Small Stone Mod

I play an '84 fender strat with joe bardens as my main guitar, with a reissue thinline tele as my backup...typical chain : strat > korg oct-1 octaver or mu-tron octave divider > vox wah with a fulltone pot > maxon af-9 envelope filter > first issue small stone with howard davis mods > stock reissue mxr dyna comp > analogman ts-9/808 > keeley seeing eye mod boss ds-1 > original ibanez cs-9 chorus > line 6 dl-4 > 65 fender bandmaster, into a homemade 2-10 cab until i get the bandmaster cabs set up.  Plan to upgrade or modify the dyna comp soon.  Sweet, sweet phase tone, but before i sent it to howard, it was pretty much unusable live, as the volume would drop about 30%...He did a volume loss mod, and put in a dpdt switch for true bypass, and now it's great, very little volume loss, and no tone sucking when bypassed.  I believe he also does a color saturation mod to mellow the sound a bit when the color switch is up, but I like the over the top swoosh.  With the the maxon filter and the small stone together, I can get some very cool sounds like Avi Bortnik on the john scofield band album uberjam.  Approximates the sound of a pigtronix ep-1 to my ears.  Analog mike suggested howard to me, as he was a chief design engineer for electro harmonix in the late seventies who designed the octave multiplexer, the polychorus, the redesigned memory man, the talking pedal, and many others.  If you've got a small stone (or any electro harmonix pedal) that you want some work done on, he's the guy.  Also does free cosmetic reconditioning on any orders over fifty dollars.  I give a ten not for the small stone (I'd rather have a red witch or an infinitphase) but for howard's work...he turned this into the absolute best small stone I've ever heard.

Seems reliable enough, i don't abuse my gear, so it should be good i think.  Electro harmonix stuff isn't the sturdiest, however...if you stomp on the rate knob hard it'll probably bust.  I have faith that it'll continue to work properly, and I don't have a backup (well, a dod 201, but it sounds weak and puny in comparison), so I will be gigging without a backup.  It's not a sound that gets used a lot like overdrive/distortion/compression/wah, so even if it failed, it wouldn't ruin my set or anything. 

One stomp switch, one slide switch, one rate knob...don't get any easier,except maybe a super hard on or dod 250 sorta thing...

Howard does good work, had it sent back out the next monday after receiving it friday or saturday...I'd say that's a good turn around time.  As for support, he stands behind his work 100%, and if you're not satisfied or the pedal fails, you can send it back within thirty days for free repair.  Doesn't get better than that.

I play funk-rock-jazz-fusion-prog sorta stuff, or I try.  Dig Zappa, Hendrix, Miles, chili peppers, king crimson, jeff beck, john scofield, and more alternative stuff like ween, pavement, mars volta, etc. A little towards the "jamband" end of things, I guess, but I wouldn't call it that.  I've been playing about ten years (since I was twelve) and would not hesitate to send another EH pedal to Howard if I felt the need.  Lost or stolen, I'd either get another vintage small stone if the price is right, or if financially viable, I'd go for an infinitphase or red witch medusa, for much greater flexibility.  Regardless, Howard does fantastic work.