Home Forums Review Your EHX Gear Holy Stain!!!

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  • #77803
    mhuxtable
    Member

    So I have been stalking this forum for about 6 months now. Finally decided to be social!

    I have had the Holy Stain for about 6 months now? I cannot remember exactly when I got it.

    But I know I freaking love it! I have always been a big EHX fan. I have an older model Small Clone (in the original bigger box). A little background: my musical style is very poppy indie rock with a bit of psychadelic flare? Hardly any distortion. Lots of delay and modulated effects. So when I saw the Holy Stain with all the nice effects, I knew I was gonna enjoy it. After trying it out, I was hooked.

    So, it has a room reverb, hall reverb, trem, & pitch shifter you can toggle between. Also, when you engage it, it can either be clean, distorted, or fuzzed.

    The EQ on it is nice, give a good tonal variation. I use it just with the clean tone (although recording I have used the fuzz). The distortion sounds kinda poopy to me, but thats not why I bought it.

    The 2 reverbs are worth the $100 alone! Holy crap they sound incredible. The hall, with the mix all the way wet & the amount dimed sounds like you are in a freaking cavern. Beautiful lush reverb, it even leaves harmonic overtones that sound almost organ like in the background.

    The trem is great, especially at an extreme setting. Can be very musical or very choppy. The pitch shifter benefits most by attaching an expression pedal, but it only goes from a 3rd up to a 4th down. I do not solo at all, so I usually use this effect for a detuned sound. Also, the tracking is slow, so the notes are not spot on. There is a slight, but audible delay. If you really know your music theory, you could make good use of this effect.

    Overall I really like this pedal. I use its reverbs constantly, both live and recording. The fuzz sound is good as is the trem. The distortion sound is a bit lacking and the pitch shifter is slow tracking.

    But I do love my Holy Stain.

    #93969
    DiscoFreq
    Participant
    Quote:
    So I have been stalking this forum for about 6 months now.

    Wow, that’s 2 months longer than any of the other members (except Scott)! :D

    #94507
    Fender&EHX4ever
    Moderator

    This is the review I posted at HCFX:

    I don’t have any clips yet, but I hope to post some soon.

    After 2 years, I finally got around to buying a Holy Stain. I remember all the pre-release excitement we felt around the Harmony Central Effects Forum when we first heard about it. Then it was released, and a flood of disappointment filled HCFX, so I decided to hold off until I found one for a ridiculous price. Well, that finally happened, so I’ve decided that the time has come to pull all things Holy Stain together in a thread, and share ideas for how to use it optimally.

    My initial impression of it?

    It’s a really weird pedal :freak: Perhaps, unwittingly, that is it’s strength. It forces the user to let go of expectations about what a multi-effect should be – to let go of the notion that a multi-effect should be flexible enough for the user to have control over all parameters. It forces the user to do the bidding of the box – but not vice versa.

    In fact, the manual says that the Holy Stain is “the first multi-effect pedal from Electro-Harmonix.” I think this is somewhat misleading, and part of the reason for some of the initial disappointment. The Holy Stain makes much more sense if you think of it as a dirt pedal with hazarai.

    You have 3 presets with the Dirt knob – Drive, Fuzz, and Clean – No continuous gain control, drive control, or blend control. But even the Clean mode is really a light boost. You can’t bypass this Dirt section and use the other effects in isolation. Therefore, at the heart of the Holy Stain is really a dirt box.

    But even as a dirt box, it’s very weird. The Color knob (which is also sort of an EQ) has 3 presets (like the Dirt knob), love ’em or leave ’em. So the Holy Stain has 3 presets of Dirt, 3 presets of Color, a continuously adjustable Tone knob and a continuously adjustable Volume knob. If you don’t like the level of gain/drive in the 3 presets, tough. That’s what you get. Are the Dirt presets good? I really like them, and they are different from other EHX dirt pedals that I have – Big Muff Pi, Germ OD, Hot Tubes, and Tube Zipper.

    So the bonus effect modes? Here’s where things get really weird.

    The tremelo should have been called tremoverb, because it’s a blend of both tremelo and reverb that can’t be separated. Forget about using the Holy Stain to replace your dedicated tremelo. Granted, the exp/amount-knob control does adjust the rate of the trem, which is great, but it also increases the amount of reverb simultaneously :( Very peculiar. Again, let go, and go with it. Write a song to fit the function.

    The pitch shifter is really bizarre. I don’t think I’ve ever had a need to shift my pitch up to a 3rd or down to a fourth. I guess it’s time to write a song that does need it. As for the latency of the shifted signal, it’s not any worse than my PS-3’s latency, but certainly not as smooth as a POG or HOG. You can clearly hear a delay in the shifted signal. Using my M-Audio EXP-1, I can get some variation in the stop and start points of the expression sweep by adjusting the volume knob on the expression pedal. Not bad, but I’m still stuck with the max range of a 3rd up and a 4th down. One great feature of this mode is that you can get a decent non-cyclical chorus/slapback sound if you nudge the amount knob just a hair past noon.

    The reverbs are really cool, and sound different enough from the Grail series verbs. They have a nice singing quality to them with long decays. As long as you’re happy with the 3 Dirt presets, the reverbs are very useable. My complaint is that the Amount knob at minimum does not minimize the reverb to a dry signal. This would have been really cool for the expression pedal, so you could let a chord or note ring out with a long decay, and then noodle over the top with a dry signal (much like the Holiest Grail). But alas, it doesn’t do this.

    It’s next to impossible to get a consistent volume in this pedal when switching between the 3 dirt modes. The volume drop from the Fuzz mode to the Clean mode is tremendous. There is some variation in volume between the effect modes as well. So forget about presetting the knobs, and using the mode footswitch to change tones mid-song. Your volumes will be all over place. Very strange, because when you switch modes, you will inevitably need to kneel down and adjust the knobs which renders the footswitch useless. So why even have the mode selector be a footswitch? The mode selector would have been just as useful as a rotary knob.

    So what would have been useful for the footswitch instead? It would have been awesome if it had been a patch selector for a digital memory bank with the ability to store knob settings, much like the SMMH. Even if it only had 2 presets, that already would have been a vast improvement to the live functionality of this pedal.

    Was it worth the price I paid for it? Absolutely. The Holy Stain is a very inexpensive pedal, so it’s tough to complain about all of its shortcomings. The dirt presets and the reverbs alone are worth the price. But I would have easily paid an extra $50+ to have had the memory storage feature.

    So far, I’ve found the best combo is to use my Squier Jagmaster (because of the high output humbuckers) into the Holy Stain direct. It gives a great crunchy OD tone with a bit of predelay reverb for staccato chords.

    Mode: Room Reverb
    Mix: 9:00
    Amount: 7:00
    Volume: Max
    Tone: 11:00
    Color: Warm
    Dirt: Clean

    [IMG]http://i6.ebayimg.com/02/i/001/35/5f/18f5_1.JPG[/IMG]

    #94551
    Fender&EHX4ever
    Moderator

    I just recorded this demo clip: http://soundclick.com/share?songid=7428151

    Section 1: Squier Jagmaster (stock, middle position), Clean with Room Reverb
    Section 2: Fender CIJ Mustang RI (stock, middle position), Fuzz with Pitch Shift
    Section 3: Fender CIJ Mustang RI (stock, middle position), Fuzz with Trem/Verb
    Section 4: Fender CIJ Mustang RI (stock, middle position), Drive with Hall Reverb

    #94555
    julian
    Moderator

    nice write up man
    listening to the clips now

    #94584
    Fender&EHX4ever
    Moderator
    Quote:
    nice write up man
    listening to the clips now

    Thanks, Julian. Do you have the Holy Stain yet?

    #94590
    julian
    Moderator

    no, not yet
    there are a few other pedals ahead of it on my wishlist

    #96873
    chev
    Participant

    I had this pedal for a few months and played a lot with. I’ve also used an Expression Pedal.

    I bought it to get a reverb, and extra Fx for the same price.

    It’s a good pedal on it’s own.

    Now that I have a nice Vintage Reverb and a Tremolo (which is unbeatable!) on my Sunn, I don’t use it anymore.

    I will miss my dive-bomb sound I did live with the Pitch Shifter Mix set to max and the expression pedal…crazy! like Hendrix Woodstock but with even more destruction…!

    Would have try it on a keyboard…or voice…must be sick!

    #101913
    CaptainHook
    Participant

    For now it’s earned it’s perm place on my board, great mix of top notch, lush reverb and fuzz dirt.

    I don’t have much of a problem with the clean reverb on this, as long as it’s connected to my amp in the chain. My Jazzmaster and Tele play clean reverb on this quite nicely. And the reissue vintage pup’s on my guitars may help the fuzz, as I don’t know what some people are complaining about there in various reviews. Of course it doesn’t have options of a dedicated fuzz, but the tones it does produce are very useable and nice. I play a wide mix of styles and songs, so it suits me well I suppose.

    Very happy with it for the price.

    Sorry for the thread necromancy here.

    #101921
    chev
    Participant

    Yeah, sometimes I which I didn’t sold it…

    I would have build a second pedal board strictly for drone doom experiment…but I have to keep focus on my band needs for now.

    My base tone is a double BigMuff setup…grr

    #101938
    CaptainHook
    Participant
    Quote:
    My 10 year old nephew is learning guitar. I bought him the holy stain for his birthday. He loves it! hes been able to come up with tons of cool sounds. its the only pedal he has and it never ceases to amaze how many cool tones hes come up with.

    So what’re you trying to say here? :)

    #101942
    CaptainHook
    Participant
    Quote:
    That its pretty cool!

    Eh, he’s probably better than me already any ways. :)

    #101954
    WatsonWood
    Member

    Many thanks for your review Fender&EHX4ever;, as well as the sound clip(s). Just great!

    I am still waiting to receive the Holy Stain I originally ordered many months ago. The EHX distributor here in Germany certainly does not seem too interested in selling EHX products in real music stores. (enough said).

    I reckon this pedal is a must for me since it seems to have the typical EHX quirkiness and character, and I re-re-ordered it with money down some weeks ago…..ETA was the end of September…today is the 1st of October…Holy Stain?..no comment.

    So I am really looking forward to the HS experience, especially after all these fascinating posts. Thanks everyone.

    #101961
    CaptainHook
    Participant

    One thing I didn’t mention is that the tone I get by combining either clean reverbs on the Stain (preferably Room), with both knobs at 2 o’clock, and my Boss DD-6 Delay, at 300ms, feedback at 1 o’clock, delay knob at noon, sounds incredible.

    #101982
    WatsonWood
    Member

    Ah-ha! I have a Boss DD-3 Delay and will certainly check that out once the HS is in my possession.

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