I decided to do a review today before continuing the Part II of the "Guitar Artists with Great Tone". Today we will be reviewing another great Electro Harmonix pedal called Holy Grail Nano.Reverb pedal around the world
There are tons of good reverb pedal on the market, some come with a very expensive price tag and claimed to have some boutique qualities not found in other reverb pedals. But some reverb pedals actually come pretty cheap to the market and they sound just unbelievable! This one is one of those good cheap pedals. With a price tag of less than $130.00, this one blows the competition away!
What makes it so special?
First of all, EHX is known for its good quality pedals that ranges from overdrive unit to even fully functional power amp in a form of a stomp box. EHX makes the Deluxe Memory Man, the only worthy rival of the real tape echo. The Holy Grail reverb, not surprisingly, is also a very high quality pedal with exceptional sound.
It has three options to choose: Spring, Hall and Flerb. It also has one knob that basically controls dry vs wet. Furthermore, with the nano version of the Holy Grail, it takes only a very small space on your pedalboard. I tried all the three options of the Spring, Hall and Flerb.
The Spring option gives me that short slap type of reverb, very good for acoustic sounding tone and it doesn't over-boost the slap or pick frequencies thus making the overall sound not too harsh.
The Hall option gives me that classic concert hall reverb sound. I prefer the signal to be not too wet, maybe around 9ish, so that I can still get definition of my notes. But you can make it sound totally wet and roomy and try to experiment with it a little bit.
The only mode that I don't enjoy is the Flerb which is basically a flanger combined with reverb, sort of like chorus and delay of the Memory Man series. It doesn't quite attract me since I prefer a more traditional sound out of a reverb pedal. But you might find it useful for something that I haven't catch yet. Who knows :)..?
Inconsistencies?
Yes, I heard that the Holy Grail Nano pedal is famous for its frequent defect units. Some of them sound bad, some of them hiss when being used, even some of them won't turn on or even possess bad switching system. I am pretty lucky I didn't get any of those, but I've seen people in a guitar forum got pissed because they got the defect ones. So by any chance, test the pedal first if you can before you buy it.
How does this one compare to any other reverb pedal?
If we're talking best for its price, this one definitely wins the game totally. But yes, some other reverb pedals actually sound a bit nicer than this. They come with higher price tag of course as I mentioned before. The original Holy Grail and the Holy Grail Plus actually sound almost the same with this one, people confirmed this, and they're more expensive for sure; they offer more knobs for controlling various stuffs though, so maybe if you need to tweak your sound more, you should check them out. EHX also comes with the Cathedral stereo reverb if you want stereo reverb with tons of options and knobs, but of course it's even more pricey!
This thing is totally worth!
For around $120.00, it's totally worth every penny you spend. If you're looking for a basic reverb with decent sound and great price, look no further. For this price, I would call it a steal.
Anything you dislike?
Digital? No I'm just joking, the word digital doesn't really scare me because lots of reverb pedals are digital. If you want the sound of a true analog reverb, it will only come in the form of spring and it won't replicate the big Hall sound. I like this pedal so much, it gave me the reverb tone I'm looking for.
From 0 to 10
10, or maybe 11 if I may add. Haha !
Here's the sound clip: HOLY GRAIL
Cheers and God bless !
p.s. stay tuned for the next "Guitar Artists with Great Tone" post.
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