionality as its illustrious, if weird, predecessor. (The only change, according to EHX, is a slightly broader rate control, permitting extra-slow modulation.)

The Bad Stone was unencumbered by notions of “pedalboard space”—it was as large as the full-sized Big Muff. That may have been a lot of steel for three knobs and a couple of switches, but it provided a killer canvas for graphics. The new nano version still looks sharp, retaining a sweet mix of utility and shag-lined custom-van grooviness. The line drawing of an ugly face that “graced” the original version no longer appears on the enclosure, but it’s memorialized on the PCB’s etching. But despite the extra graphic, the board’s compact layout leaves room for a 9V battery. Everything seems sturdy. My one concern: The footswitch feels a bit stubborn and occasionally engages with a pronounced pop.

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