Here’s the thing with the Holy Fire – it’s not a heavy metal distortion – it emulates the way a tube amp saturates when the tubes are overdriven…

The starting point is “G” at noon, “O” and “D” all the way off and “~” all the way up. At this point if you switch the pedal in and out you should hear that it does not color the sound and that it is quieter than other pedals. If you hear any difference it is because when the pedal is switched in it gives you a low impedance output which is better at driving whatever comes next after the pedal… the pedal can be dialed up to have a lot of gain, so whatever you have next in the line could get clipped if it’s not true-bypass or if it doesn’t have enough headroom. It’s probably best to play around with the pedal by itself at first to get the feel for things, and then introduce other pedals to see how they play together…

“G” gain, is simply an overall boost, it goes from off to +12dB (noon is about unity)…

“O” overdrive, adds boost and begins to round off the peaks of the signal like a tube does when it starts to saturate… this way you can play lightly or dial back the guitar’s volume to get a clean sound, Or, play loud to get a distorted sound… basically controlling the overdrive by the way you finesse the strings – like playing a piano with velocity control to give it expression and emotion… Also, I designed the Holy Fire so that you can overdrive it with either a hot pick-up or boost pedal before it, like you would a tube amp – you can tell when the signal peaks are being rounded by the LED turning yellow…

“D” distortion, starts to flatten the peaks and compress the signal and is interactive with the “O”.

“~” low pass, will shave off the buzzy highs as you dial it down.

The “LOUDEST” setting is “G” and “~” all the way up, and “O” and “D” about 2 o’clock (remember to check headroom on the rest of your chain).
The “HEAVIEST” distortion is with “O” and “D” all the way up; “G” and “~” can be set to taste.