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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]
The Small Stone is an easily recognizable and classic phaser voice, so you can’t go wrong with it. It’s the least flexible, however, of the three phasers.
The Stereo Polyphase is probably the most flexible phaser of the three. It has stereo outputs, adjustable sweep range for both the start and stop points, 2 different wave shapes, expression pedal input for manual phasing, and an envelope filter to get Q-tron-like filtering. As Julian mentioned, I felt that the blend of the phase to direct signal somehow was too subtle for my taste. I wish a blend knob had been incorporated, or at least a trimpot.
The Flanger Hoax is a great phaser as well. Keep the Delay Mode knob at DC to isolate it. You can get some really bizarre phaser voicings by adjusting the 2 delay lines. What’s great about the Flanger Hoax is that it can approximate many other modulations that would be useful for organ and keyboard – rotary, vibe, tremelo, warbly chorus, and of course flanger. It has 3 outputs, but it is not a stereo effect. The outputs are effect, direct, and blend. Still, there is a lot you can do with these.
My recommendation is to get the Small Stone and the Flanger Hoax both
Very peculiar. Again, let go, and go with it. Write a song to fit the function.
