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Electro Harmonix Holy Grail Reverb Chorus

 

Review of the Electro Harmonix Holy Grail Reverb by The Man in the Jar  

Features of the Holy Grail Reverb

Construction - This is a standard folded sheet metal construction typical of Electro-Harmonix pedals. It's very strong and should put up with everything you can throw at it in the course of normal use.

Ins and Outs - One standard jack in and one standard jack out.

Power - No batteries in this one, simply use the 9 volt adapter that is supplied.

Controls - There's a large knob to control the depth of the Reverb modulation and a three-position slider to choose between Spring Reverb, Hall Reverb and Flerb Reverb. The unit is knocked in and out of line with a standard medium duty footswitch.

 

Sound of the Holy Grail

I started with the Spring Reverb setting and found that even at the lowest setting the Holy Grail added a certain little underlying something to the sound. Winding the knob up to one quarter that lovely lushness of Spring Reverb was adding its subtle layer under my guitar chords. Progressing to halfway I was treated with to what I consider to be the classic Reverb sound with that slightly surreal echo on the decay. From here to full-on the Spring Reverb takes over from the clean signal and everything becomes a bit anarchic.

Again the Hall Reverb setting offered the subtlest of sound enhancement when the knob was turned to zero. Turning up to one quarter gives you the classic Hall Reverb sound, just enough echo to fatten the sound and give it the life it would get from a decent-sized performance room. This continues increasing by degree until, at just after halfway, the complimentary echo reaches its maximum usefulness and starts to take over the sound. With this setting full on there is no original signal left, leaving you with only the echoed reverb feedback.

The Flerb setting is strange one. It's a bit like the Spring Reverb but with a Phaser added to the echoing signal. This is a bit lost on me to be honest. Because the phase isn't prominent in the main signal it becomes a bit of a distraction, a bit like a swirling drone sitting behind your sound. At full-on the whole thing becomes a bit weird and messy.     

Overall Impressions of the Holy Grail

This is fab little unit that delivers a lovely useable range of Spring and Hall Reverb. If your amplifier doesn't already have a reverb then a unit like this is a must buy. Even if your amp is reverb equipped I'm guessing it won't be as good as the Electro-Harmonix in the more subtle ranges of the reverb effect. I don't think it matters that I don't like the Flerb. If they'd left it off completely I'd still be happy to pay the asking price for the other two options. 

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