Holy Grail

Mike Matthews started Electro-Harmonix in New York in 1968, with $1,000. It didn’t go smoothly forever. The company filed for bankruptcy in 1982, recovered for a while, filed again, and closed in 1984. Matthews went to Russia, founded New Sensor and the Sovtek brand, and from 1992 EHX pedals were made there.

In 2000 he brought production home to New York. That same year, Scott says, Matthews went to a trade show and saw a chip set from Crystal. The appeal was simple: “you can essentially load in their pre-programmed algorithms, and you can mess around with it and tweak it.” Matthews had a pedal made around it.

Don’t let the year fool you. 2000 is the chip and the move back to New York, not the pedal. The finished Holy Grail turns up in reviews in the summer of 2002, in June and again in August. It was one of the new designs that came out of the return, alongside all the reissues.

There’s almost nothing to it. One knob, a three-way slide switch, a footswitch. The knob sets how much reverb you hear against your dry signal. The switch picks the space.

Spring is modelled on the spring reverb in a combo amp. There’s no actual spring in the box; it’s a digital imitation of one, and a warm, convincing one. Hall is bigger and more orderly, with clear, tight, controlled reflections. Flerb is the strange one: flange and reverb at once, a reverb with a flanger’s whoosh running through its tail. It has the worst name on the switch, a word that sounds like a sneeze.

The original came in a brushed steel case with the jacks and controls mounted on the case and a vintage-style footswitch, and it shipped in a plywood storage box. It ran in mono off the 9V adapter that came with it.

One reviewer at the time conceded the name might be ambitious, but reckoned “Damned Fine Coffee Mug wouldn’t be stretching things too far.” The same review carried one fair caveat: a reverb pedal isn’t at its best in the chain unless you’re playing clean guitar.

Matthews tells a story about John Frusciante. Back when Frusciante was a student, at a NAMM show, Matthews let him try every pedal. Frusciante remembered. Later, as a favor, he spent two days in a studio making Holy Grail demos for him.

When Stadium Arcadium came out in 2006, Frusciante went through the record track by track, and the Holy Grail keeps turning up. On “Strip My Mind” he puts it plainly: “On the solo I used Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi fuzz and Holy Grail reverb pedals.” Fuzz and reverb on the same solo.

“Animal Bar” is stranger. The main part is volume-knob swells, a wah worked “exactly the opposite of how it’s normally used,” and a chorus maxed out in places, with the Holy Grail on its Spring setting.

You’ll hear that he had one as far back as By the Way in 2002. Maybe. No interview we’ve found details the effects on that record. He didn’t say which version he used in 2006, either.

The family grew. The Holy Grail Plus added a Room setting. The Max went another way, with Spring, Hall, Reverse, and Plate. In 2015 came the Neo, a compact box for players whose pedalboards had run out of room. The Nano is the small one that runs on a regular nine-volt supply.

Jimmy LaValle of The Album Leaf moved to that one after his first unit gave him “weird ground buzz.” He didn’t lose faith in the idea: “Hands down one of the best reverb pedals available... I have one of these patched into my patch bay for use on anything.” Jim Root had one on his Slipknot board in 2015, which is a long way from The Album Leaf.

By 2011, Matthews counted “about 70 pedals” in the line, “including some very popular ones like the Holy Grail, Cathedral, and the POG II.”

Put on “Hey.” Ask Frusciante whether the Holy Grail was on, and the answer has a shrug built into it:

No overdubs. I probably had the Holy Grail reverb pedal on throughout the song.

Probably. He spent two days making demos for the thing, and he still can’t say for sure it was ever off. Listen for the space the notes hang in. If he’s right, it never leaves.

The first one came with a warning on it in Sharpie: handle with care. By “Hey,” nobody was handling it at all. It was just on.