Monomyth Unholy Grail

[JerEvil]

The heavy is all rumble and peaky top end to me. Not feeling it on any single note stuff. Rock settings sound over filtered and too tight. Doesn’t breath. Makes sense with what Jason said at the end about the design in relation to dumping bass in the front end. I like some squish and give and take with picking attack, so designs like this where all the low end comes at the end are not my cup of tea. Need that low end affecting the way the amp saturates. Definitely a very modern sound. I like my heavy a lot more vintage.

I believe I may be getting one for some demos… since we all dial stuff differently I’m interested to hear what it sounds like with my shit playing! Lol.

 

[RedB4Black]

Got mine a few days ago and I'm very impressed with the amp. It's got a lot of range! It reminds me of several SK mods Shea's done in this one amp.

How does it compare to the SK? Different enough to merit owning both...don't care about the cleans

 

[crwnedblasphemy]

Not a fan of the cream 90 but, the amp sounds really cool

My buddy has a 8ohm single cab with a creamback Alnico. It sounds like this. He had his EVH 50w 6L6 hooked up to it. Mind you, I have the EVH 50w Combo with Greenbacks...It was so different. His was way tighter and brighter. Wasn't bad at all, just very present.

 

[xfactor23]

How does it compare to the SK? Different enough to merit owning both...don't care about the cleans

Completely different from the SK's. You can dial it to get some of the the signature SK tones but right now with the setup I have been playing with it's Got a more modern feel and voice to it. It reminds me very close to the Vintage Modern mod Shea did. It's like that amp plus his normal production Sk's have been melded into this.

 

[reatheaj]

Got mine! It's every bit as good as everyone said it is. I'm having a blast figuring out all the different tones I can get out of this thing.

 

[andefalko]

I always think i have every amp i want until i hear what the next thing monomyth has in the works lol

 

[Brandonrz]

Completely different from the SK's. You can dial it to get some of the the signature SK tones but right now with the setup I have been playing with it's Got a more modern feel and voice to it. It reminds me very close to the Vintage Modern mod Shea did. It's like that amp plus his normal production Sk's have been melded into this.

That’s interesting. I liked my vintage modern more than my skeleton key. Amp is NASTY

 

[xfactor23]

That’s interesting. I liked my vintage modern more than my skeleton key. Amp is NASTY

Yes! I think I sold you that one. I've had a few of Shea's amps over the years, and for me he's one of the only builders I can really enjoy the El-34s in a amp. GZ's Hellion is really cool as well. But this amp really has a lot of good going for it. It's going to stay in my rack of amps. I might throw some KT77's in it just to mess with but definitely worth grabbing one. I will get some clips of it soon.

 

[Monomyth]

The unholy grail has a completely different gain structure, feel , response. I made it so it sits in that pocket. It really is a very different amp than the skeleton key outside of the minutia.

 

[PiggySmallz]

The more I play it, the more I really enjoy it. Its got a lot of tone shaping capabilities.

Still working on dialing in a good clean tone, it is incredibly pristine and sparkly though with the bright switches. Part of me is tempted to crank the volume on the clean channel and blow my windows out

 

[JerEvil]

I know Frankhouser’s vid sounded awesome.

 

[xfactor23]

Here's a quick clip I made. It's been a decade or so since my last youtube clip. My playing is rusty as well, I havent had much practice time. But I've finally started getting back into things. Hopefully it will give you guys an idea how big and different this sounds in comparison to the skeleton key.

 

[ners]

Just found one of these local to me and decided to pick it up since the SK is my number one. Only got to play it for a bit but so far I'm a fan.

It's core circuit seems a modified version of the low input from the skeleton key, way clearer low end when playing with medium gain but otherwise I think I can tweak enough to get similar to the SK though with less body and more balanced across the frequency spectrum. All the switches that carried over sound similar, though maybe tweaked a bit to better suit this new circuit.

The Unholy Grail voicing is way different than the SK, but sounds sick. I'm not good at describing this kind of thing but maybe juicier or greasier than the SK? Either way its an awesome high gain tone and the voicing is unique enough from the SK to warrant its own amp.

 

[ners]

Quick comparison clip of the HG vs the SK where I tried to see how close I could get it. This is my telecaster with BKP Piledrivers (crazy hot tele singlecoil) and Two Notes IRs (Greenback + Alnico Cream).



Found that the SK web switch needs to be engaged and then the UG you need to crank the bass and mids (treble seems similar and then I had all the gain boosts off).

 

[PiggySmallz]

Is the first one the SK and the second the UG? How did you get the UG to push so much saturation without the boost engaged?

 

[ners]

Is the first one the SK and the second the UG? How did you get the UG to push so much saturation without the boost engaged?

Other way around, UG first. Literally maxed out the gain knob on both amps with all boosts (blood/grail) off. Here's my settings at the moment, overall the bass and mids needed to be turned up to match the thicker SK (which already had its thickness cut with the web switch).

The Web switch does a lot of heavy lifting for the SK, it's less impactful on the UG, so I suspect a core circuit change was to dial back the overall low end a little then left the web switch in still to allow for even further cut/tightness. I haven't gone crazy with the grail boost mode yet but I could see that web switch plus all the extra gain getting insanely tight.

Maybe I'll do another pass later with it off and you can hear how much thicker the SK is stock. The clip I think makes them sound closer than they are in the room, but honestly if you were playing live I don't think anyone would be able to tell the difference.

 

[PiggySmallz]

Other way around, UG first. Literally maxed out the gain knob on both amps with all boosts (blood/grail) off. Here's my settings at the moment, overall the bass and mids needed to be turned up to match the thicker SK (which already had its thickness cut with the web switch).
View attachment 439906

The Web switch does a lot of heavy lifting for the SK, it's less impactful on the UG, so I suspect a core circuit change was to dial back the overall low end a little then left the web switch in still to allow for even further cut/tightness. I haven't gone crazy with the grail boost mode yet but I could see that web switch plus all the extra gain getting insanely tight.

Maybe I'll do another pass later with it off and you can hear how much thicker the SK is stock. The clip I think makes them sound closer than they are in the room, but honestly if you were playing live I don't think anyone would be able to tell the difference.

Interesting. Didnt expect the grail to sound more aggressive/present but it definitely has more gain on tap. It sounds like an absolute sledge hammer in the room when I fire it up. Took me awhile to figure that amp out but it is now a favorite of mine along with the Ground Zero Hellion.

Shea told me that the SK has a bit more tone shaping in front of the preamp. Mostly the storm switch which can get it a bit more bold and brighter in the middle setting. The SK also has the added gain stage further up front using the high input vs the unholy grail being a bit further down in the circuit. He said there are a bunch of other circuit differences but they all have the monomyth sound that he does.