Electro-Harmonix Holy Stain

Overall a very easy straightforward unit to use.

The Bad: There are no banks to save patches to. This would put the pedal through the roof. But I guess that would be asking to much. No patches means that that settings have to be manually adjusted if you switch from reverb to vibrato or vibrato to pitch shift, etc. Control surface for the full/od lacks well... Control.

The Good: Control surface for the clean effects is fairly intuitive yet straightforward. Also an expression pedal can be used to adjust the amount knob on the clean effects which is kind of cool.

The Bad: The distortions suck. They might be better if you could control them but as such no control = sucky sound. The sound is also not transparent. If the clean effects are engaged then to is the preamp (clean/full/od) which includes a tone pot to muddy up your sound.

The Good: Although the preamp must be engaged its a good sounding pre so if you screw with the tone and volume you can get a pretty transparent sound. While there is some personal preference in the world of reverbs the reality is the hall and room verbs included with this pedal are very good. I also have a lexicon rack unit which has arguably the best verbs in the world and I would say that the verbs in this unit are fairly comparable. The room has a bit of a spring pop to it making it sound a little bit more like a real analog reverb. The hall is deep, lush, and clean. The vibrato is pretty good as well.

Seems as though its built well.

No experience

My biggest complaint is the lack of control. My second biggest complaint is you can't save patches. My third biggest complaint is that you can't mix clean effects. I was well aware of these three short comings before I purchased the pedal. Despite these short comings I am very happy with the sound and quality of the clean effects and till I can afford to drop 400 bucks on a vibrato unit and reverb tank it will suit me just fine.

REALLY easy to use straight off, a control to toggle between the four effects, and a bypass, an output jack for an expression pedal, that's it.
All the effects are really intuitive to use, the reverbs and the tremelo are outstanding. Pitch shift is almost unusable, either change the range and improve the tracking or drop it altogether EH!
The Drives are adjustable via the tone and colour controls, the amount of dirt is pre set.

Using a gretsch 6120 into a tech 21 trademark 60 (remember those?!) via a boss super overdrive (for leads), eq (for my main overdrive sound), and tuner (for tuning haha!)
The reverbs are excellent on this model, particularly the hall reverb - just shimmers woo!
The tremelo is fantastic, a little dirty and if you set it fast some reverb creeps in, it isn't one of those awful super clean digital ones and won't do "how soon is now" by the Smiths, but for authentic creepy garage/surf sounds, THIS is the one! I hear a slight modulation in the signal too which only adds to it's unpredictable and cool vibe.
The Pitch shift needs either to be turned into an octaver, and the tracking improved - or it just needs scrapping. If you set the pitch to be almost the same as the input pitch then you get a usable chorusing effect, but I'm just being kind - it sucks.
The pedal is super quiet apart from when using:
The overdrive and fuzz! the overdrive is just like a really weak version of the fuzz and I don't use it at all - but the fuzz is genuine Stephen Malkmus unhinged lead joy! I set it with the colour switch on warm and it's just MASSIVE! especially when combined with a short hall reverb or OTT tremelo sound, instant "what's the frequency kenneth?" haha!

It can withstand my doc martens, it can withstand my five year old son, it is therefore indestructible.
I don't need any backup on my pedalboard, this thing is built to last - and if it broke (god help me) I'd just get it replaced as the unit is so inexpensive.

I'd consider looking into getting the pitch shifts range moved, so it goes from regular to an octave below, but this would have to be done by an independent specialist.
I've had no dealing with EH.

I play surfy, gritty indie, rockabilly type music and this is just perfect for all that. I actually miss it when it's not switched on.
I grew up playing 70's rock (kiss and whatnot) and the fuzz is actually kind of perfect for all that, plus the aforementioned visits to pavement land.
Unlike some other reviews here I wouldn't like to make the fuzz adjustable - it's just that pitch shifting that needs looking at.
I've been playing since I was 9, I'm now 33, and this is easily the best and most useful pedal for my style of playing ever invented.

Very easy to use. The only complaint is that you can only have a single combination of effects (effect -> tone settings -> clean/drive) engaged at once. Pick what you want and hope you're happy because you won't get to use another unless the same settings happen to be perfect on another mode that you can tap to.

Impecable!! This thing is the cleanest pedal I've ever used. The reverbs sound amazing. Great sounding and simple to use EQ adjustments. The pitch shift has a sizable delay that makes it pretty un-usable (hence the 9 rating instead of the 10). The drive and overdrive settings are getting a bad rap on here. I don't think they're too bad at all. The only thing is that they're not adjustable. What you hear is what you get.

I've only had it overnight so I don't know for sure. But it's all metal and solid. I'll have it on my board for my gig this Friday and won't worry about it at all.

As far as quality for price, I think this thing is great. Great sound quality. I was in the market for a delay pedal and a reverb pedal. Had the Holy Stain had a delay feature, I would have only bought this. I was so bummed when I saw that it didn't with all of the other quality. Switch out the useless pitch shift and put a delay on. Add one more button to run two effects at once, and give the drives some adjustability, and this thing is a near perfect basic multi-effects pedal.

Easy as heck to get good sounds right out of the box. But hard to get great sounds out of all settings. More on that later.

My opinion on this is it's a great pedal for some uses, good for others, and okay at best for the rest. As a "multi effects" box, which is how they marketed it, I think it fails pretty miserably. If the reverbs were always on and the other effects (fuzz, OD, pitch shift and tremolo) were variable, it would be killer. But they aren't. You get reverb/pitch/tremolo switching on one line and fuzz/od on the other. You can use the fuzz/od with either the Reverb, pitch or tremolo going. Point of this is: Don't get it for the overdrive or fuzz, although dialed in just right they're not bad really. But I'd rather use a fuzzface, a Big Muff or a Tubescreamer. The tried and true stuff. The pitch shift is an effect I never liked and wouldn't use anyway. No use for it. The tremolo is solid, not like the best but certainly not terrible. It does the job. BUT THE REVERBS! Killer, straight killer. I'm a Fender guy, all Fender amps and I actually prefer the room reverb you can get with the Holy Stain. You can really dial in the sweet amount, not too much, and then use the tone and volume knobs to bring out clarity and help drive your tubes. Trust me, a driven amp with this reverb and toned in just right friggin smokes. I was really floored by this. Adds a touch of noise, nothing serious though and the tone it brings out in the amp is sweet. Fender reverbs (not Blackface stuff here but the newer hot rod amps or the Blackface reissues like I use) have a dark dark reverb tone and really give you too much reverb dialed at like 2 (that may be taper pot problem in the design, not sure). I found that I liked the HOly Stain reverb and the way it drove my amp (not using OD or fuzz, just on clean) that I have added it to my rig. As a multi box, kind of a joke and not really designed in most functional way, although you could use it quite a bit in a studio situation. I'm speaking more to a live rig need. But buy the sucker for the reverb alone and just use it for that. I was really happy with it.

metal box. just don't drop it.

The reverb is great. The tremolo is good. The rest is unnecessary. They could have sold this in a smaller box just for the reverb with all the tone and volume options to help drive your amp and it would have been the best thing put out last year.

This is a multi effect unit, so It takes time to get comfortable with the controls. I think EH have put a lot of effort in giving us maximum amount of sounds with minimal knobs.

Once you get orientated it is really easy to get good sounds. The expression pedal option helps with changing settings on the fly. I am using a Moog exp pedal.

note: the Holy Stain requires an expression pedal with a Tip Ring Sleeve connector. (ie. a stereo one, not mono)

I am using the Holy Stain with an Orange Tiny Terror which has no reverb or trem. The sound quality is excellent my bandmate is completly digiphobe and he approved the sound. I will outline the various sounds.

Fuzz: decent....very abbrasive.

Drive: decent... more like distortion, think DS1.

Clean: excellent, but not transparent, you run through a tone circuit comprised of volume and tone control to roll of highs as well as a 3 position switch for Dark, Warm and Bright. you will need to experiment to see what works well with your guitar and amp. I leave mine on clean w either Warm or Bright selected.

Tremolo: excellent... with plenty of leslie-type coloring. This is not a clear dry trem. Also when you increase speed it adds reverb, you cant get a clean fast trem. When you use the exp pedal to increase speed, it ramps up to speed, very smooth.

Pitch Bend: kind of a bummer, good in a lo-fi way. I don't imagine people will be selling off their H3000's. As stated in a previous review, this is not very usable without an expression pedal. Pitch + Fuzz = insanity.

Room and/or Hall Reverb: excellent...the reason I bought it. Very natural sounding reverbs that you blend in with your dry signal. They range from subtle to cavernous to barfy.

Good quality switches and jacks. I use a Godlyke PowerAll to power it up. Batteries arent even an option, 9V supply only.

Buy from a dealer, they are your real customer support.

6 knobs, 2 switches...Not easy to get a good sound. You must be patient with it and tweak it and play around with it. The manual did not have sample settings, like BOSS, does...but, those usually suck, anyway. If you are patient with this one, some cool things are possible. This is what I found...

Fender or Randall amps, Strats...classic rock, funk. The amp yields some outstanding reverb and tremolo sounds. I mean, really cool. On the other hand, the drive, fuzz, and pitch shift are just ok, in my opinion... I am still using it, though, just as a reverb and tremolo unit, those are THAT good. I get a better fuzz from my Russian Big Muff and a better OD from a TS909 or a BossBluesDriver...the pitch shifter would be better with an expression pedal for more control, just as the other reviwers stated...

It is built very rugged and sturdy.

If I played metal or prog, I would give this a 10, with the wild pitch shift and the very rough overdive and fuzz. Since I am a funky,rock,bluesy player, only the pristine trem and reverb appeal to me, yet, they appeal enough to merit a high rating, overall!

I gave this an 8 because the Pitch Shifter is not very intuitive. The rest of the effect is relatively easy to setup and use. The pedal is broken down into 2 sides. One side is the Reverb/Trem/Pitch Shifter, and the other side is the Overdrive/Fuzz. The mix and amount knobs let you dial in how much of the reverb and tremolo are added to the effect. The Overdrive/Fuzz side also has a clean setting which you can use the volume and tone knobs to adjust. There is also a 3 setting knob to adjust the color of the overdrive/fuzz effect. The pitch shifter is a different story. The adjustment for this is not so easy to use in my opinion. However, I did see a demo on Youtube where an expression pedal is used with the pitch shifter. In the demo, there was a nice bending effect. I have not tried this myself but without an expression pedal, it seems that the pitch shifter is of little value.

The room Reverb and the Hall Reverb are excellent in my opinion. You can dial in various mix and amount settings to get just the right amount of reverb added to your sound. I use this reverb almost exclusively instead of the reverb on my Marshall JCM900 because I think it sounds must better. The tremolo on this pedal is really, really good. I had only used a tremolo from a Line 6 floor POD prior to this and never really considered it much of a value. But after playing around with the tremolo on this pedal, I can say that I have definitely realized a great deal of value in using tremolo as an effect. The Clean option on the overdrive/fuzz side of the pedal is nice. If you dial in the clean side and turn the volume all the way up, you get a really nice clean overdrive effect. I set the color knob to bright on this setting and get a really decent clean boost effect. The Fuzz is OK but there is an audible hum associated with this setting which I don't really like too much. Plus the Fuzz is very muddy even with the color knob set to bright so I rarely use this effect. The OD is pretty good but again a little muddy. I found the best setting for using the reverb and trem is to just set it on clean and turn the volume all the way up and set the tone to about 1/2. Again, the pitch shifter is a whole different story. I have not found a good setting for this effect but I am going to get an expression pedal at some point and try using it that way.

It seems pretty solidly built. It's made of metal/aluminum or something similar. Not sure exactly what it is, but it's definitely a tough little box. The knobs and buttons are solid, although the little plastic knobs seem a little cheesy in comparison to some of the more expensive pedals like my Fulltone units. But for the price, I would say it is well built. Since I'm only using the tremolo and the reverb, I would not worry about a backup since my amp has built-in reverb and the tremolo is a take-it or leave-it type of effect. I also have another Overdrive pedal so I'm not worried there either. A nine for the cheesy little knobs.

Have not used them. Their website is very limited. No real valuable information there. Just some links to pdf files of the same docs that come with the pedal. The documentation is also very limited. No recommended settings or anything, you have to play around with the pedal to get what you want from it. They do have a myspace account which I added them to my friends list and they accepted right away. So for that I will give them a good rating.

I play blues and classic rock. The pedal definitely has it's value for this genre of music with the reverb the trem and the overdrive. The Fuzz and the Pitch shifter I could do nicely without. But for what I paid ($98) for the pedal, it was a worth-while investment in my opinion. It is my first Electro-Harmonix effect and as such, I would probably buy more of their stuff in the future. If this pedal died or got stolen I would probably replace it just for the reverb although I might go for the Holy Grail instead. I kind of wish it came with an expression pedal or that EHX made one that you could buy as an option because I have never purchased an expression pedal before so I'm not sure which one would give you the best compatibility. There are some suggestions for expression pedals included with the instruction sheet, but I guess I will have to take the time to go to a music store that sells EHX stuff and try it out myself.

Pretty easy to get a good sound out of, but because there are no "patches", you have to twist knobs to retreive a certain sound you want again....so it's not a good pedal for those who do 100 different sounds in a set.

It comes with a wall-wart (no battery support).

My amps are a '67 Blackface Fender Pro Reverb and a '76 Fender Vibrochamp and my main axe is an '84 Japanese Squier Strat with Fender Vintage noiseless pickups.

There are a lot of good sounds in this pedal...some you really don't expect. First there is the room reverb...this is a pretty decent reverb and sounds a bit different from the Fender Blackface spring reverb I'm used to. It's nice, though. The Hall reverb has a slight delay between when you hit the note and when the reverb kicks in. It too is nice. Both reverbs are controlled by the mix and amount knobs, which control the dry/wet signal and length of reverb tail. Very decent digital reverbs that can get very over-the-top, but nothing I'd shut off the tube reverb in my BF Pro Reverb over. Nice to have for my Vibro-Champ, though.

I've had a hard time getting my fingers around the pitch shifter. It tracks poorly, to say the least...it seems to get lost in even the slowest flurry of notes I can muster (and I'm no Yngwie, believe me). However, I did find a cool useful setting, and that is with the amount knob (which effects the pitch of the pitch shifter) set so the shifted note is the same....it's almost a pseudo-delay with a cool sound all its own. For the most part, I don't use this part of the pedal, though.

Now for the prize - the tremelo. No, it's not a Green Day "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" type of effect, nor it it a Pink Floyd "Money" type of effect. It's far more imperfect and greasier. It is very different from the typical Blackface Fender tremelo in that in imparts a bit of pitch shifting ala old Magnatone and Brownface Fender amps. This is a GREAT tremelo and will inspire you to play Texas blues. You will not believe that this thing is digital. The effect can be dialed in to sound like a rotating speaker/leslie. Very very cool. It is a little noisy, but that's to be expect with this sort of effect.

Now for some gravy...there is a fuzz tone and an Overdrive (both analog) and 3 COLOR settings that effect the character of the dirt - WARM, BRIGHT and DARK (the pedal can also add a touch of OD color in the clean setting, depending on the COLOR setting) I find fuzz annoying, but the OD is servicable...I tend to rely on my Fulltone 10th Ann. for OD, which plays nicely with the Holy Stain.

It's American made (NYC) but is of a circuit board design which has it's drawbacks...who knows how long it will last? The pedal is build like a tank though. I baby my stuff so hopefully for a long time.

Don't know yet, to be honest.

I play blues and blues based rock music. The tremelo in this pedal is right up my alley. I've been playing for almost 30 years now (ugh) and have owned a lot of gear in those years, most of which were crap. The price was certainly right ($98) and I'd buy another in a heartbeat. I'd gladly pay another $100 to get a true bypass on it, but I'll live.