Electro-Harmonix Holy Grail Reverb

I don't usually get this excited about any effects device (especially one with a micro-chip in it), but I have to give Electro Harmonix a big hand for their latest product; the "Holy Grail" reverb pedal.

It's actually quite astonishing how realistic it is. OK, so it's not perfect, but for something that you can easily cram into a gig bag (or the back of your amp), it's close enough!

I even gave it the "Vintage Amp & Guitar Acid Test"... I ran the Holy Grail in line between my 1965 Epiphone Century archtop (w/P-90 pickup)and my 1965 Ampeg SB-12 Portaflex (all-tube vintage amplifier). The Ampeg is perfect for this test since it's so transparent that every subtle nuance of any guitar naturally shines through, providing an untainted pure reproduction.

So far the "Spring" reverb setting seems to work the best for average guitar use (in my opinion). I can't think of any other way to describe the quality of this setting except to say that it absolutely sounds "real"! Even when set to extremes it sounded convincing (although I wouldn't call it very useable). In fact I'm almost positive that *most* people wouldn't be able tell the difference. Apparently Dick Dale was tested and even he couldn't... !

Where just about every *other* digital reverb (pedal) seems to fail is the lack of realism in the tail end. They all tend to sound more like glorified delay units to me. Even BOSS describes their RV-3 as a combination of "multiple digital delays to simulate ...blaa blaa blaa..." reverb. Besides, the RV-3 doesn't even include a "spring" setting, only "room" "hall" and "plate" reverbs. Electro Harmonix has no doubt catapulted the quality standard for reverb pedals up to the Heavens with the Holy Grail! ;)

With the Holy Grail switched "on" I did notice a negligible amount of noise added to the signal and it does color the sound a tad bit, but I don't know of any analog reverb that doesn't do this to a certain degree.

I'm not entirely sure if it has true bypass switching, but I didn't notice any negative effects when the unit was switched off.

Anyway, I don't know how EH did it but, I swear, I almost expect to hear that crashing spring noise if I kick it too hard! ...close enough indeed!

Considering some of the downsides of a real "all tube" spring reverb; like their size, sensitivity to vibrations, vulnerability of the tubes and of course the price, the fact that the Holy Grail comes so remarkably close is truly a "God Send" ;)

In regards to other digital units... the comparison isn't even close. Oh sure, there are plenty of great high-end devices out there, but most require a rack to carry around, aren't really convenient or all that easy to use for the average musician and are even more expensive than their analog counterparts.

I bought my first Electro Harmonix products back in the early 80's (LPB-2 linear power booster, Small Stone phase shifter, Deluxe Big Muff distortion). I never liked the Big Muff but the other two are very cool and usable. I know that EH has introduced a wide variety of effects recently, but most seem gimmicky and narrowly limited in use to me. So, as far as I'm concerned the Holy Grail is absolutely the best thing they've come up with in years!

Anyway, there are currently two Electro Harmonix products that I can easily recommend: The Holy Grail reverb (obviously) and their 12AX7EH preamp tubes (the quality of the few I've tried is well above average).

But don't take my word for it, hear it for yourself!

One knob and one switch with three choices:Spring - Hall - Flerb. Set the switch and turn the knob to increase the level of the effect.

I love this little toy. Both "spring" and "hall" settings are very Fendery. Sort of like long and medium tray springs. I used Velcro to hang the unit (set and forget)inside the back of my three ten Bandmaster. I settled on the "hall" setting with the knob at 11 o'clock. So real I expect thunder (Wipe Out)when I bump my amp. I'm not the type to care about the "flerb" setting, but instrumental guys might find a use for it.

Don't shoot it with birdshot or jump up and down on it in your steel toed boots and it should be okay.

never had to deal with E H myself.

I'm an old pro from the persnickity world of tubes and vintage wood. (WWW.MichaelChain.Com gives examples of my music.) The Grail is just right for those of us who want that touch of reverb from a classic amp that didn't come with one and want to save the hassle and expense of custom trays and extra tubes. I own an old Fender stand alone reverb unit (it stays home). Nothing sounds better than that but the Holy Grail is a hell of a lot more convenient and sounds pretty damn good. Less space & if somebody steals it you can buy another. I am a happy camper.

No brainer. 1 knob.

Through a bass amp, it sounds nice and clean. It's hard to find guitar effects that sound good thru a bass amp. It does'nt hiss thru the tweeter.

The spring reverb effect does'nt sound like the spring reverb of a vintage fender amp, not even close.

The hall effect sounds nice, though, real spacey.

The flerb effect is a mix of reverb and phaser.

It does'nt look as sturdy as a Boss. It's builky for an analog pedal. But, it'll give you the reverb you want.

It's the next best amount of color to your sound without buying a chorus. For some music, bass sounds dull without having some degree of echo or reverb.

Incredcibly easy to set up and use as it only has a single 3 way sitch for reverb type and a balance dial.

I'm using it with a fender 15 watt bronco, this small fender just rocks by the way. It's so small and has so much going for it as a put it in your pocket, practice amp. The only thing it lacks is reverb, hence the addition of a pedal. I have the RV-3 and use it primarily for delay with an acoustic guitar. The reverb on the RV-3 is very tinny and is nothing like the superb sound you can get from the simplistic holy grail. I don't want to tweak a stomp box for ages, I just want to connect it and get a great sound, and that's what it does.
Like someone else mentioned who wants lots of reverb when you're using lots of distortion anyway, it's best used with a clean setting or with a dirty blues breakup setting. Transforms the sound to a professional dimension.

Only had it a week, hope it's dependable!

No comment, just bought the thing from the internet, arrived in 3 days. Great!

Currently only using this with the small bronco. Most larger amps these days have a decent reverb, especially the modelling amps. I will probably always use it as I'm planning to keep the bronco for a very long time as it sounds just great.

Very simple, two reverbs and a wierd sound and one knob to set it up.

If it was hardwired instead of having a detachable wall wart I'd give it a 10.

This thing sounds great. I can get exactly the reverb sound I'm looking for. I play through old Fender amps, right now my amp of choice is a 1960 Concert. This pedal gives me that wide open sound, the out of the box in a big hall sound. Without any of the ussual digital noise or artifacts. This pedal gives me hope that someday digital emulation and effects will become useable. This is the first low cost pedal that actually sounds like the analog effect its trying to emulate! I like the reverb effect better than the reverb of my silverface twin reverbs (I have 3 of them).

Both reverbs are cool, the other noise is a waste of space that should have been used to hardwire the pedal.

Have only used it for a couple of gigs. Seems like its built well...we'll see in couple of months. My main concern is the power supply. The chord seems a little flimsy and there is no option of using batteries, its the power supply or nothing. It would have been nice if it was totally hardwired, pull the "flurb" noise out and put the transformer inside and give it a nice sturdy chord to plug in.

I play a fairly clean, San Francisco sound. The Dead and the like. This pedal gets me right to that tone, that spacey warm sound. I use a real TS9, a real Mutron III, thats about it. The pedal sounds great with all of these, it doesn't interfere with my sound. The '60 Concert is possibly the greatest amp ever made for this style of music, especially with a nice warm reverb in front of it...the Holy Grail gets me there!

If it was stolen or lost I'd be right back at the shop buying another one of these, I'm thinking of getting a second one for backup just in case.

Get rid of the wall wart, put the power supply inside the box, give it a real plug and you've got the perfect reverb pedal!

Hmmm, one knob. Could it be any easier to use this pedal? Maybe if it came with a sound engineer who tweaked everything for you. I like just a twinge of reverb, so I definitely don't crank the thing, and it sounds great.

To the guy who said that this pedal sounds horrible with his Mesa distortion; did you put the reverb in your effects loop? You can never run reverb in FRONT of your distortion.

Personally, I almost never use my reverb with my distortion. So, that eliminates that factor almost completely. Except for occasionally when I'll play a part using the feedback of the amp - I can get some beautiful, naturally-compressed-sounding tones with the reverb then =)

The spring reverb is a good, solid sound; and definitely not a crappy sounding spring reverb that "warbles" too much.

I thought I would be using the hall reverb a little more, but it eliminates much of your picking nuances.

The 'flerb' sounds okay, but it's a stupid feature - It's, as the name implies, a reverb with a flange after it. Woop dee doo.

There is a little bit of hiss but not when it's in bypass, but it's more than bearable. Just don't use more reverb than necessary.

The fact that EH has a product called "HolIER Grail" is what bothers me. Grrrrrrrrr.

Other than something stupid I did to destroy one, I can't really say.

I blew one up a few weeks ago and all I had to do was send in on warranty. Voila. They fixed it and sent it back within a month.

Good value, but this not being the most integral piece of gear I have, it's hard to say comparing this to other reverb units.

Pretty easy to use. There's a switch to change between the three algorithms (spring, hall, and flerb) and a master reverb knob which acts as a wet/dry control rather than a parameter control, but I like it that way.

Being a digital pedal, I initially thouhgt it was going to sound a little grainy, or have that "Digital" twinge to it, but I was pleasantly surprised. The spring reverb is nice and springy (the perfect algorithm for guitars), the hall algorithm is full and spacious (I prefer this algorithm for vocal effects loops), and the flerb setting is really cool. It's like a combination hall reverb/flange which is really cool for vocals. It sounds like you're singing "underwater" which is pretty cool.

I bought this unit with the express purpose of layering reverb onto line-in recording in my home studio. It's not going to see a whole lot of the road, so the fact that it's made of light-grade aluminum is excusable. I treat all of my equipment with respect, so I'm not too worried about it getting crushed or anything

Never dealt with electro harmonix

I play a lot of blues with some classic acid rock type stuff every now and then. I really like the sound of this pedal because it has 3 unique, realistic, and authentic sounding algorithms. This is the kind of pedal that would suit just about any style of playing, singing, or recording, and I highly reccommend it to anyone looking for a good reverb pedal. Best I've ever heard!

Very easy to use .3 way switch(spring,hall,flerb)and a knob .No brainer .Spring sound is ok,hall sound was,less ok,and flerb is useless.

Ok here's where I have to be honest. I didn't care for the sound of this pedal.I was planning on using it with my Mesa dual recto head which doesn't have built in reverb .It didn't sound too bad on the "spring reverb" setting with a clean sound but as soon as you switch on a little distortion it sounds horrible .No matter how much I tweaked it I couldn't get it to sound good with distortion . If you play exclusively with a clean sound this pedal may be of some use to you as it wasn't too bad with the amp set clean .Spring was the best sounding verb to me and hall was just ok .
The "flerb" setting is a useless feature .It's a suttle flanger sound with verb .

Didn't keep it long enough to know if it's reliable. The case seems very weak .It's just thin aluminum.Doesn't seem like it could take a beating .I returned it .

Never dealt with them .

I hate to bash products like this but this pedal was not what I expected and did not suit my needs. It was not all together bad just very limited in what it can do .I bought this site unseen .I've only seen it in ads and bought it based on the hype .Try it before you buy it.At $79 bucks I guess you get what you pay for.It's a luxury item at best .I couldn't use it and returned it .
A LITTLE SIDE NOTE:If your looking for some reverb for your "no reverb" mesa amp .I resorted to using an old Alesis microverb in the effects loop of mine.Sits on top of my amp nicely and can be switched off and on with the mesa footswitch .(newer mesa's have footswitchable fx loops) So far so good .A boss rv-3 is an option I'm thinking of as well.

One switch, one dial = easy.

A really good clone of a real Fender spring reverb. If your amp is missing reverb, or it has a crap reverb, you'll appreciate this pedal. Not noisy. The "Spring" setting has the best reverb emulation, "Hall" and "Flerb" are pretty much useless to me.

If taken care of reasonably well, it should last. This should be a "set and forget" kind of FX, not used as an "on/off" fooot stomper. I'd never gig without a backup of any pedal.

Who knows, who cares, Tonto lose'um underwear.

Playing guitar since '55 - gigging pro from '62-'73 - into blues, jazz, new age surf, ragtime - Strats, Teles, old tube amps - this FX pedal will become a mainstay for reverbless amps.

If you never use the Flerb position, it is VERY easy to use, to me, the Flerb is useless. Just select "spring" for short tank emulation, or "hall" for long tank, dial in your wet signal amount. I NEVER go beyond 12:00, at which the effect becomes perverse.

I play it with an ADA Rocket A10, which is a wonderful amp, unfortunately however, without reverb. My other amp is a Fender Deluxe Reverb (long tank), and in comparison I am very pleased with the Holy Grail. I had it for a week now, and I am still unclear if I should prefer "spring" at 11:30 or "hall" at 9:30 (which is a bit deeper, kind of like my DR). At $79, the sound quality is awsome to me!

Feels a bit flimsy, but I take good care of my stuff, so I am not overly concerned.

No experience (yet).

Great little sucker at $79, if stolen, I would try to get another one used.