Electro-Harmonix Holier Grail Reverb

It took a few seconds to get up and going. Un-like most Reverbs....thats where the common Reverb flavor ends. This pedal has more settings than most players would ever use. Being a tone nut case...I absolutely love the fact every time I fiddle with its knobs(insert snicker here)I find new sounds. I dont normally mention Manuals in my reviews. Since EHX manuals are normally VERY vague to say the least. I would like to mention that the manual was very helpful with the Gate section of the pedal.

This is the only Digital pedal on my board,it sounds very warm and REAL. Bypass works perfectly as well. I have always been fortunate in years past to have great amps with great reverbs....Well since I have been using Robert Hinson Amps I have been missing my Reverb sounds. Now first off Im not a Analog SNOB to the point that I wont use digital. I will try new things and if they work then cool. This pedal did not disappoint in the least. The Boss RV-5 is a great pedal...some would call it the best. This pedal is warmer than the RV-5 and can be tweaked to suit the situation better.

The pedal has been no problem for me at all. I myself accidentally plugged a 24v adapter into it..poof..well all I can say is it wasn't pretty. Best advice I can give is when wiring a large pedalboard with multi voltage requirements....mark those tips.

Here is where EHX shines for me. I messed up as previously stated. Contacted EHX. Chip Emailed me back within 24hrs. I emailed them again and like before I received a reply within 24 hrs with the information from Rik on how to get the pedal serviced. Exactly 8 days later from the time it left my hands till it was back to me in perfect working order. I even had two slider switches that were still working but getting worn from use...they replaced them as well. Thanks Chip and Rik.Top Notch Service.


"HELLO MESA THIS IS HOW YOU TAKE CARE OF CUSTOMERS"

I play Blues,R&B and Classic Rock. This pedal has a wide range of tones available. Buy it you wont be disappointed.

This has a lot of dials and knobs - but once you have settings -easy.

casino - Keeley BD - reverb - old delay box - old AC15 - overall a good reverb sound - I can't comment on recorded tone. all I know about is gig tones in bars and small clubs. The spring ( short and long ) are very good. The blend is nice - lets you dial in bypassed tone - so fairly warm sounding - not too digital-like

I used this for 2 years - maybe 20 gigs and much noodling around - every-once-in-a-while the reverb would be gone! - rarely - I would bang on it and it would magicallay re-appear!

I play covers - dance stuff - no need for gates,etc. Have played 40 yrs - many amp reverbs in the past - I preferred the spring on this to both fenders I have owned
( including orig 64 DR) It loses a point for being kind of big - but gets a point back for decent price and resale - got most of $$ back for it on ebay. Fast changes in song to
song cover gig are a little wierd - knob layout not inuitive but I got accustomed to it. Overall this is one of my favorite reverb tones I've heard. The only one better is the T-REX - but this cost me more $$$.

So easy it hurts, but many will fail to get on with the gate...

I bought it for the spring emulation, which rules. I have a AKGBX20 spring reverb that sounds really smooth - the grail is a nice graunchy guitar spring type sound. The Long Spring is good on drums and the input is desk send impedance friendly - very 60s! Hall and Room are also good sounding. In some ways I like the fixed decay as there is no mucking about, after all you can't easily change the decay in a real chamber or spring (plus just EQ the reverb return)! It always sounds like the grail so if it fits your 'sound' then splash it on the whole album for continuity.
FLERB IS RUBBISH HOW CAN EH RELEASE A TUNED REVERB - ONLY USABLE IF A# FITS YOUR HARMONIES - THIS MUST BE AN ARTIFACT OF SOME KIND OF SAMPLING GOING ON IN THE DSP CHIP AS THE FLANGE BECOMES A PITCHED loop ON THE SHORTER TIME SETTING - LAME! IF THIS SAMPLING TECHNIQUE IS USED FOR THE OTHER REVERBS IT IS NOT NOTICEABLE.
Could only sound more real if it had physical feedback and picked up vibrations from the environment - Kick it!

I had a holy grail - it broke and the chip just got hot - I reckno thats why the bigger case for airflow in the Holier. Holy's always overheat sometime. At the moment the Holier is on 24/7 to try and break it within guarantee! If it survives 3 months of power on I will worry less! Have dropped it and will continue to do so to test the bitch.

If you can't gig because your pedal dies, you suck, not the pedal!

Don't know!

There are 3-4 specific settings that I use - It took a few gigs ( in rooms with lively accoustics ) to get it dialed in. Of course, the sounds you think are great in a rehearsal space never apply to playing out. Mine is new - 2006. Manual somewhat helpful.

strat - Carl Martin compressor - sparkle drive - Old Ibanez analog delay ( AD-99 ) - reverb - tweed bassman. Not noisy at all. Reverbs are excellent. 1. spring - on the short setting it's a wonderful surf splash - way better than my 64 DR reverb, or any other real spring reverbs inside amps thjat I have owned - go figure. - with the blend at %50 it's great On the long spring setting - don't use it. 2. room - on the short setting it's a nice alternative to slapback delay for rockabilly. The long room setting is good for subtle wetness - nice at gigs in dry rooms - low ceiling, carpets, etc - or outside. 3. Hall - rarely use it BUT awesome on the long setting for volume swells - pretty convincing organ sound - fun with the volume knob of a strat. 4. Flerb setting- uh-uh. 5. gate - also uh-uh

the switch is borderline feeling - but other effects I have used with a similar switch 'feel' have lasted years. No back-up

40 years playing - for past 10 yrs in cover band doing medium size parties - bars - maybe 2 gigs/month - dance cover stuff - R+B, pop, rockabilly - heavy vocals - rhytmic stuff - no synth allowed. This is the only reverb I have ever used consistantly. One more time - need to say how good the spring - short setting surf sound is. I like that it doesn't have 'patches' One thing really special about this is the 'blend ' knob - it REALLY is a blend knob. When you turn it %100 off and have the reverb engaged there is only a TINY change in basic strat + bassman tone. There are ways to use a bassman inputs to blend wet + dry but I don't need to with this pedal-cool. The one thing I would change: add large white pointer lines on the knobs - I added my own with tape - the original lines are too small to see in the dark. Over-all I like this thing.

Very easy to use.

Awesome reverb pedal. All sounds are usable even the flurb. Flurb is a nice add-on special effect. I've found some uses for it. The gate is a nice extra feature that makes this pedal useful for drums or a drum machine. Don't see much use for the gate on guitar though. Maybe you would but I doubt it. The spring reverb is fantastic and I know what a great spring reverb sounds like. I've owned a 1971 twin and a bogner shiva which both have a great reverb. This thing is very very close to the real deal. I can't believe it's digital but it is. It doesn't trash my feel or tone much at all. I'm an analog nut and have some expensive maxon pedals and the like but I have no gripes about this digital effect, which is rare for me. It adds a touch of white noise(hiss) when engaged and you're not playing but it has true bypass and is dead silent when off. The hiss is the same sound as tube amp hiss so it's not a problem. Just raises your noise floor a bit. No buzzzzzzing, hummmmming, or other bad noises that digital effects usually make. Good tone and great reverb sounds for guitar. I love the long spring and long room verbs in this box. Ya, it's a cool pedal for sure.

No problems with it yet. Looks sturdy to me. Not the kind of pedal I would drop though but then again, you wouldn't want to drop a rack reverb either. Looks really cool as well. I like the lay-out of the jacks and knobs.

no experience.

It's a great pedal. I'm as picky as players come and have a small fortune invested in gear. It made it into my rig and the vast majority of things I try don't. The little imperfections it has are easy to work around in my opinion. It's useful for any situation where you want reverb on an amp. Plus it's handy for a snare mic or drum machine which increases it's value. I think for the money it's a keeper. If it was $350.00 I would feel less happy about it. The fact is, most reverb pedals suck big time. This one is pretty good. I like it better than digital rack verbs because it sounds more analog and realistic for guitar and doesn't damage dynamics much.

EH pedals are notorious for their ease of use-- the Holier Grail is no exception. You choose one of four flavors of reverb, select LONG or SHORT for the reverb setting, dial in your blend, and you're in sonic heaven. I really like that the blend knob is weighted so to speak-- up to 12 o'clock the reverbs are very subtle, past 12 you get into cathedrals & cave settings.
The manual is brief, but longer than I've seen for other EH pedals. It goes into depth about the gate function, which is useful primarily in recording keybords & percussion.

I've used this with several guitars, an Italia Modena, Epi Dot, Dano 12 string, Gretch Jumbo Sierra either into a Vox Valvetronix or straight into a mixer. With the power supply provided, the unit is DEAD silent, and has actually quieted the rest of my pedalboard due to its grounding. Go figure.

I'm comparing this to pedals I've had in the past, including the RV-3, RV-5, & the Digiverb. None of them come close to the depth & clarity of reverbs the grail creates. The spring emulation is bright, full, and very believable. The hall is very warm and dark, with endless trails as you turn up the blend knob. The room setting is clean and transparent, a very musical reverb for acousic instruments. I'm even able to get some useable sounds out of the Flerb, which adds a flanged modulation to the reverb. The flerb isn't great on its own, but when fed into a delay pedal, the reverb itself is more pronounced, and there's just a shimmer of flange in the mix. I play shogazey pop music and this is probably the end-all be-all pedal for this setup. I don't rate items 10 very often, but the sound quality really is pristine.

This seems well constructed. It's not a very heavy unit, but I'd certainly gig it without a backup.

I've been playing for several years now, and I cycle through gear pretty quickly unless its something special. The holier grail is definitely in a class of its own. I'd replace it in a second. The only thing I wish it had was a stereo out, but I've got a roland rack reverb to handle that. The grail is perfect, stop reading & go get one.

It's a reverb pedal: Hall, Room and Spring settings will probably be familiar. Control over the decay time is just on a switch: long or short. I'd prefer to have a bit more control than that, but it turns out to be OK (for my purposes anyway). There is also a wet/dry "blend" knob which is really critical for getting the sound you want.

So that's pretty straightforward. The unit also comes with a noise gate that can be set up in reverse mode (ie the gate opens when level drops below the threshold). Who knows when I'll find a use for it, but right now the gate function stays off as I haven't found one yet.

The sound is really lush, and capable of producing believable reverb when used subtly. It can also do some extreme things; it's possible, for example, to hear only the reverb and dial out your dry sound altogether. Also, the much-discussed "flerb" (flanged reverb) is an extra toy to play with; unlike many of the other contributors here, I really like it. It adds some complexity to some of the more crazy 70's synth noises that come ut of my Line 6 Modulation Modeller, for example. The unit is very quiet.

Well, I had it shipped to the UK from the US (favourable exchange rate at the mo) and it arrived broken even though it came in its sturdy wooden box and nothing else I ordered was at all damaged. I suspect it came out of the factory that way, which is really poor. I had to send it to Germany (on my dime) to have it repaired, which took several weeks. It looks and feels a bit flimsy. I would gig it gently, but not put it under any strain.

Support were helpful and fixed the problem reasonably quickly. I asked them to switch my power supply to a UK one to save me buying a new one, which they didn't, but offered no explanation -- given the I had to have the unit repaired as soon as it arrived I thought that would be a small gesture but never mind. Would have been god to be able to give it to someone in London though -- seems there is just one guy covering all of Europe.

Very pleased with this. It's expensive and feels delicate though -- if you intend to gig it hard I would look elsewhere.

at first glance it seems difficult but if you read the manual carefully you can get the sounds you want easy. the manual is a A4 purple sheet but it teaches you the basics. funny thing when i had the holy grail i did not read the manual and only now do i realizer why the knob for "blend" alters the sound so dramatically when you pass the 12o'clock.

well, i sold the electroharmonix holy grail to buy this one and it really is worth the money. i use a voxac30/gibson les paul/sd1/ts9/rotovibe. the holier grail really adds that extra dimension that one would expect from a reverb pedal. it has that effect "flerb" - well, it is really quite worthless. i'd say that it's the only thing i do not like in the holier grail(the holy grail already had it and i didn't use it then as well) - i mean, it's different, but, not that much of a cool different. but, soundwise, the holier grail can make you enter the same room as jeff buckley to play "halleluja" in not time at all. the "hall - long" setting is really quite something

well i've had 3 pedals from electroharmonix and so far i had no problems, so i'd depend on them

they're quite friendly. when i wanted to buy the ac9v transformer for my holy grail they gave me the specs to buy one at any electric store so that i wouldn't need to buy the original from eh. they mailed the specs to me in one week. so, no problems in that department.

if it was stolen i'd chase the mother### who did it all the way to hell and back. i play something near to jeff buckley/radiohead. and the holier grail puts my guitar sound just where i want it. all three reverbs (room/hall/spring) are cool. the "gate" is... well, i didn't try it that much, but i think it has some potential there if used properly. i still have to loose quite a feew sleepless nights to get it to work my way. overall, i think that everyone who plays a guitar should have to buy a reverb pedal, be this one from electroharmonix or anyother one. my guitar player has a boss-rv7 and it's just as cool. but please do yourself a favour and at least try a reverb unit because the one you get from your amp is almost never enough. the reverb has helped me to write quite a few tunes, only the guitar and the reverb. it really puts the sound in a heavenly place. after you try a reverb unit you won't get by without one.

Very easy to use. Three different reverbs with lots of possibilites tweaking. I can't tell the difference between this and regular spring reverb other than no spring sounds when picking it up!

I'm using it with a 5150 head (in the fx loop), Jackson Dinky Reverse, Carvin V30 clone 2x12 cab. Sounds awesome. Some hum but I use those damn cheapo musicians friend cables. I get hum with my 5150 anyway naturally. Could be the stock pups I still have too. So who gives a shit. No feedback, awesome out of phase reverb with the third setting, but I use the regular "spring" setting the most. Very lush and organic sounding. I'm getting a G Major, but I'm going to miss using this baby.

Electro Harmonix is one of my favorite pedal companies. They're almost up there with Maxon and MXR as far as quality and reliability. Some cheap plastic Knobs and stuff like that but the electronics seem reliable. Then again that's just my experience with EH and their brother company, Sovtek. I love the Sovtek Phaser Shifter by the way. It looks like it was built out of old Soviet Tank parts and it probably was !

No idea

I play prog/melodic metal with some heavier influences. I love this baby, in fact I'm not going to sell it to anyone. Its an awesome pedal, and it does some cool spacey stuff too if you want it. No noise, bypasses fine (I'm not too familiar with the terminology "true bypass" so I don't know if it is) all I can say is my original 5150 tone is there, plus kick ass reverb.

Very easy to use because, unlike a lot of products on today's market, it has only a few settings/selections that it does very well! Plug it in and it drips quality.

Excellent!! Smooth, detailed, quiet and accurate. I use the pedal through the aux of my console so I can put the excellent spring reverb on more than one guitar track at a time. No better reverb for guitar - electric or acoustic. Great for other things too, but I have 4 different effect units that I have share duties.

Blew something that knocked out the reverb completely. Sent the unit back to EH for repair. I give it a "5" rather than a "1" because...read the next section...

Excellent!! I bought this unit used on ebay. After it broke, I sent it back to EH requesting it be fixed for free since it was still less than a year old...although I did not have a receipt. They returned it fixed in less than 2 weeks - no charge. They stand by their products!!

I do mainly instrumental guitar stuff...full band recordings for film and personal projects. Playing for 40 yrs. 16 track analog studio. My main reverb is a Lexicon MPX1. The sonic character of the Holier Grail matches that with ease - although it's not as versatile. It definately improves the sound of my guitar tracks. Not a "10" because of the reliability factor stated above. Although... Highly Recommended!!